/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

Saying "lmao" and "lul" isn't an argument
Why do you think a bard can't heal as well as a druid? Or do you think literally only the cleric can be a healer?

do you anons follow this rule, or nah?

I'm DMing a game for a human barb, an aasimar rogue, a human sorc, and a human paladin who forgets he has healing.

So that'll be fun.

I didn't say Bards can't be healers, just that they're not full healers. Full healers have class features that give more or better healing. Bards and Druids to not have these, so are not full healers.

Considering the monsters and classes are balanced for that, I try to.

I'm making a GOO warlock for a group that I'm fairly sure will lack a dedicated healer. It's looking like it will be me, a fighter, two rangers, and an unknown whom I do not expect to choose a healer class.

Are we boned?

Speaking of me playing Bards. I really wish Dirgesingers were playable in some way. I miss my Aerenal Elf Dirgesinger/Cleric of the Undying Court

Assuming we're including random encounters that aren't combat...still no.

Then I disagree with your definition. Having a category that only includes one class is meaningless.
In 5e, if you can throw a healing word every round and patch people up automatically when they go down, you're as much of a healer as any party needs.

I like this approach. Make up for a deficiency but also turn it into a roleplaying opportunity.

Rate my storm sorc spell list, 5eg?

Ice Knife
Chromatic Orb

Shatter
Hold Person (swap for Hold Monster)
Warding Wind (swap for control winds)

Fly (ditch when I can fly normally)
Lightning Bolt
Haste

Greater Invisibility

Control Winds
Cone of Cold
Hold Monster

Chain Lightning
Disintegrate

Prismatic Spray

Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting or Sunburst (looking for recommendations)

Wish

Playing in 5e without a dedicated healer can be really brutal especially if you're low levels. Someone might actually need to be a healer for you all to survive combats.

Just realized I miscounted. Might take both 8th-level spells, or maybe Plane Shift.

Yeah, Plane Shift could be good.

>Having a category that only includes one class is meaningless
It includes Clerics and Paladins, which are the only full healer classes in 5e. Why do you not agree with this?
If all you need to be a full healer is Cure Wounds or Healing Word, then literally any class with Magic Initiate can be. The ability to heal at all doesn't make you a full healer. If it did, then what the fuck do you define as a healer that ISN'T a full healer?

Seems fine. You have different types of pewpew and some basic utility.
I'm not sure about Wish as your only level 9 spell. It's not really a "once a day spell." Unless you're just using it to duplicate other spells, of course.

Praise him all you want, it won't do any good!

Paladins have half spellcasting progression. There's no way they output more healing than druids.
...is there?

>Seems fine. You have different types of pewpew and some basic utility.
That was the goal. We have a druid so I'm not too concerned about ultimate utility.
>Unless you're just using it to duplicate other spells, of course.
That was the plan, since I can do anything with it.

Give me a year and I will make an army of clones!

Any other 9th-level sorc spells that you like? I'm open to feedback here.

In the end, we all stand at the feet of Kelemvor.

They can do 5*level healing through contact. It's not match for spell slots, but it helps.

Lay on Hands is a healing pool equal to 5 x Paladin level in addition to Cure Wounds. Paladins outpace Druid healing until level 11 when Druids get Heal, but surpasses it again at level 15 when Lay on Hands reaches 75.

I always felt the list was extremely and unreasonably limited. I suppose Meteor Swarm tickles my fancy more than the others, generally speaking, but Wish really is the most versatile.

Paladins outpace Druid healing on a single turn. That's not remotely enough to sustain a party through a day of adventuring.
Lay on Hands is no substitute for slots with which to cast Cure Wounds. And paladins have those too, of course... just a lot fewer, and of lower level, so they're not as effective at sustained healing.

I'm trying to make a Charlatan background Monk who pulls a lot of cons and schemes, and performs Sleight of Hand like a dream. High Charisma is a must. Background gives me Sleight of Hand and Deception, and I'd pick Stealth and Insight from the class. Which of the following do you think would be my best bet? (stat increases from feats are included)

V. Human 8/15/14/10/12/16 with the Silver-Tongued feat for double proficiency to Deception and attack-substitute deception attempts ("If your check succeeds, your movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks from the target and your attack rolls against it have advantage; both benefits last until the end of your next turn or until you use this ability on a different target. If your check fails, the target can’t be deceived by you in this way for 1 hour.")

V. Human 8/16/14/10/12/15 with the Quick Fingered feat for double proficiency to Sleight of Hand and bonus action shake-ups (As a bonus action, you can...plant something on someone else, conceal an object on a creature, lift a purse, or take something from a pocket.")

Half-Elf 8/16/13/10/13/16 with Persuasion and Perception as bonus skills?

Even so, a Druid using all their slots on healing is a waste of Druid spells. They are not designed to be a dedicated healer like a Cleric or Paladin can be.

You might as well say a paladin wasting their spell slots on not smiting is a waste of paladin spell slots.
I'd argue druids can afford to spend more on healing without sacrificing other spells because they have more to work with.

