/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

This game sucks ass. The only difference between a commoner trying to climb a ledge and a level 1 rogue who trained for years at it, is 10%. Boy I love practicing for years to only get 10% better at something. 5e takes the d20 mechanic's biggest flaw and paints it bold and bright to make it obvious to everyone. This kind of stupid shit where a level 1 commoner can decipher a scroll that a level 1 wizard can't for some dumbass reason, is why d20 mechanic will forever be shit, the modifiers are small as shit and 5e makes them even smaller for "muh bounded accuracy" so a 20th level fighter can be hit by level 1 gnolls 25% of the time. But it's okay, he has a fuckload of hit points! Everything has a fuckload of hit points in this game, the monsters sure do because character damage is off the fucking wall. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter are basically non-optional feats that obliviate two weapon fighting as a valid combat style. Ranger sucks so much shit it's unbelievable, they already errata'd it because the book was rushed into production. Advantage is retarded, a battlemaster fighter tries to aid another maneuver the barbarian in our group, and it has no effect because he is reckless attacking. Why? NO FUCKING REASON, BESIDES THAT WIZARDS OF THE COAST IS SHIT AT DESIGNING MECHANICS. Advantage / disadvantage is meant to make the game more palatable retarded normies who work at CostCo and can't do basic math. Also thanks to the proliferation of Veeky Forums greentexts on Tumblr, loads of normoniggers are seeing "lol haha funny nat20 story" and are being brought to the game by that, not by an actual interest in the creative part of RPGs that makes them actually fulfilling. Of course, since most RPG players are nu male cucks who are desperately hoping Stacy will want to play D&D with them, they lap it right up, and the quality of the community drops like a shit into a portable toilet. Fuck this dumbed-down Basic-D&D-tier crap.

>What's your setting like, /5eg/?
It's the best goddamn D&D setting ever made.

In my current setting, the greatest mage of the old ages, kael-thos, created the dragonborn, and generally fucked everything up in the name of magic. after his death people still fear the mages that go too far, so there are severe regulations and strict guilds that promote "safe" wizarding and the people act like a wizard going off track is the worst of tragedies. villagers just don't very much enjoy their company or any magic, but bigger cities are a bit more okay with magic.
its harder than I thought, but its fun for characters that are intentionally breaking the law for DISCOVERIES and how they have to adapt to that.
also, I have a bard that uses pipes.

Okay

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>There are really people like this

Actual OP, please ignore the filename, this is meant purely for

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>What's your setting like, /5eg/? Low magic, high magic? Human only? Noblebright? Grimdark?
High magic, but mostly forgotten as fuck, with exceptions like cantrips on people with draconic bloodline, or high elves and rediscovering magic will be a plot of the next campaign

Newbie DM, reading the rule book for the first time. Trying to make sure I understand the very basics of the action economy.

During combat, players can move up to their full movement speed, use one action (attack, spellcast, dash, disengage, etc.), one item interaction like drawing a weapon or opening a door, and one "bonus action."

I was a bit confused on the wording, but am I correct in assuming that a character can always use a bonus action on their turn so long as they have an item or class ability that mentions being activated "as a bonus action?" There's no specific action or circumstance that needs to "grant" a bonus action, right?

You can always take a bonus action. But you have to a feature that lets you use your bonus action.
The only exception is when you get hit with the slow spell.

Technically you don't have a bonus action unless something grants you one... but in practice it's the same shit as a "minor action" or "swift action" from previous editions where you can just do one of them alongside your normal action. But yes, you can't do anything with a bonus action unless something grants you one.

Friendly reminder that no matter how much of a 1 or a 2 you are, there's someone one step up the grog ladder that considers you a 3 or a 4.

Ah, a fellow admirer of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell? If so, then you, too, are my nigga.

Requesting scarred lands pdf for 5e

Kys

>What's your setting like, /5eg/?
Best setin of all tiem

>What's your setting like, /5eg/? Low magic, high magic? Human only? Noblebright? Grimdark?
I'm aiming for a kind of pulp, sword and sorcery feel with the game I'm running at the moment. Cults that worship idols and physical "small gods" that grant powers, rather than cosmic level deities. Non human races mostly as weird outsiders, and arcane magic as a new and strange power in the world. I tried not to play with the formula too much, just get a certain feeling out of it.

It is a homebrew world, but I basically just use Forgotten Realm rules unless something changes on my end.

Wise words.

>What's your setting like, /5eg/?
It started as a generic "D&D fantasy land" with names I pulled from name generators back in high school, and since we've been using the same setting and mostly the same group since high school it's just kind of morphed and evolved into this weird mishmash of whatever we felt like adding on over the course of six years. A land that fell into the abyss over here, undersea kingdom of Viking elves there... honestly it's no more consistent or well-realized than, say, Forgotten Realms, but it's OUR Forgotten Realms knockoff so it holds a special place in our hearts.

