/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

Aye, but it says it only has the monsters from the SRD, so I think that means it doesn't include all the MM monsters, but I could be wrong.

How do you all feel about the released modules so far like Out of the Abyss, Storm King, Curse of Strahd, and such?
Which ones are the best?
I have played Curse of Strahd and OOTA so far, OOTA is pretty... mediocre. Almost bad, even.

Strahd is really cool though, I like how it is more open-ended

>DMs what are somethings your players do that you can't stand?
Stealing from other PCs.
Going off on their own for no reason
Refusing to work with the party
Edgy backstories
No NPC friends that give me social stuff to work with, or create versions of them that they can play off of.
My god, I should just ban rogues.

Good: Out of the Abyss, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation

Bad: Rise of Tiamat, Storm Kings Thunder

For what reason do you consider OotA to be bad?

>player chooses shitty class
>DM doesn't suck the player's cock
>DM is a dick
Sound logic. Pretty standard martial persecution complex, too. Maybe if you actually learned tactics instead of trying to do something "omg so epic" on a natural 20, you'd get further in the game. Except, wait, spellcasters are actually pretty well-balanced now. So martials have absolutely nothing to complain about, especially when they deal the most damage of any class in the game.

Might just be my DM. It feels very railroaded and the world feels empty, there's not much motivation for my party to do anything

How's that?

They can only see out to 60ft, even then it's just shades of grey.

There's no need to be upset.

>Good: Out of the Abyss > Curse of Strahd
>Ok: Princes of the Apocalypse
>Bad: Hoard of the Dragon Queen > Rise of Tiamat > Storm King's Thunder
>Don't know yet: Tomb of Annihilation

>the first version of favoured soul is the best version
How could Mearls fuck this up so badly?

No, you need to ban the kind of person that plays rogues.

You say that as if 60ft was an irrelevantly short distance or if shades of gray affected anything.

I know I can, but I don't like taking things away from players without leaving something in its place.

You need to rein in your severe autism just how Wizards reined in a lot of caster supremacy.

>can i do [this reasonable thing] if I make a [difficult skill] check?
>no

haha great dm'ing friend!!

They didn't though. Casters are still the best classes by far.

just like* how

IMO

Tomb of Annihilation is good because its a hexcrawl/setting guide and an adventure. There is so much potential for side campaigns in addition to the very cool main campaign. (Pirate campaign, Camp Vengeance Campaign) You could even add the Sunless Citadel and Temple of Yamachan from Tales from the Yawning Portal

Out of the Abyss gives freedom to the players to explore a bit, but its not a hexcrawl. It's like Diablo mixed with Alice in Wonderland.

Curse of Strahd is a roleplay heavy campaign, or it can be. Strahd is a really interesting character and a challenge for a DM to play properly.

Rise of Tiamat, Storm Kings Thunder, and Temple of Elemental Evil feel like they are Adventure League content, not a campaign path. IMO, they need a lot of help to make fun to run or play.

How do I make Xavier Renegade Angel is a character

On a related note, seeing as you didn't like OotA, I've heard Veins of the Earth for LotFP described ad "OotA done right" by some reviewers.

>You say that as if 60ft was an irrelevantly short distance or if shades of gray affected anything.
It is if you have no idea how to design around it. Twisting corridors, things that stay just out of sight but still harass the party, things that are the same shades as the walls around them until they start shifting. Their sight is limited and if you're clever you can play off that to still create an oppressive atmosphere.

>play Rogue
>party Ranger is half-brother
>scout ahead occasionally find treasure by myself
>divide loot fairly, evenly and accurately
>good natured country-boy (Rusty Cuyler inspired) who makes the party laugh and holds them together
That's how I Rogue
Never forget the War of Dwarven Aggression!

You know what "reined in a lot of" means, right? Which they did, casters and martials are competitive with each other, they're not at all like god wizards.

