/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

>NPC's are great, but it's not the same as a full on PC pirate
I know that feel all too well, my dude.
I finally gave up and decided to try adventurer's league just so I can be a player. I have firm resolve to never DM AL, however. I don't care if they ask or beg. Fuck that.

Inquisitive rogue?

I like it, actually.
I moved away from my group of friends and it's a really good way for us to keep the campaign going instead of it just dying out.
We mostly do theater of the mind stuff so my prep time is really minimal. And I just use the drawing functions to help create minor visualizations/clarify things for players.

If it's a big ass fight though, I will prepare a map, and the tokens and everything work great for that.

Having subraces are fine, it was just the combination that became ridiculous. If you want to do subraces, I would be tempted to say drop the stat mod of the race, and apply stat mods through subraces only - play it up as "Artificial Constructs - There is no innate stat bonus for being aether, only the stats given from being forged for your purpose" or whatever have you. Or give it a single stat boost from main race, and single stat boost from subrace. You vaguely based it on warforged and they have a +1/+1, not a +2/+1, ostensibly because of living construct and AC bonus. Living construct is a pretty strong ability.

As it is, I am tempted to say do the whole "Compare your homebrew to legal options, decide what reasons you would have to NOT use your homebrew". As it is, I feel like you basically have a .. Kind of better half-elf. And half elves are already considered by the best race in the PHB, only having their title contested by v.humans.

Same here.

Is it all voice/video or can you just hop into something casual and do a oneshot every now and then?

Warforged weren't the only race to have +1/+1 though, every race in the UA did, so I'm thinking that's more to do with the fact it came out in 2015 and was the first UA than anything else.

Yep, mostly. You're missing Sword Coast Adventure Guide, and there's some TECHNICALLY non-UA content that functions the same: Planeshifts are not UA, neither is the Princes of the Apocalypse supplement (media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/PrincesApocalypse_AdvSupplementv1.0_PrinterFriendly.pdf), and Haunted One (media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/CharacterBackground_HauntedOne.pdf), which were both attached to books that otherwise were adventure books.

When a DM says "core only", they are likely to mean PHB only. Outside of that you're looking at DMG/PHB/MM as you said, but DMG isn't rules for players (unless DM says so), but MM can be useful for, say, a Druid.

Living construct is all flavor though, food, drink, sleep and disease aren't really something I've seen come up in campaigns, and when they do they're not really a mechanical thing.

It has the option for voice/video, but you don't have to.

I run it with just using voice over discord, don't use video Because it's hot as fuck out in summer and I sit around wearing nothing but shorts when I play

>Is it all voice/video or can you just hop into something casual and do a oneshot every now and then?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
Do you mean of the games that people run for randoms? I'm not sure as I only play with friends I know irl. There *might* be opportunities for one-shots, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

As far as video/voice, yes it has that. It also can be disabled and be text only if you like. But I believe most people prefer to at least have voice. Typing is just too slow.

What are better: the lairs of the evil giant lords from Storm King's Thunder or Against the Giants from Tales of the Yawning Portal?

Are those people climbing a tree to get away from a giant

Is warlock viable without multiclassing? Is warlock/sorcerer the best multiclass?

Peasants are not generally known for their cleverness.

Depends on your definition of viable. it's probably the weakest subclass, especially if you're not given a lot of encounters you can short rest between.

Meant caster class not subclass.

Warlock is plenty viable, it's just boring as fuck because your best course of action in 9/10 situations is to spam eldritch blast. It's basically the magical version of Fighter.

You know how I know you've never read any original medieval source documents?

Peasants aren't formally educated, but they're canny judges of human nature with a certain low cunning.

And yet, they climb a tree to escape a giant.

How you guys get an awkward player more into the game?

Here's a standard reaction.
>He enters a tavern looking for his connection
>Ask him to roll perception
>succeeds
> "you see a shady looking individual in the corner who seems to be the one you're looking for"
>"...Uhh I go to the bar and sit down"
>"Want to do anything else?"
>"No"

This may sound like he's being edgy but through this whole thing he's thinking about what to do and is rather meek about the whole thing.
I have to throw stuff at him and he barely reacts or thinks outside the box, which seems to be because he doesn't know how far down the rabbit hole he should go.

Our group is full of people who are new like him and can rp but he can't.

Should I just give him time?

What jobs are suitable for a tiefling, in particularfor teen and tiefling children, in a rural area?

>Alternatively: What's a character concept you've always wanted to play but haven't, for whatever reason?

A tinkerer ranger(?) (might be just someone using bows) who can craft various amounts of arrows. I want exploding, grappling, electrocuting, timed bombs, nets, decoys, distractors, smokes etc etc

It's viable, just suffers from the problem where if you want to play it in an optimal damage fashion, its an Eldritch Blast turrent. Hexblade UA helps a bit because it gives you other options to use (spell smites and such), but still. The problem is further compounded by the fact it's a pretty front loaded class with low taxes - if you want to bring your Eldritch Blast up to optimum power, you slap agonizing blast on it (and maybe repelling, or likewise), and then just boost CHA. None of this requires much warlock, and cantrips scale off of character level and not class level. So the most powerful warlock is something that just dips into warlock briefly to pick up eldritch blast and one invocation.

