/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

What class is best for witch doctor?

What do you do if your player wants to give up being a paladin but not become an oathbreaker?
He asked if he could just be a fighter, but I'm not sure how to handle it.

cleric, druid, or maybe an archfey warlock

Warlock/Sorcerer multi-class?

That's pretty standard for paladins who lose their oath, they become a fighter.

i'd only do the oathbreaker thing if he was explicitly being evil. if he's just tired of carrying on the paladin mantle, just replace his current paladin levels with fighter levels.

On the subject of monster tactics, how would a group of giant spiders fight when they managed to get the drop on the party?

How do you feel about players who see the entire game as crunch mostly? I have a table, good people but there are moments where they get too riled up on "What class is our enemy is?" or if they see an enemy do this and that ability, they think they can do it too cause everything is in the same rules and such. It's like they don't see the bbeg as the villain who thwrated them in the early parts of the campaign but just another statblock with a class and they just need to use knowledge of that class to take him down (that's how they see it.)

I've tempered their expectations saying "Bosses are bosses, they're meant to be challenging so no, you can't do Legendary Actions, and they don't abide to the character options of the PHB" but some can't feel all satisfied with my answer. So far, we've never brought it up but I can't help but feel that they are disappointed they can't get to that level where they they have some of the features/abilities of the Vampire or some shit like Regen HP per turn. (One of the Fighters said "Hmm if we can learn regen like our enemies, it'll be good for us who like to tank".)

As much as possible, even going so far to have a fall back plan or idea ready.

Warlock with fluff background granting medicine skill and alchemy.

I've been meaning to ask Veeky Forums, if you wanted a shaman/witch doctor homebrew, do you think it would work better as a druid archetype or a third-caster barbarian archetype? I've been working a bit on a barbarian shaman subclass because I thought a barbarian caster could be cool, but I could easily adjust it to be a druid circle

Druid archetype

Does anyone have Book of the Righteous for 5E? I can't seem to find it in the trove.

barb sounds fun but you can't cast/conc with rage.

voting for druid archetype

>Shoot webs from 30ft away
>Bite with advantage the restrained enemies
>Repeat

The idea was to allow you to cast/concentrate on druid spells you know while raging as the 6th level feature, so it wouldn't be very viable for a multiclass dip

Depending on the kind of magical effects you want, a wizard archetype might work best. Maybe even a bard, for spell flexibility and the lore-keeper aspect.

Should rogue/barb use both strength and dex or just go straight strength to try and rely on getting flanks and surprise rounds?
I know the easy solution would be going swashbuckler to get sneak attacks whenever but I feel like that's too easy, plus mastermind is closer to what I want to try.

How does one have fun playing a lawful-good paladin?

I feel like my character would just end up being Mr No-Fun-Allowed.

What would it take for a fiend warlock's patron to actually show up in the flesh?

Playing the game for the mechanics isn't a problem, but asking "What class is our enemy" isn't right, enemies can be a class, or they could just have elements from different classes and such.

Also
>You can't do legendary actions
When could the players ever do legendary actions?

A fuckup of astonishing proportions on someone's part.

barbarogue usually goes full strength. you don't need to flank or get surprise rounds if you just reckless attack, that's like the whole point of barbarogue.

For context, when I made a boss do a Legendary Action, they thought it was a feature of a class that allowed to act while it's not their turn. After my Fighter unleased everything on the boss who had his turn before him, I used a legendary action and it got the table going "Oh damn!" and after the fight, that's when they were like "Oh god, I can't wait when we can do that!" I had to tell them that's not the case cause that's a boss, they work differently. Some were cool with it but a couple of them were like "What's the point of getting stronger if we can't even do that? Feels backwards to me."

I was going more for a shaman flavor, which is all about balance between benevolent and malevolent spirits, healing, and divination magic, especially performed as rituals. I'll probably also add some voodoo stuff as well.