Can you please join my group

>playing in official D&D settings

derrrrrrp

Casters and martials are not even close to competitive, how can you say that? The fighter is still only good at full attacking, the wizard can still complete every encounter and still be useful out of fights

I'm not upset, I just think it's funny.
>How could Mearls fuck this up so badly?
Have you read ANY of the 5e rules?
>more ASIs than ever before
>but they cap at 20
>you can trade them for feats
>but the feats suck so much that half of them give ASIs
>max level is 20 cause we're too lazy to design epic-level shit
>and no one will use it anyway cause 90% of our fanbase nowadays are casuals who never make it past level 6

>I can't just make a dark clamped room from time to time or a corridor because I have to design around some dumb racial trait

boy oh boy
i get where you're coming from, but it severely limits the things i can present in the dark because i can't hide or use darkness as a tool because players still can 'kinda see' in the dark or resort to things specifically thought out to circle around something i can just take away
i can use those same elements to get around, say, a completely necessary torch or Light spell, but i also get the freedom of saying LIGHTS OUT and lights actually being out

i know exactly what you're telling me to do because i've already done it a thousand times and the reality is that the issue is still prevalent

i didn't ask "how do i design around darkvision?" because i already know that answer, i'm asking "what do i give to these 6 out of 9 races that get a free pass to ignore lighting so they don't end up with nothing?"

How do you even run a hexcrawl? How would you describe where you're going?

Going on additions to modules, the Tomb of Horrors seems like a definite shoe in to Tomb of Annihilation.

Of those I've played, I enjoyed PotA the most and OotA the least. SKT was OK but it has some very clear problems that a competent DM will work around, but you're in for some trouble if they don't.

A note on PotA, though, is that your players kind of have to like the dungeon crawl experience, since there are a LOT of sizable dungeons to go through. They are all very well done and there's plenty of stuff to get up to outside of that and in towns, however.

What were your issues with OOTA? I'm trying to salvage a game of it.

Competitive in that both are needed, you do realize this, right? The casters cannot solve encounters by themselves and given the numbers of bounded accuracy, the martials are also useful with skills.

Have you actually played 5e?

this. I never understood the appeal of the """"official"""" settings. Any DM worth his salt designs his own worlds.

>DMs what are somethings your players do that you can't stand?
The party trickery cleric constantly casts guidance on himself, and recently it's gotten to the point where he seems to just assume he has it always on. It's real goddamn annoying to remind him that he needs to cast Guidance in advance, and it's concentration so if he does that he loses whatever other spell he's got up (usually Pass Without Trace).

Remind your players that it only replaces darkness with dim light, so they still have disadvantage on Perception checks, and only see things in shades of grey.

As a DM
"Alright guys roll initiative."
Everyone yells out numbers to you and then adds their modifiers out loud all trying to talk over each other.

I think you will be happier in pfg, friend.

You can run a party of Druid/Cleric/Wizard/Sorc(Or Warlock) and do better than a party with any martials

Mostly I hate the Underdark and have issues with both the power level of things going on and the obvious nature of entities involved, only to find there's zero support from parties that should be interested, when FR is chock full of them. It's like China invading the US in a Red Dawn scenario and no state or federal agencies, including the military, decide to do anything. It's been three months since the Reds occupied your town and the President's wondering why there aren't any ball games to throw out the first pitch at.

Have those idiots never played a board game? If you have long arms, slap the lot of them in one smack and tell them to roll in the order they were smacked.