>which should i play as, the most overpowered race in the game or the second-most overpowered race in the game

variant humans and half-elves were mistakes

Do you just call elves, humans and dwarves "humanoids"? Isn't there a better term to refer to them?

"people" can probably be used in the broad sense. "folk" if you wanna get colloquial. "humanoid" would just be the scientific or taxonomic term.

A Paladin can heal and do Paladin things thanks to Lay on Hands.
A Druid can't heal and do Druid things very effectively because healing takes up their spell slots.

humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings are the Common Races. I'm fairly sure most of the playable races in 5e are humanoids, so.

You could call them "normal" but you'd probably make everyone else mad.

Goodberry slot efficiency is pretty good at low levels though, and conjuring dryads is even better later. If you don't mind all of your healing being out-of-combat you're better at it than a Cleric at level one iirc.

There are humans and demi-humans (elves, dwarves, halflings...)

>If you don't mind all of your healing being out-of-combat
Unfortunately the #1 priority for any kind of healing is reviving unconscious allies, so good out-of-combat healing isn't really a benchmark for an effective healer

Any tips for a spy type bard?

play college of satire for the crazy mobility and free casts of Detect Thoughts

No homebrew allowed sadly.

Homebrew/UA*

I haven't played much, and am working up the backstory for my character. I want him to have a history in alchemy and the guild artisan background gets him the proficiency and alchemy kit but doesn't really fit the character.

Would you simply re-fluff the background's mechanics to fit the character's story? Or is there perhaps a better way to go about this and I'm an idiot?

I feel like Charlatan or Sage will fit better, I just don't see a good way to get the alchemy stuff. Am I expecting to do too much with a starting character?

Make a custom background there's guideline right before the backgrounds.

Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting is not worth an 8th level slot (unless you or someone else has undead minions). Take Dominate Monster instead, and you can even twin it.

Oh, shit. Then the answer to "Am I an idiot?" was yes all along.

Thanks!

Open hand for guaranteed pushback or trip luls or kensei for damage luls?

Way of the knife asshole for knife luls

Tried that, one shot everything, got boring.

They shouldn't have made ordinary human the most boring one in the book.

>Elves don't need sleep, get free weapon training, and have magic or other skills
>Dwarves are resistant to poison
>Dragonborn get breath weapons
>Tieflings get magic and fire resistance

>Humans are adaptable!
>Therefore we can give them +1 to every stat!
What were they thinking?

>Have you ever played without a bard/cleric/druid (i.e. full healer)? How did that go?
I won't know until tomorrow afternoon. This group consists of a barbarian, a fighter, a rogue, and a wizard. We're starting off at level 1.

Balls of steel.

ALL PRAISE SITHRAK WHO MAKES US SUFFER IN MISERY IN NEW AND CREATIVE WAYS EACH AND EVERY DAY.

By your really stupid definition the only "Full healer" would be Life Domain Cleric. GG you're an idiot.

The only full healers in 5e are Life Clerics and Paladins. I think "full healer" should be more restrictive than "can heal at all".

So I wish to make a character based around Flagellation, any recommendations?
I'm thinking this character needs to
>Inflict self-damage
>Eat damage for allies
>Self-heal a little bit
>Be harder to kill with lower health
So I'm thinking a fighter/Cleric hybrid?

Sounds... magical realm-y

Roughly. Playing a megadungeon campaign at the moment and random encounters happen ~43% every hour in-game, and the dungeon has monsters that I've hand-placed as well, who patrol and camp out in their dens. Considering the players have to make it 16 hours before they can long rest again, there's typically a good number of encounters between one long rest and another in the dungeon.

sounds more like a cut and paste of the flagellant from darkest dungeon
which I guess could be considered magical realmy

Well, I agree with other anons then, your opinion is stupid.

Hi r*ddit

Far as I can think that doesn't exist in 5e. That's a homebrew class.

Why should "full healer" be such a broad category? What would you consider to not be a full healer?

>inflicts self-damage
>be harder to kill with lower health
nothing based around that in 5e. barbarian plays pretty risk-rewardish with reckless attack and just running into melee raging and all that, so that's going to be the closest mechanical analogue you'll find. you could also try a fiend warlock/barbarian multiclass. you gain temp HP for killing shit and your resistance makes you hard as all fuck to kill.

You'll want to replace Ice Knife with the Shield spell because Storm Sorc is squishy.

Otherwise you are fine.

What are your cantrips?

How were you oneshotting with monk damage?

There are three classes in the game that can learn greater restoration and reverse horrible deaths. Though they don't have to. Plus song of rest is more in-built mandatory party healing than clerics and druids get loaded with.

I believe that the Point Buy system from 5e uses 27 points because 30 would allow Humans to be the only race with 3 16s and 3 10s

No. Our group is slow as fuck and combat takes for ever. We only do combat every other session because we regularly spend 2 hours on a single combat.

