/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

My friends get too distracted when we play, what to do?

>NotSkeletor has become the GodKing and rules from NotGreyskull. Players are insurgents
Is he a ruler that has brought peace and prosperity or still everything is shit?

They are probably not invested in the story. If if their first few sessions give it some time.

Distracted by what? When do they get distracted? Come on man details!

This.

I knew a chick who GMed for a group I was in. No one knew each other, shr jist found randons through the gaming store (me included) and she ended up having to take a break pretty much every session to call out people for having 0 interest in the game, telling them to either leave or start concentrating.

After a lot of players dropping in and out, we ended up with a pretty pathetic 2 player party of people actually interested in playing the game, and then we have had a blast ever since, running at level 19 currently, and already new plans for the next campaign.

She was nice to look at, maybe an 8/10, and that apparently messed up the wizard aspirants.

>That one campaign idea you've always wanted to run, what's here name and who are the movers and shakers in it?

I've always wanted to run a military battles-themed game ever since the Battlesystem rules came out. The PC's would all be members of a large mercenary company, like officers or specialists and that sort of thing.

The usual D&D stuff would happen in between major battles as they were sent to "troubleshoot" minor problems and make alliegances and engage in politics and shit like that while every few regular adventures would lead up to a major battle that they had been preparing for.

>wizard aspirants

>That one campaign idea you've always wanted to run, what's here name and who are the movers and shakers in it?

a Mordheim/Pools of Radiance/Darkest Dungeon mash up. the party is contracted mercenaries sent to clear out a contested ruins of a once sprawling and opulent city now full of monsters/bandits/demons/undead/eldritch horrors/rival mercenaries/etc littered with magical, dangerous, and valuable NOTWarpstone crystals. factional alliances and warfare ensue.

my wife is leaving me come chill in the 5eg discord and make me feel better

discord.me/5eg

Nah, we're a few sessions into it, and the story has been pretty good. OotA has a decent enough story.

They're start talking about random shit.

Same here. Levels 1-5 or so would be traditional adventuring (Lord Whoever wants you to genocide these goblins, the princess has eloped with a dragon etc) until the party's little mercenary company has enough money to actually hire people, they get more influence and soon politics get involved.

Thinking about it, LMoP into SKT would work perfectly for that. Phandalin gets them a manor house they can use to set up shop and the giants provide something to throw their mooks at (with the PCs obviously doing the important jobs). If only I could get a group together...

Everything is shit. It's pretty tropey and straightforward

Is there much difference to starting Tomb of Annihilation at level 3?

I want to do a sci fi campaign inspired by borderlands and I'm actually doing it this winter with some friends.

>They're start talking about random shit.
This happens with my group too. Also constantly stuff like the barbarian saying "I swing my axe!" in his character voice when he means it as a comedic joke out of character.

If they're talking during descriptions, asking them to be quite and listen should be fine. If they're talking during roleplay, you could ask them to restrict themselves to roleplaying? Not to sure wat do.

Not really. Chult in general has a suggested level of 1-6, so the party probably won't steamroll through the jungle.

No, it has rules near the beginning for starting at higher lvls. it says lvl 5 could even be run normally.

Set down clear ground rules, tell them "hey when we're playing let's focus on playing, if you wan to talk about x or y please wait until a break or after."

Nice, thanks heaps, bros.

why did they make this complicated instead of just saying "it effects 3 targets within the cone"?
It's the only spell that I've found (could be wrong) that uses that kinda bullshit.

Sleep uses the same setup.

Noob question...is there a way to remove protection spells from enemies besides wearing them down?
DM put us against a mage who cast Mirror Image. We didn't have a clue how to dissolve the spell besides continuing to whack at him.

Dispel magic

DM's who did Tyrant of Dragons, any tips? Running a game on Sunday.
One of my players had his village destroyed by a dragon, which dragon should that be?

This is it, boys. About to dive into the final session of Storm King's Thunder and beat the shit out of some blue dragon bitch.
My 30 Strength Dwarven Monk and his unpowered adamantine quadruple runeplate are ready to rock.

>Which dragon should it be
Have him specify where the town was. Was it near a mountain? A coastal town? Desert? Swamp?

Specific dragons have specific environments they like to live in

Ok lads so had an item for a potion, it grants the effects of a long rest, however at the cost of exhaustion. When you drink the potion you treat it as though you had a long rest, make a DC 15 con saving throw. On success only take one point of exhaustion, on failure take two.

Was also considering taking over x amount based off con mod within a 48 period carries the chance of addiction. Haven't worked out drawbacks to that, is this any good or too much?

the bigger problem with color spray is that it only lasts a single round. Which makes it about as useful as witch bolt

The illusory duplicates all inhabit the same 5x5' space as the caster. You need to figure out which is real, but they all move around so much that they can't be tracked from moment to moment. What you need to do is affect all of them, then have the party react in a split second to target the caster before he has an opportunity to dodge out with one of his illusions.