My settings all about wars between gods, dreams and mahical technology in a world recovering from the fall of a great empire.

If Eberron is so good why aren't there any 5e books for it?

:thinking:

I feel so useless in my group

Im a cleric and I only end up healing myself because the bear barbarian is indestructible already and the druid has like 2-3x my HP because of wild shape

what do

First time running a campaign so basically medieval France, high magic, majority human and a mishmash of noblebright and grimdark.

Because 5e is new and the people at WOTC are shills for forgotten realm, they even rewrote Ravenloft to make it a demiplane of faerun.

>cleric is heal only mem
When will it end

Are you a life cleric or is there something else you can do

Clerics in 5e are far from just "healers"

How can I get the party I play with try to set up surprise attacks and ambushes in a dungeon crawl?

The party of 5 has only one martial character and it never played like a martial character. My rogue is now has to fill a role where I never get sneak attack and I have to try to stop the casters from being rushed and it's getting to the point I just let enemies swarm the wizard, warlock and cleric.

Doing a possibly combat-Heavy campaign
Thinking of rolling a Drunken fist monk, but it's 27 point buy, and we start at level 5 with a free feat.
Any recommendations?
>inb4 don't roll a monk

Drunken monk brings some nice support.

Aarakocra with mobile feat.

Im a war cleric but I just feel so weak by comparison
everyone else is this one man army with higher damage hp and saves

What level? Because Spiritual Guardians makes you a walking death-ball.

Same

6 and yeah spirit guardians + dodge while enemies wail on me is pretty much my one trick

What level are you? But realize that clerics aren't really heal-bots, especially not war-clerics.

>not casting Spiritual Guardians and Spirit Weapon at the highest level you can

Anything will melt.

Can you become a cleric of the Dark Powers? How about a warlock?

Idk there is a death cleric in DMG

Ghostwise halfling monk with Squat Nimbleness Feat, gives you 30 movement, and possibly expertise in a skill. AND an extra ASI, so it makes your pointbuy easier

Level six isn't really where druids are power houses. They just have a lot of health from animal forms, absolutely. I'm surprised you feel overshadowed by the druid. As for Barbarian, remember "I ATTAC" is about all that they can do. Pure martials are damage-beasts in this edition.

Use spirit guardians. Use spirit weapons. Bash things with your weapon and let things melt around you. Pickup Warcaster to shore up your concentration interruptions.

I play a druid and used to feel like that
Than we started fighting vampires and I had sunbeam
Vamps btfo

it would make a good warlock patron I think

>tfw our Druid kept Moonbeaming the Vampire and his Werewolf minions

stop it you retard

Moon druids suck, go land and play a real caster ya pussies

Post-apocalyptic. The last scuffle between gods and an unknown third party literally tore the world apart. Largest civilizations had some time to prepare and planeshifted their whole capital cities to demiplanes.
The original world is just a bunch of floating landmasses suspended in space, they are dangerous but living seems still possible on them. This huge fuck up also made some things pretty wonky on the world's remains as the elemental planes are bleeding into the material plane and the dead cannot find peace as the gods are missing.
Meanwhile, the demiplanes are slowly dying as they are not meant to support that much life for that long. They are forced to enslave all mages and the like to keep them alive, and to cannibalize any magic items they get their hands on just to keep crops growing and the sun shining. Tensions are rising as nations could invade each other to prolong the lifetime of their own plane.
Are you a bad enough dude to enlist as and adventurer and brave the dangers of ruins of the old world, bringing back ancient artifacts to prolong the life of your people?

I also took some notes from Planescape and prepared around 15 major factions within and without the demiplanes. Political stuff is also prevalent as the major civilizations try to upset the balance of power for their own gain.

>I don't know how I got to the Demiplane of Dread, or why. I don't know how to get out of here. And I sure as the Nine Hells don't know where I picked up these powers.
>I wander these lands as fate guides me. I feel drawn to walk in a certain direction, for days at a time, and without fail strange events are taking place wherever I end up. I do my best to protect the innocent from the wars and machinations of the dark lords that rule over their lands, but I am only one man. I can only hope I make enough of a difference.
>I often wonder what guides me to be at the right place at the right time. One assumes this would be the same unknown entity that has bestowed these powers upon me. But for the life of me, I can't fathom why it won't communicate its desires more clearly... or why it chose me.

So one of my players is a level 2 Dire Wolf who wildshapes into Druids of various player races in order to cast spells and shit

I goddamned fucking loved the idea and the Role-play was the best. How do I keep it going on higher levels?

Should I give the Dire wolf Ranger companion progression?

Stat the wolf as a Druid of the appropriate level with normal PC-increasing stats, but create Humanshape forms for him with different spells known.