Barbarogue goes strength (because you need it for rage damage bonus). You often go rapier or another finesse weapon (because they still get to sneak attack). And then you reckless attack for advanced sneak-attack-crit-fishing.

By making them have character outside their alignment, how is this a question? Just because someone believes in upholding laws and good in the land doesn't mean they are automatically a buzz kill. Then again since you're asking don't do it, you'll fuck it up.

NPCs and PCs follow different rules. No NPCs (usually) have class levels at all, and even if they did, you're only required to tell them if they're a 7th level or higher Battlemaster with Know Your Enemy.

Literally just tell them monsters follow different rules than PCs, because that is completely true. PCs are balanced around having to work for a whole Adventuring Day, monsters and NPCs are balanced around a single encounter. Creatures with regeneration have it for a reason. That said, Champion Fighters get Survivor at level 18, which is as close as it gets.

when it comes to combat almost never, considering i'm a barbarian and my main choice is who i'm gonna smash with my hammer
i plan with my party what we're gonna do next session over the week leading up to it

Cleric or bard would be good options, then. Maybe convince your DM to let you play a variant cleric with monk's unarmored defense instead of armor proficiency (show him that example in the DMG as proof it's not broken).

I have a NPC with Artificer!Wizard levels just so he can make items for the party.

anyone get their hands on a PDF or easily shareable copy of Tomb of annihilation yet? i cant find any anywhere. my LGS gets it Tuesday and im supposed t start dming it Wednesday. my

Half-Ogre player race when? What features would it have?

Is a bridge troll to cliche?

No

it's cliche to the point of not being cliche, if you know what i mean
basically it's such a classic trope that no one ever does it, making it rare and interesting if done right

It's just cliche enough to be fun.

Just refluff Goliath.

not if you do it right. i've personally taken inspiration from the bridge troll quest from the witcher 2

Guns in 5e are really, really simple.

Take all the crossbows.

Increase their damage by 1 level, i.e. 1d6->1d8, 1d10->1d12.

Give them the Loud property, which causes them to make a loud noise when fired that can be clearly heard within 1000 feet.

There, you're done.

Is it a death sentence to put one outside of Nightstone in SKT, I want to work Nightstone and dripping caves into one encounter

Just refluff the Goliath, and swap out their mountain adaptation for Darkvision.

>Maybe convince your DM
I'm the DM actually, and I'm doing this more to experiment with more ambitious homebrew than I have before (spells, items, rebalancing existing class features, etc.) rather than to play it myself.

Considering that druids already have ritual casting and healing spells, and that shamans typically are very strongly associated with nature and spirits, I'm leaning more towards that now.

Pic related is kind of the aesthetic I'm aiming for, although it would be significantly less animal-spirit focused if it was a different class

They get stronger in different ways to players.

How much information do you tell your players when a monster uses features/attacks? Like my monster have actions and such, do I give them a solid description enough for them to make with the information without revealing what ability they used or do I say "Lich uses " or "Troll uses Regeneration" or something like that? Same with resistances and like.

Cause I had a modified enemy bandit villain who has Fancy Footwork as one of his abilities, I ran it and just described how after he makes an attack, his nimbleness and footwork got him out of the player's reach without problem. (My players assumed it correct that it was like a Fancy Footwork effect when they saw they couldn't AoO) Been doing this for a while and it does give my players a layer of observation in their fights but I still want to know if I'm doing it right? I fear that this way I'm withholding information from the player if I don't tell them exactly what spell/feature/action they're doing and instead use those descriptions.

I talked about this a little bit in the previous thread:

I'm homebrewing up a new setting for an upcoming game. The only playable races are: dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, and humans. Most of these races have had their subraces axed and I've taken certain traits and ability score increases from the subraces and made it a default part of the race. As such, races like Gnomes, Halflings, and Dwarves, have been changed considerably.

One thing I did, since neither Half-Orcs or Goliaths are playable, was take Relentless Endurance and Stone's Endurance, mashed 'em together, and gave it to dwarves. Since dwarves are all about being stubborn and durable, it made far more sense for dwarves to have that ability than the other two races.