First, have all your good attackers stand by and Ready an action, the trigger being "when this other party member calls out a target."

Then, have said party member utilize a physical attack that completely covers this area (throw a carpet over it, slam a table down on the space, swing a 10 foot pole straight across that's too high to jump but too low to limbo), or make an Intelligence check to pick out which image responds to certain stimulae exactly (yell HEYFAGGOTWIZARDOVERHERE and note which of the four entities looks exactly at you, and which are slightly off-center because they are perfectly mimicking the direction but not the angle of the true caster).

Once the real caster is pointed out, everyone uses their reactions to blast that guy ASAP before he has a chance to change places with an illusion.

Is this RAW? No. Does it make sense in the context of the universe and how the spell works? Yes. Is your DM a faggot if he'd poo-poo over all this and mandate you waste attack rolls all combat until the spell wears down? Yes.

5e color spray is garbage. Bring back 2e spells

Because it's a NO SAVE AoE spell that inflicts a useful condition. It targets HP so that at low levels, you can slap large groups of goblins around, but it has no effect on things like bosses or stronger creatures as you continue to level. For those, you need to be using things that actually have a save, or to weaken the creature first.

Just to reiterate: there's NO SAVE.

Sleep is vastly better

What did 2es do?

DMs of the thread, how do you handle world building?
I have ZERO artistic ability, alongside a laughable understanding of geography. I've been using some of random map makers in the wfg pastebin for maybe 4-5 hours now, saving maybe two that I've got.
Am I overthinking it? Do I just need to handle one continent at a time? I worry that I'll just have some silly clown world if I just make it up as I go.

This is what I did. Get them started in Phandalin then have giants throw rocks and minions their way, letting them get out of their comfy mine and HQ. Too bad work forced me to have a friend take over DMing duties.

You making a fantasy magic world. Understanding basic geography, biomes and shit will help, but don't feel you HAVE to stick to the realisitc and proper way to do things. Heck if you super need something, rip open a hole to another plane. Or a wizard did it.

What sort of game are you running? What sort of players do you have? What is their backstory, what is the backstory of your antagonistic forces - now build a world that supports that. Don't write yourself into a corner, you can always add a new town or zoom into an area to add more detail as it suits the campaign, or you could make a single town and a few surrounding areas, and zoom out to add more as the story needs it.

Suggestions on how to build this out. Shit sounds cash.

>Affects 1d6 creatures
>Creatures over the caster's level, creatures with 6 hit die, or creatures over 6th level get a saving throw
>Creatures not allowed or failing saving throws, and whose Hit Dice or levels are less than or equal to the spellcaster's level, are struck unconscious for 2d4 rounds; those with Hit Dice or levels 1 or 2 greater than be wizard's level are blinded for 1d4 rounds; those with Hit Dice or levels 3 or more greater than that of the spellcaster are stunned (reeling and unable to think or act coherently) for one round.

A complete world is nice, but a lot of work. The reality is the immediate surroundings of the PCs is what's most important. Then there's setting specific information- if the world is charted, you should probably make some landmass squiggles, and worry about the details if the players are taking a trip there.

Everything varies, but I prefer this way of prioritizing. Sure things might become a patchwork quilt of important places the PCs breathed into life via observation, but that's okay.

so i just rolled these stats: 18, 16, 15, 13, 12, 12
i don't want to waste them, what should i play

Literally anything, your stats are very good

i know, they're insane
whats the most MAD class that's actually good

Paladin.

That could make a good Barbearian or Monk. If you REALLY want to make the campaign your bitch then go paladin 2 sorcerer x and prioritize str, con, and cha in that order

What program should I use for writing up important NPCs?

Pen and paper.

>Does it make sense in the context of the universe and how the spell works? Yes.
The part about attracting caster attention and finding out which one is the correct one makes sense.
Using reactions to hit him before he can switch doesn't, because switching is automatic on the spell's part, not a reaction on the caster's part. Regardless of whether or not you pick your target with 100% certainty, there's still a chance the spell will switch him in time, represented by the die roll. Though I'd personally give the spell roll disadvantage to reward tactical thinking.
Now, if you set up a Ready Action to have everyone shoot a different target at once, then I'd just roll a d4 to see who hits the caster, and who destroys the illusions, assuming all attacks beat AC.

Alternatively, just cast Fireball or something.

Wow that's so much better.