I'll admit I forgot about Song of Rest, so I'll accept Bards as full healers, especially since they can steal other healing spells from Clerics with Magical Secrets. I was definitely wrong about Bards.

I still don't think I'd consider Druids to be full healers though. They're definitely good healers, but I'd put them in a middle category along with non-Life Clerics.

So, in my opinion, full healers would be (not including any UA):
Life Clerics
Paladins (focusing heal spells over smites)
Bards

And middle healers:
Non-Life Clerics
Druids
Paladins (focusing smites over heal spells)

Then anything else can be an off-healer with Magic Initiate, grabbing Spare the Dying and either Cure Wounds or Healing Word.

"Healing" is a meme.

It's not an MMO. There's no need for a dedicated healer, and definitely not an off-healer.

I didn't say there was a need for any of them, but there's nothing wrong with classifying them by effectiveness as a healer

"Healing is bad" is a meme.

The 5e mechanics make healing at 0 incredibly strong, removing negative effects through Lesser/Greater Restoration, Remove Curse, and Dispel Magic is a big deal, and various methods of damage prevention, temporary HP, Cutting Words, or even buffs like Shield of Faith are all incredibly impactful. Admittedly, restoring HP directly is often a poor use of resources, but even then its more useful than is often posted here. The ability to use action/bonus action in various situations means that you can often make good use of otherwise underutilized action types on a given turn. Aura of Vitality is the standout, but even healing word is a good flex option, and, for clerics specifically, Spiritual Weapon+Concentration spell+Cure Wounds is often better than using your Action to attack directly.

How are you supposed to be able to run a low magic game in 5e when like 70% of everything playable is a full-caster or half-caster.

Ban everything that casts spells, or ban the spell parts of those classes and make different benefits for them

>How are you supposed to play a dogfighting simulator in 5e when it only has fighters?

What kind of interest would a female tiefling have just because she's a female? How would they manifest given her tiefling heritage?

I don't understand people who want to play low-magic in D&D. Just play a different system that doesn't have as much magic and then you won't have to deal with the massive headache of rebalancing and refluffing that you'd have to do to make anything in D&D make sense.

It should also be mentioned that 5e is pretty much the lowest-magic edition of D&D, which should give you some perspective on why low-magic games aren't really appropriate for the system.

What the hell can I even do with alchemist's supplies? Or is this a "force the DM to figure it out/make something up" kind of question?

Everything about tools is completely up to the DM.

Most people see "alchemist supplies" and think magic potions, but nothing in the books really imply that to me. I've always figured they'd make salves, herbal remedies, vitamins and whatnot, since Potions are inherently magical.

That being said, canonically, potions of whatever can be made with it in Forgotten Realms, its one of the things they gave Regis so he could actually be of use when he got resurrected, since he lost his ruby.

Vanilla humans are ok for MAD builds at least, like monks

But even then, vanilla humans should at least get a bonus skill proficiency like the Variant gets

That's a great question, user. Let's see if we can come up with an answer.

First, that's less than half of what "the adventuring day" says. Second, that's not a rule. It's not phrased as a rule. It's a guideline.

>salves, herbal remedies, vitamins and whatnot
Wouldn't that fall under the Herbalism Kit?

Is Way of the Drunken Master any good?

It's pretty dumb desu

I dunno, Herbalism Kit directly refers to potions, where Alchemist Supplies doesn't.

A paladin trying to heal is a waste of actions.

Looking for a bit of help from the folks here. After years of being stuck as forever GM, another group of friends are starting up their own game with a different person as the GM. They aren't as experienced as me, but are excited at the prospect of running a module and unfolding g it out onto a larger campaign.

I've already got my basic backstory and class picked out (Half-Elf Wizard) but am stuck on deciding what archetype to go. My current idea behind this character is that they want to become famous via actions and deeds, but to also leave a lasting impression upon the world. Currently, this is having him pursue an idea of either crafting new spells or crafting magical items and eventually an artifact level item.

In terms of crunch, what would you think would allow that goal to be achieved within his lifetime (currently late 20s, so a good 100-150 years before dying of old age, assuming he survives that long).

Yea, but I'm trying to make a kung-fu jester and that's the most fitting archetype. The first and last features are pretty neat but the ones in the middle are too limiting (redirecting missed attacks is great, only once per long rest sucks ass)

Unless it's Aura of Vitality.

It is kind of interesting that the most efficient healing spell is paladin only, even if the two best burst heals are cleric and bard.

How often fire resistance comes up in monsters? Session soon, making up a sorc. I like Phoenix theme (become crazy arsonist), but since it's themed around type, seems like he can get pretty fucked if someone resists/immune.

Maybe mashup Hermit where guild artisan doesn't fit.

>How often fire resistance comes up in monsters
It's quite literally the most common resistance of all.

I thought it went Poison->Fire->PBS/Non-X->Cold or something like that?

Fire and Poison resists/immunities are the most common, but there is a Pyromancer archetype from one of the Plane Shift PDFs that eventually lets a Pyro Sorcerer bypass resists and turn immunities into resists for their fire spells.