I don't intend to touch Half-Elves, since they're already quite strong. My real question is: how can I make elves and humans stronger to compete with the suped-up halflings, gnomes, and dwarves? Elves are the only race with subraces, also. High and Wood varieties. Dark Elves exist but they're evil and so not playable.

For humans I was thinking making Variant Human the standard and giving them an extra +1 ASI to put where they want on top of an extra skill. For elves I'm totally lost.

It's the way I do, I never just say outright x or y ability, I describe what the characters see.

Upfront apology for "Reddit spacing" since I'm sure someone is going to freak out about that even though I don't read or post on Reddit.

It's not reddit spacing if you're using actual paragraphs

Your players sound like they'd be more at home with a RPG videogame rather than D&D. Do they care at all about the social aspect or the fluff? Because it sounds like all they give a shit about are mechanics which feels a lot more soulless than any D&D game I've played.

Case in point, is reddit spacing

I honestly can't tell anymore, If I leave spaces after the post link (Like I am now, to show) I get accused of it, I just like leaving a space after it since it looks neater.

>nice
>neat
>on Veeky Forums
Only thing neet here are the weebs

>:(

I said that one time and preferred the formatting. I was told that I was a lazy "reader" and should stop encouraging lazy reading. I don't even fucking know what he meant with that.

Sounds like they are suffering from chronic 3.faggotry

>reddit apologizing

>A fuckup of astonishing proportions on someone's part.

Warlock in my party is Neutral Good despite being a Fiend Warlock. Their character's origin is that they went on a drunken bender and awoke the next day to find that they had signed a deal with the devil and now had magical abilities.

I've kept the mystery of what kind of deal they signed and I'm trying to have his patron toy with him, but I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas for how he can mess with him (or if a Devil would even really care enough to do so.)

What's a good class for a physically deformed character?

Wizard

>Players - how often do you just actually plan out tactics ahead of time?
Depends on how much scouting and foreknowledge we have of the area, but beyond that we make it up as we go.
In the words of a very wise singing dwarf Paladin, "our plans are rarely good ones but we think them up right quick, and you'd be surprised how much of an asset that is in the adventuring gig".

Its not his fault he's a virgin

barbarian wearing a metal mask

Some kind of class that uses a horse if they can't use their legs.

Depends on the fiend and the type of deal, if it's "you'll preform x amount of tasks every year when I ask" then a fiend can easily use the link to pass then on, or more likely would send a messenger. If a fiend just wanted to mess with him an imp could easily do that and the fiend wouldn't even have to leave hell for it. Personally I would only see a fiend popping up if he thinks the warlock is not trying to get out of the deal or is in breach of the deal.

Guessing nobody has dumped ToA yet then. :(

Hotly anticipating scans here :)

Some players will always be like that.
Try to explain that the fact is that their viewpoint is not otherwise supported by the rules, and if they fail to get it and become problematic about it then cut them out of your game.
If they aren't problematic about it they'll deal with it like adults.

Fixing to run a game for some newbs that asked me to help them out. I've toyed around with 5th, and done some encounters, but never had much time with the system.
What are some quirks of the system to look out for?
How hard is it to wipe/maim a party?

>:(
>:)
kys xD

My Lawful Good Paladin cracks more jokes then anyone in the party actually.
It's not "Lawful Humorless".

>participating on the same type of faggotry

Kill yourself user.

Hey guys, where can I download the DM screen?

You should note to them that they get SO much stronger that while they can't do that it won't actually matter anyway.

When can we expect the next unearthed?

Firearms are more consistently deadly, so I'd go 2d4, 2d6.

Monday

What is the context of the original source?

Anyone have a scale/hex map of Faerun or the Sword Coast?

Trying to figure out travel times between a few places.

What specifically did you do to make the halflings and gnomes stronger? The dwarf as you describe it is on-par with RAW variant human, at least assuming it's not +2str +2con +1wis.