Anything you're comfortable with to record the following:

What makes them important?
> Information they have
> Goals
> Opinion / plans with the players

If you're gonna RP them
> What do they sound like?
> What's their personality like?
> Specific goals in mind for the next interaction

Statblock (or at least an idea of one) because players are unpredictable.

Why is blinded such a shitty condition in this edition? Why is Grappling / Restraining so gimped? Why are players so hardy / hard to kill?

Look up detailed reviews online on how to improve both modules. Especially HotDQ. There is a lot of mechanics mentioned in HotDQ that were a thing during 5e playtest that didn't make it into the final product. I've heard that some of the encounters are horribly balanced, but they weren't an issue for my group of experienced players. It could be a problem if yours are completely new to the system.

Don't be afraid to cut out stuff in HotDQ if your players get bored. There is a lot of material that don't really add to the story. Just remember that it will mess with leveling if you use the milestone system. RoT has a lot of combat centered episodes, so you might want to limit the group to choosing one "Episode" per council session if you think the party is getting bored with the sheer amount of combat. This will require adjusting leveling and the scorecard.

Remember that your dragons have legendary resistances and legendary actions. I notice that some DMs forget one or the other which makes the dragons not as challenging to fight. When your players get to a dragon fight, pay attention to which dragons actually have lair actions and which ones don't. This will mean the difference between a challenging fight for your party and a TPK.

>Why is grappling / restraining so gimped
But it's how my group killed Strahd in one round the moment he made the mistake of getting within 30 feet of our grappler.

>disadvantage on attack rolls, inability to use most targeted spells
>bad
What are you smoking m8

Thank you.
Already on it.

Don't forget all attack rolls against the Blinded creature have advantage. That's fucking huge.
i have shoved an awful lot of burlap sacks on enemies' heads using my shadow monk mid-combat

Sleep has a different purpose. Color spray gives all your attackers advantage for a round and reduces the victim's ability to inflict harm or control space. Sleep wastes enemy actions, but only gives one hit, within 5', a damage bonus on each victim. Sleep is most effective when you can divide the enemy and keep the victims unconscious for several turns, wasting many actions and having multiple targets to get the damage bonus against. Color spray is most effective in comparison when you can unload several attacks on one target. A good sleep is more dramatic than a good color spray, but rarer to pull off. Better but not vastly so is my usual description.

How exactly did grappling help in that situation? All it would've done is make his speed 0, and Strahd can deal with grapples by casting gust of wind, or polymorph, or charming the grappler, or just turning into mist.

He died before his turn came around again. Being proned, no one missed. Being grappled, he had no speed with which to get away with his legendary action. All he could do was make attacks (with disadvantage) against people until he died. If he'd lasted long enough to use his own actions again, yeah, he would have turned into mist and flown away.

alright i want to play a curse bringer warlock. I know they've technically be made obsolete but my dm is letting me play it with the old invocations
should i go variant human for heavy armor or something else? i'm so overwhelmed by good stats

You must've had some insane damage output, because my players took longer than a round to kill him, and they had a vengeance paladin with the sunsword, and they were fighting in a small room.

Good cantrips for a metalmancer?

Does cannibalism, or at least, consuming dead enemies, automatically make a character evil?

I'm currently playing a wood elf fighter whose culture is essentially semi-feral forest-nomads and part of that is not recognising any real difference between sapient races and beasts. They'd use all the parts of a stag they killed on a hunt because muh tree-hugging elf hippies, so why wouldn't they use all the parts of a group of orcs or bandits they killed in battle?

My character is Chaotic Good, my DM hasn't really mentioned any issues with it but I've gotten an earful from one of the other players about how my character is basically Chaotic Evil now because he sliced a few chunks off a Dwarven mercenary to keep for dinner that night. Am I being That Guy by doing shit in an aligned Good party that clashes with their alignments?

What his reasoning for yo being chaotic evil for that act alone?

Intent is 2/3rds the crime in my opinion, so maybe not good but definitely not evil.

desecration of corpses is a tough one.
It's a corpse, so it's not like your harming anyone.
But every culture considers corpses sacred so messing with them is always considered bad.

Our Sorc ran up and quickened Searing Ray then dropped Fire Bolt, which was like 50 damage right there. He was also a Red Dragon Sorc so he got +4 damage on each spell, which was nice.
The Nature Cleric bonked him with a hammer (which did OK damage thanks to that +1d8 some Clerics get), saw the resistance, and skipped his second attack to put Magic Weapon on the Fighter.
The Fighter Action Surged and threw all of his maneuvers in, and got one crit, which bumped him up to like 60 or 70 damage. He was sword and board though so no GWM fuckery otherwise that would have been it right there.
Then the Paladin put two Smites into him. He didn't have a magic weapon but he didn't need one since Smite is bonkers.