>thinking you are entitled to make a skill check

>The fighter is still only good at full attacking, the wizard can still complete every encounter and still be useful out of fights
LOL
This is how things are going to continue until wizards have nothing but at-will spells for piddling damage, a few shitty utilities, and nothing else, while fighters are literal gods who are immune to most wizard attacks. Martial players in 2017 are basically like black people: most of them weren't even around for the "persecution" that they claim to have suffered, and they demand ridiculous reparations in return for it. Most of them are weeaboos, which means they are human trash I wouldn't save from a car wreck if it had a winning lottery ticket in there, and they want D&D to be like the wuxia shit they jack off to all the time, and they try to pretend D&D is already a wuxia game due to 3.5 shenanigans and hit points bloat. Then if you tell them no they'll just call you a "caster supremacist" as if that's an argument, whine that the game isn't balanced when they chose a class whose stated purpose is fucking fighting (ever actually read the name of the class? FIGHTER?). Martial players' entitlement complex is unbelievable. They pretend Book of Nine Swords is an ideal outcome when all it did was make martials more complicated to play and still barely did anything to close the gap. Worse, it led to 4e which didn't even make fighters any better, it just made wizards worse and made everything into a bounded sterile MMO arena type game. Now wizards can actually do cool things again and people are getting salty over it. Just take away the wizard damage spells and give them back control/summoning, let fighter be the damage dealer and feel important. No wait he'll whine about summoning in these weird theory-crafted scenarios and use it as proof that "martials are still underpowered" when in fact they are the most privileged most sucked-off role in D&D.

>DMs what are somethings your players do that you can't stand?
Argue about rules. I'll make something up if I don't know a rule, then he tries to drive the game to a halt to search through rulebooks instead of just taking what I came up w ith

>Players what are somethings your DMs do that you can't stand?
Over use of introducing high level NPC's just to prove that there's op people in the world, every time we go somewhere we run into some guy that's really strong that just kinda sits around and does nothing

You're a good sport.

Go luck with that party and concentration saves.
Good luck when you run out of spells.

>give players their initiative trackers when it's time for combat
>everyone rolls and adds their own shit
>passes them back and you place them in order

So use magical darkness, the issue with trying to take something like this away is most people will throw a fit because of it. I get it is very annoying because it takes away that tool, but it's something people expect so you have to get creative.

Who said anything about nerfing wizards? I want paladins, fighters, and monks to be as useful as they are.
Yeah the biggest issue my players have faced so far is that they really do not feel like they are capable of influencing what is going on at all, like they are just sort of along for the ride.

i'm too lazy to check
can someone else cast a Detect Pasta spell on this post

Hexcrawl is my favorite adventure mate.

A hexcrawl can be just scouting/exploration mission, or the players know vaguely where they want to go but not exactly where.

Each Hex takes a day of travel, faster if they travel by road, slower if they travel through difficult terrain.

There are different rules for random encounters, but what I like to do is roll once per hex, 2d6. If you roll an encounter, I roll what time of day it attacks. (night ambush, or distant sighting) And roll what kind of encounter it is. The big trick here is not every encounter is going to be combat, sometimes its social or a weather event or something like that. If they roll a 1 I have a hard encounter, if they roll snake eyes I have a deadly encounter.

And if they don't want to fight, they can flee. No shame in it, especially when they mark the area on the map and come back later with an extra level or two.

To find what they're after, they can follow landmarks to know they are going the right way. Survival checks to follow them or follow tracks. If they roll really well, they might find treasure too. And when they get to the destination, then its like a regular game of dnd.

One main thing is not to make it like a vidia game random encounter thing, but more of a "this world is alive and dangerous" thing. You could even have reoccurring villains attack them and such.

dont know if it's pasta but it is absolutely bait.

It's most likely a pasta, and if it isn't a pasta, it will become one in the future.

Pathfinder sucks ass, though. I ran it today, it's basically a game of whac-a-mole where they make overpowered characters with 3pp stuff, as a dumb-ass I allow some of it, and they end up broken as fuck, then I have to railroad characters I actually like into dying cause they are fucking up the balance of the game. I'm currently trying to bring my pathfinder campaign to a bloody ending, preferably at the hands of a demon that I "accidentally" forgot had a spell that could kill most of them.

>tfw dming a group of 3 martials
>don't have to worry about gay spellcasters fucking my encounters up

based martials

>Hexcrawl is my favorite adventure mate.
This. Your hexcrawl rules are solid, too.
>if they roll a 1
You mean a 12? Curious, sorry. I do like your method. I usually rolled 3d6 but that's cause I had a ton of encounters on my table.