Warlock is plenty viable though, and if you want to go in a non-purely damage optimal route, you've a lot of things you can do.

Probably be the village weird who lives in the forest and hunts game.
For children they would forage berries and roots.

I want to play a tinker character than can make inventions, without being magic himself.

I've also wanted to play a summoner character that rather than summoning tonnes of little things they can summon a big thing, and they can customize what it does, sort of like a stand user type character.

>turrent

Serious talk: Did he REALLY need to roll perception to notice a dude in the corner? That just seems like unnecessary rolling.

However: Have NPC's that react back to him. The shady looking dude notices him as well when he walks in and beckons him over. The shady dude walks over to him and chats him up. Do things that help draw him into the world and treat it as a 'living world' - and part of it is not putting things behind rolls. He might be thinking he needs to trigger something.

Aye, who's ready to be disappointed in the next UA?

So an artificer and an artificer?

Warforged paladin that tries to control his lust for blood.

Artificers are magic still, and also artificer for 5e is absolute shite.

Don't see how summoning a creature is like an artificer.

Anyone got interesting downtime activities for PCs between adventures?

>He sincerely believes that blood makes the best lubrication, but it quickly coagulates and needs to be replaced with more blood

Repost from the previous thread cause it died

>I want to make a few battle encounters in the vein o Final Fantasy Tactics. The set-ups for the maps were cool in how thematic the locations were. So I wanted to emulate the style in my larger maps to try tactical battles on my players. I know to emphasize choke points, elevation, cover, weather, and starting the battle in a screwed position... since those are hallmarks of FFT battles. I'm thinking of doing one outside of an abandoned church during a storm with an open roof for archers to be shooting from.

Any advice or stories from other people who ran/played in battles focused on tactics, or in the style of FFT?

Refluff, my man. Artificer just happens to be the closest to what you asked for even if it's shit.

Have characters engage him, ask his character about himself, challenge him to a game of darts
Give him time

Couple of my players like a gambling game I made up off the top of my head. Both roll a d4 once, they can then roll again or stay, who ever has the highest without going over 6 wins.

Refluff doesn't work, shit still stops working in an antimagic field.

Also artificer as the class is nothing like what I want, it's got nearly nothing to do with magical items in 5e, besides getting a few weak ones for free at levels you'd likely be finding them.
They're basically just a cleric/rogue hybrid as a class

Artificers don't really make any gadgets either, like grappling hooks or traps or turrets.

>Gets a paladin class feature as a racial feature
Something seems off here

>Archer
>Storm
I haven't played FFT, but I would imagine that would mess with them a little bit. Honestly, none of this particularly sounds like it needs to be tied to FFT. That just sounds like standard tactics for a fight.

The way I played it, I only blasted when I couldn't think of something clever. The actual Fighter was always the guy dealing all the damage, I was the guy who was ready to drop a Counterspell or a Protection from Evil to keep him in the fight.

Eldritch Blast looks good on paper, and it is good, but Warlocks really aren't as boring as /5eg/ thinks they are unless your GM is stingy on the short rests or you don't take any of the interesting At-Will evocations.

>Tales of the Yawning Portal

>Any favorite dungeons?
White Plume Mountain.
>Why so?
Fun as hell.

>Least favorite dungeons?
Dead In Thay (Doomvault)
>Why so?
Too fuckin' big.

First time DM here. Gonna run Sunless Citadel.
Any tips? How do I not fuck this up?

Fight or Flight :^)

Are the Drizzt books worth reading if I have nothing better to do

It can be tricky to get a discussion going, often I find you end up with just a DM and one player talking while everyone waits as to not interrupt or be rude.

The first few are pretty alright. The cleric quintet books are better imo.

I actually liked the books set in Menzoberranzan and right after our Mary Sue drow got to the surface, and the first ones set in Icewind Dale are sort of journeyman TSR fantasy, decent enough. The rest, meh.

And fuck it, Drizzt should have been a Mielikki-worshipping fighter, not a ranger.

Anyone else gets major DM boners at the gym all the time?

There I'll be, bench pressing something completely average at the quad, my brain firing with the effort will think "hey man, what if a druid or a werewolf did the barber of silvery moon and now when they turn into their beast mode, their fur is always on fire?"

Why did drizzt have to be a mary sue, why are good characters so hard to come bye

What's a good replacement for Land's Stride for a Land Druid that likes to get in melee?

I was thinking giving Shillelagh some kind of scaling.
Extra Attack would be OK I think if it weren't for wildshapes.

All the time man. Most of my brainstorming happens at the gym, that in-between sets I take notes.

Well, you can find good characters in AD&D books. I've always had a soft spot for Giogi Wyvernspur (from the Azure Bonds series).