What base class synergizes best with a few levels in rogue for that sneak attack damage bonus

Monk and barbarian.

>take some cool fluffy invocations like the beast speech one
>talk to the wolves of the land
>familiar is actually just one of the native creatures

shit I want to play it now

Imagine being this upset at a game

My setting has the following:

Mid-tier magic (people know magic exists, but it's not too common, and if you see a person doing magic tricks on the road it's more likely to be a guy with fast hands than an actual magician).

Points of Light, barely functional cities living in the husk of the ruins of a bigh-magic society

Dinosaur Island

Fey magic fucking humanoids shit up for the lolz

Jungle society based on the notion of reincarnation

Wild West era gunslingers + druidic shamans defending civilians from the wild as they plunder the ruins of an old civilization.

High Magic political intrigue (ala Eberron)

High Magic pulp fiction (think 1920s pulp fiction, but with magic).

Now, you may be wondering, how I pull this all off? Each is on a separate mini-plane that the PCs are going to fuse together to make one whole Material Plane.

Hello /5eg/, I was wondering what you thought of my shitty homebrew.

Ancestral Warrior (Fighter Archetype)
Level 3: Ancestral Spirit. Starting when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you are able to summon an ancestral spirit. The spirit is a ghostly companion which helps you fight with the might and cunning of your ancestors.

Any enemy adjacent to the ancestral spirit grants combat advantage to your melee attacks. In addition, those enemies adjacent to your ancestral spirit also have disadvantage on any attacks that do not include you as a target, this means they have disadvantage when attacking the ancestral spirit as well. The ancestral spirit shares your defenses but cannot attack. The ancestral spirit can move anytime you move or can be commanded to move using your maneuver. The speed for these movements is 25 feet. If the ancestral spirit is hit with a melee attack, the spirit dissipates until you take another short or long rest. Ranged attacks of any kind pass right through the ancestral spirit as though it were not occupying that square. You may dismiss the ancestral spirit as a free action.

Level 7: Ancestral Scout. At 7th level, you gain the ability command your ancestral spirit to use them to scout far-off lands. When you do so, you cast the clairvoyance spell, without needing a spell slot. Rather than creating a spherical sensor, the spell invisibly summons one of your ancestral spirits to the chosen location. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for the spell. After you cast the spell in this way, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Level 10: Ancestral Strike. At 10th level, you and your ancestral spirit learn to work even more in concert, allowing you to have the spirit attack your enemies with you. When attacking a creature that is adjacent to your ancestral spirit with a melee attack, you may forego the advantage on the attack roll to deal an additional 1d8 + your strength modifier damage to the target.

Level 15: Ancestral Shield Wall. Starting at 15th level, you may call upon more than one of your ancestors to create a shield wall under your command.

As an action, you may summon a 25 foot wall centered on yourself. This wall dismisses your ancestral spirit. While the wall is summoned, you and the wall may move 5 feet as a maneuver but must stay together as a wall. You are not able to move besides this 5 foot movement, including forced movement, so long as you have the wall summoned. Enemies have disadvantage when attacking you or when making ranged attacks at your allies through the wall. You have advantage when attacking while within the wall. In addition, you may attack from any space within the wall as if you were in that space. Your allies may move through the wall but the wall is considered impassable for enemies. You may dismiss the wall as a free action or it disappears if you are knocked unconscious. You may not use this ability again until you take another short or long rest.

Level 18: Charging Wall. At 18th level, you may command your shield wall to rush forth and strike down your enemies with a courageous charge. As an action, you may command your summoned shield wall to make a 4 move and attack actions. The speed for this movement is 5 squares. The attack actions must be melee, use your strength and proficiency bonus for the attacks and deal 1d8 + your strength modifier damage. In addition, you may also make a move and attack action against an opponent as a part of this action. After the charge is complete and all of the actions have been done, the shield wall disappears and this action cannot be taken again until you summon another shield wall.

Having the spirit dissipate after a single melee attack connecting with it is sort of weak. I'd make it slightly stronger, since that is basically the Kobold racial ability except it can easily be broken.

Any ideas to make it stronger? I was thinking of making it a number of summons per day but I didnt like the idea that the character might be without the spirit possibly for the majority of the day.

Maybe give it 1/2 your hp? I mean, i already gave attacks against it disadvantage

I'd give it 1/2 hp, yeah. It's too luck based if it dies in one hit but everything has disadvantage to attack it.
How does magic work on it?

it would have to be a magical melee attack the way i have it written. I kinda didnt want some dickish dm to just pop it with an arrow or spell every fight.

But i suppose something like an anti-magic field might work against it? hmm, or i could classify the abilities as ethereal creatures but im not sure how a field would work on those, if it affects them at all.