>nature cleric
>second attack
What

What are some good room and puzzle ideas for a 1st-level skeleton crypt?

A bone zone

I dunno man, it was like a year ago. He wasn't MCed into Fighter or anything but he had some means of doing it. It might've been a homebrew item.

>Does cannibalism, or at least, consuming dead enemies, automatically make a character evil?
No, otherwise lizardfolk would be evil. Volo's Guide describes them as neutral due to their outlook on death and predation.
That's not to say it might not cause issues with other PCs or members of civilized society, but it's not evil.

Yeah that'd do it.

Accurately reconstruct an exploded-view skeleton from a pile of bones.

Every PC is going to assume that the end result of that is the skeleton coming alive and killing them. And the ones that don't assume that deserve to be killed.

A simple block puzzle.

How would you plan a neutral evil monk?
I'm clueless...

Some friends have flippantly said they don't feel heroic in 5e. We're 4th level.
I've told them they can't expect the same power assumption as other systems but they keep screeching that's not true, what do?

Tell them to suck it up. 5e characters don't get super strong until 5th onward.

Does anyone else think the 5e modules are really vague? I just picked up TOA and I'm trying to read through it but I can't make any sense of it, in the second chapter there are just a list of side quests and the name of people who give them but the quests are vague as fuck, one just says some dude will give pcs gold to go hunt down 3 pirate ships, and that's it, it makes no mention of where they are, how the pcs find the ships, or how they can board them, how many pirates are on board...nothing. why even get a pre made module if I have to do all this myself anyway.

Modules are tools. Why are you running a game like DnD if you're not prepared to create and weave ideas together of your own accord? Why not go play a video game?

They'll just keep screeching :/.

Then kill him until he realizes otherwise

Modules should be seen as tool kits for an over all campaign guide, they're not going to hold your hand through the entire thing this forcing you to railroad your players. Pretty much you grab a module because it does the bulk of the work for you, making the setting, NPCs, giving an over all goal. You as the DM still have to weave this together based on your party.

They don't really design adventures anymore, they just sort of toss ideas at you and expect you to put it together. It's the same design philosophy of "let the players do the work" that they designed the whole edition after.

*slight chuckle*

Just walking around and finding a 5th level cleric. Because common NPCs and even most clergy will ever actually have class levels.

Someone is pampered.

Explain that 5e is attempting to close the power gap between martials and casters, so everything got tuned down from the days of 3.5 and pf. Also I forget where it is but in one of the books it even explains how known you are based off your level.

the priest NPC statblock in the MM is a 5th level caster

That's not my point, why don't I just design my own campaign from scratch, I don't need to pay $50 for "pcs have to go kill pirates" I'm capable of thinking of that on my own, I want a module to let me run an adventure without taking a fucking year to prepare for and reading a 300 page book and commiting the whole thing to memory first. Pathfinder adventures arent like this at all they actually do what modules are meant to do, as in they provide specifics so I don't have to.
Inb4 hurrrr go play a video game again, premade campaigns aren't meant to be vague clusterfucks and you know it

A friend of mine who has never played before asked me about alignments. I told him how stupid and nonsensical the whole ordeal is and to not think too hard about it, but when he pressed a bit harder I figured I might as well come up with something. I figured alignment, at least on the Good and Evil spectrum, ultimately boils down to how a character reacts to the suffering of others.

A character can disapprove of the suffering of others, but at the least that makes them neutral, not necessarily good. Good wants to prevent the suffering of the innocent, and if they must hurt others for the "greater good", they do so with great remorse. Evil revels in the suffering of others, or at least have no qualms about inflicting it unto others. Torture for the pure sake of torture is one of the greatest evil acts, regardless of who is doing it or who it is being inflicted upon.

Would you agree with this assessment?

DEPENDS ON THE SETTING

For example, in FR, there's literally a list (which no one really knows) of what's Evil and what's Good. Why you do any of it doesn't matter.

>Sleep has a different purpose. Color spray gives all your attackers advantage for a round and reduces the victim's ability to inflict harm or control space. Sleep wastes enemy actions, but only gives one hit, within 5', a damage bonus on each victim
Sleep also reduces the victim's ability to inflict harm or control space. Also, yes it doesn't grant ALL attackers advantage, but it does grant an autocrit. Generally, on the creatures most affected by sleep, that will be an almost guaranteed death.

>Color spray is most effective in comparison when you can unload several attacks on one target. A good sleep is more dramatic than a good color spray, but rarer to pull off. Better but not vastly so is my usual description.
Color Spray affects a 15ft cone, Sleep is an 90ft range, 20ft radius area of effect. You're actually much more likely to affect multiple opponents with sleep then you are with Color Spray. Plus you have the added benefit of not getting your shit stomped in if you roll poorly.