Off the top of my head, one way you could boost elves is to give them all Misty Step as in the Feats for Races UA, if that fits the lore.

...

All the time. Following creature abilities by the book is problematic because my players are very experienced. I can't even throw a gorgon at them without someone already knowing the gorgon's weaknesses so I typically make up my own monsters and their own abilities that even don't follow the rules of the game (but are never insta-death or incapacitate).

I made a giant snake monster who had a 'facing' mechanic. If you were within the line of sight of the monster you slowly started turning to stone. Was a fun fight.

Naturally goblins and shit are standard but it's usually bosses that are 'cheated' in order to be a challenge for the party. A party of 4-6 players rarely finds a single monster to be a challenge unless you give the monster extra turns or some cool mechanic that is more than just 'do a bunch of damage and/or lockdown'

Are there any "re-fluffing" from the original text/lore/flavor that you regret to this day?

I had this one where my players are pretty new to the game, enjoying Lost Mines and such. They're pretty heavy on video games but overtime they've successfully ushered themselves out of the videogame mindset and treated DnD like an actual tabletop RPG. Anyhow, into OotA, our Rogue wanted to multi-class to warlock and realizing it was his birthday a day after our usual session day, I thought it would be cool if I made his multi-classing level up to be story-tied. Just a cool badass moment for him where his character becomes a warlock after the boss fight. Additionally, this guy loves his Persona video games and I thought it would be fun if his multiclass "awakening" to become a warlock was gonna be similar to the series Persona awakening scenes.

So yeah, the boss went on as usual and when they brought it to 0, I made a story moment where the boss goes berserk and attempts to pin one of his teammates (I had one of my players in on it so he took the fall) and fortunately, my rogue player's character having a strong sense of camaraderie rushed to his aid and when he thought all hope was lost, I brought in the big moment and got him so damn excited. He summoned an avatar of his patron (being the Persona) and started wrecking the boss until it died. (I made the avatar "disappear" while telling him he has now formed a bond with the Archfey)

Fun times for all, rogue loved it, enjoyed the hell out of it and the entire table was happy for him. That said, some players are now going "HOLY SHIT WE CAN SUMMON PERSONAS?!" and a couple of sessions later they're now messaging me about concepts of their own awakening next time they level up and asking me when's the next big boss or some shit. I've told them it was just a moment for our rogue since it was his birthday. They've told me that maybe I can just bend the rules for them cause they want have the same scene.

I fucked up.

>What are some quirks of the system to look out for?
5th is as streamlined as possible, the cr system is a joke so it is a very rough and vague guideline, there are some monsters that are low cr but easily punch above their rating, some of the wording on rules are vague be prepared to make an on the spot decision or ruling.
>How hard is it to wipe/maim a party?
Depends on the players, party composition, level and optional rule allowance. I've noticed by level three to five the party becomes decently hardy, can still be dropped if they are pants on head retarded but it is harder than previous editions. Then again with little to no guide on how to build encounters you can accidentally make an encounter you think they can take and it turns out it's a wipe.

Just tell them it's not special anymore if everyone gets to do it
Then if they argue about it, keep repeating that until they shut the fuck up

>Kill_them_all_Peter.jpg

Truly, a wise dwarf. I bet he's respected and well-loved in his homeland.

When running encounters for larger inexperienced parties, I find it's hard to run more than one significant encounter per session unless they're very long. This sucks, since it skews towards PCs who can blow all their resources quickly, monsters drop like flies, and the only threat is when a squishier PC is mobbed by melee attackers (death save rules are maybe too forgiving, unless somethings hitting you in melee while you're down, then it's brutal).

Some system quirks I attempt to houserule away: dexterity strong compared to strength and little reason to have both, many dump stats in general since dex/con/wis are the only common saves (look up reflex/will saving throw fix), lots of over/underpowered feats.

They like his poetry anyway.

>playing with weebs
You really did fuck up.

That's fantastic! His mother-in-law must be fawning over him.