What do you roll for using thieve's tools? Flat proficiency? Int? Dex?

Dex.

My DMs setting he described to us as being similar in ways to the Witcher-verse. Majority Human population, supernatural and magical elements exist but human settlements are largely insulated from them. The ruling government has mandated that all magic users be registered officially, and has extended an "amnesty" period of 12 months for citizens to do this. My character is trying to decide whether it's worthwhile for him to do so, or if he should just try to hide his magic instead. I've been finding it pretty fun and interesting to play in so far.

I thought it was Dex and only add proficiency if you are proficient with them.

Isn't there a Barbarian UA that involves summoning ancestral spirits to help you fight already?

there is, i actually just lifted the 10th level ability and made it the 7th level one for this.

However, I wasnt a huge fan of the way the UA worked with the barbarian mechanics and thought that a more leader-y power set would be interesting and this is what I came up with.

What kind of battlemaps do you guys use?

Any that I can find online. Most of mine are from Pinterest and Deviantart.

I nut onto a piece of paper, wait for it to dry and then scan it to use for a map

Keep it simple. Give it the stats of a death dog at level 6,and those of a winter wolf at level 9. It's irrelevant what you do at level 12, campaigns don't get that far.

Ive temporarily become retarded

where is the SCAG in the trove?

Sorry, I was assuming that anyone using them would have proficiency.

rulebooks>supplements

Would be a fairly compelling character in Curse of Strahd, I imagine.
Too bad there are no stats for it...

How can I make martial characters as viable as full/half casters in my games? The mechanics for 5e are almost as bad as 3.5 with how much versatility casters get.

Anyone got some balanced homebrew warlock invocations?

you could try reading the PHB cover to cover then coming up with a more educated opinion

Yeah, I've had a game or two where our guy who did dropped out so someone would pick them up then have to learn them. Luckily our DM was understanding and didn't make us jump a bunch of hoops.

t. someone who has never read the 5e PHB

I sure hope so, my Arcana Cleric is already at level 7!

It'd be mighty embarrassing loosing all my powers now

Magic items that focus on utility rather than boosting combat.

Martials do more damage than casters, but casters have more utility.

History buff here, i'm thinking about doing a hardcore realistic medieval setting with lots of stuff from the middle ages. What do you guys think? inb4 it would be boring.

>being the toughest and hardest hitting characters isn't enough

what would be the purpose of casters in your meme system then if not utility?

True, but that doesn't mean that it's balanced. Martials tend to have better single target damage, but that doesn't matter at all when a wizard can just Hold Person someone and kill them with ranged attacks.

well, I would give them more out of combat options, such as spell-like abilites. In addition I would reduce the DCs for characters without full or 1/2 casting by at least 1/2, maybe even down to 1/4 their original values and allow the players to do extraordinary things with what wouldve been relatively high checks up to and including lifting up buildings, punching through walls, pushing over trees or stopping rivers with their speed or by bashing it into submission.

basically, give them more utility as freebies and make them into heroes, myths, and legends

>Level 3:
It doesn't say how you summon the spirit. It just .. Appears as a result of hitting level 3, or pops into existence after you take a rest. If you dismiss the spirit there's no mechanic for bringing it back. There's no maneuver that commands it to move, and a non-battlemaster won't have maneuvers.

>Level 7
Making it !not-clairvoyance is kind of weird to me, and causes weird interactions. If its a YOUR ancestral spirit, does that mean your spirit stops hanging out with you and then pops over to where you directed it to? What happens if it gets killed there? If its the same spirit, why are you suddenly not able to move it when you were able to before? Also - it probably should be a ritual.

>Level 10
I really feel like this should consume something other than advantage. It consuming advance gives it a mechanic that doesn't exist elsewhere that I can think of - and the way its worded makes it that you forgo ALL advantage on the attack roll, so even if you had it outside of the ancestral spirit. Outside of that: This stacks with EVERY melee attack; so next level the Fighter makes three attacks. Suddenly he does six attacks per turn. Action surge gives him 12, assuming that they've no bonus attacks to give 13. At level 20, he makes eight attacks per turn and can action surge to make sixteen, and again assuming no bonus attacks.

>Level 15
25 foot wall? Is that all in one straight line? Is that a curving wall? Can you make the wall shorter? Does that mean its 25 feet long and 5 feet wide? Can an enemy attack anywhere along that wall in order to hit you, or do they just have to attack the middle of the wall while you can attack anywhere within it? What maneuver are you referring to? And only Battlemasters have maneuvers.

>Level 18
Move is not an action. Are you giving them 4x the base speed? What's the base speed - 25 still from the first spirit? And you're giving this wall four attacks? Plus you make one attack on top of that?

i mean as long as you dont make your players harvest wheat for 12 hours you should be fine

What is legendary resistance?