>What's a character concept you've always wanted to play but haven't

A STR based Monk based around grappling enemies and slapping them all over the place with Open Hand Technique
Alternatively a STR based Satire Bard who grapples enemies and then uses Tumbling Fool to cartwheel up sheer surfaces, honking, into the darkness with their screaming prey

So in Curse of Strahd it says that some Barovian Scouts wield a light crossbow instead of longbows. Can they now only attack once per turn (due to loading) or still attack twice like normal scouts?

The only other creature in the MM that can attack multiple times a turn with a crossbow are Wererats, so I'm unsure if loading applies to NPCs

Considering how easy the random encounters are, I'd advise you make it so they can multiattack with their crossbows.

If your PCs ask, they can loot repeating crossbow (2 bolts before reloading). Everyone wins.

ISn't that the one that lets you walk through trees

How could anyone be disappointed by Food & Provisions?

>A STR based Monk based around grappling enemies and slapping them all over the place with Open Hand Technique

my man

Check out the Downtime UA. It has a bunch of different options including crafting, carousing, gambling, running a business, etc. and has simple rules for handling each of the activities

Most of the crafting is ridiculous when it comes to time, I reccomend dividing time by 10 for something more reasonable.

Well the scouts are (probably) going to fight on the PCs side, so I could rule it either way.

The werewolf encounter can be quite tricky early on for many parties though, as they lack any magic weapons, and thus most martials can't even deal damage to it.

What are foods?

Do not throw a werewolf at a party without handing them silver weapons.

And don't make the only way to get silver weapons by following a senile man into his cabin in the middle of the woods.

Crafting is supposed to take a very long time. Exploration should ALWAYS be the best way to get magic items, because otherwise you could just make all your shit. I'd suggest not changing the crafting rules for anything except maybe consumables.

I'm prepping to run Death House soon. What are some changes you made that improved the adventure? What are some thing that I absolutely should not forget? etc etc

tldr: Death House advice

I say speed it up but add quests to collect rare supplies. If a character wants to create things accommodate them.

Favorite illusionist build?

I don't like players just finding magical items.

One thing I like to do is have them find something that's damaged or rusted or has its power sealed away, then the party can take it to someone to get it repaired for a cost.

Anyone feel like giving some feedback on a character I just made? Especially on stats because I'm new to the game and not very familiar with skills/abilities yet.

She's not done yet, I have to finish writing a backstory and come up with a bond (open to suggestions on that, having trouble with that)

The basic idea is a tiefling rogue mastermind, built to solve most problems with charisma. The background I had in mind for her is something along the lines of her being a Madam at a very high class brothel in the capital city. Basically, she's got dirt on everyone and can probably get out of just about anything with a bit of bribery or blackmail, at least when it involves people more important than peasant farmers.

Maybe doesn't sound like much of an adventurer but I like the idea of role playing a character that thinks of themselves as kind of.. above the fray. Perhaps I can hire some bodyguards or something to help with combat if we're fighting things like goblins or the like.

orcpub2.com/pages/dnd/5e/characters/17592204576997

Exploration is what you do to get the parts needed to make it, no need to also tack on months of wait time.

There's a series of reddit threads dedicated to this I would recommend reading.

You can almost certainly reflavor one of the rogues (inquisitive, maybe) and be just fine.

Actually, inquisitive works well. Someone AMAZING at reading people and able to use that to get under their skin. A courtesan would be great at that.

>and come up with a bond
you can just add bonds as you progress through the campaign and meet new people

>DM made our Warforged consume citrus fruits, grease their joints, and carry replacement parts in lieu of food and supplies like the living PCs

Do you remember which sub?

How would you feel about a player being a gambling addicted tabaxi wild magic sorcerer?

Go for it. I could play some three card monty with them or something.

>gambling cat
Ok cool, sure, I've had fun as a player and as a DM with this, as long as the player understands how to pull back so they don't completely fuck over the rest of the group.
>wild magic
Nope. Not dealing with that.

I wanna fuck Olive

>>wild magic
>Nope. Not dealing with that.
Wild Magic is fucking fun, lighten up dude

reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/4gsjby/modules_what_i_have_learned_from_running_curse_of/?st=J6WNH13Z&sh=a217fa83

If you search "reddit death house" you'll get a lot of other discussion threads. It's not as good as /5eg/, but it's a lot of stuff to mine.

Yeah. Nah. Yeah. You're right. I'd give the new player a chance, but past experiences haven't gone that well, you get me? It'd just be the same as anyone else trying out a new character, leave an opening for them to change things within the first few levels/restart the character in a new class.

the wild magic is just a way to mechanically represent his gambling nature
>don't fuck over the rest of the group
No problem. The only issue is if I fireball myself... but what are the chances?

Gambling and wild magic is a good combination

Alternatively, gambling and diviner, but not a very good one, so they predict enough wins to pay the bills but not "bought google at 85" tier

What are Warlocks good for?

lasers

HUH, GOOD GOD Y'ALL!

>but what are the chances?
Literally 2%