It's not, I just typed it. Sorry if every post that isn't reddit-spaced and longer than 50 words, is now "bait" or "pasta".

Is Lamentations of the Flame Princess based on 5e rules?

Sounds pretty cool and fun af, bro. Seems like I need to familiarize myself with hexcrawl exploration rules. I intend to change up the premise of ToA somewhat to have the players explore a returned land, with Event Horizon in mind, and investigate why adventurers are disappearing.

I just make martials capable of crazy heroic feats in my games, the stuff you read about in mythology books. Splitting open a door with just your fist? Sure, roll strength. Throwing an cottage at a dragon? Go for it.

I wish those three good luck.

It's based on the old Moldvay Basic/Expert D&D rules with tightened up mechanics, but you can probably easily convert most of the monsters in that book, save for a few of the stranger abilities.

ToA has solid hex crawl rules.

For reference: encounters are checked for three times a day (morning, afternoon, and night), roll a d20, encounter on an 18 or higher. ToA also has a *massive* d100 table of random encounters divided by terrain and undead presence.

There's a kickstarter, kickstarter.com/projects/cardamajigs/the-deck-of-many-dnd-5e-reference-cards/description , for just this sort of thing. But then, there's a kickstarter for essentially everything.

This sounds fucking nice, I'm hyped as fuck. My body is ready.

Is it lame or cheesy if I have the PCs meet a Professor Jones?

You don't even have to go as far as hyperhuman feats like mythological characters. Settling just for the kind of things that CHARACTERS IN THE BOOKS D&D WAS PATTERNED AFTER, like Conan and John Carter, is enough to make martials useful.

The martial in your D&D campaign is the star of a 70s-90s action film. He's Jack Burton, he's John McClane, he's Dutch, he's Casey Ryback.

Aye, the ToA hexcrawl rules are sweet.

2d6, so if they roll a 1 on either dice, hard encounter.

If they roll two 1s, or snake eyes, Deadly.

I know a lot of people roll a d12 and do 11 hard and 12 deadly.

Yes.

because one of your players will want to be indy

>Each Hex takes a day of travel, faster if they travel by road, slower if they travel through difficult terrain.
>There are different rules for random encounters, but what I like to do is roll once per hex, 2d6
Only one encounter per day? Do you the gritty realism rules from the DMG? Only one encounter per day would make spellcasters and paladins too strong, combat would devolve to rocket tag

>Is it lame or cheesy if I have the PCs meet a Professor Jones?
not if you make sure he has a gnome sidekick.

Acid, I suspect.

>get ToA
>power read through it
>get mega hyped to run it
>realize my players are excited to play but i am currently running them through a homebrew campaign
>they are having a blast in it
>hear voices in my head telling me to have rocks fall

bros... what do i do....

As someone who enjoys playing martials i don't want my martials doing wuxia stuff. I want them to be awesome, but believably awesome.

they're gonna be joined by some others in our next sessions (people that missed session 1), one of them is a gay (literally) caster player and the other is a min maxer that will pick cleric or druid because we dont have a healer.

no magic items for those two though

What's the most busted official race, in your opinion? I'm working with my DM to port a 3.5 race over and want to make sure I don't overdo it by comparing it to some of the stronger existing races.

Ahh I see. That's really good, user. I'm going to start using hard-core random encounters in my next campaign. Need some good "evasion" rules though first.

In DnD, I think throwing a small house is believable if the wizard can do it with a spell.

>70s-90s action film
No, this is what you get to be. Martial characters can only be the generic town guard people

Variant Human
Half-Elf
Yuant-Ti Pureblood

What kinda things can you do with level 3 fast hands for thief?

My DM thinks kobolds are the most busted race.

In my opinion, variant humans and the bird people race are the most broken. Free feats and free flying are too good.

ask them if they wanna take a break from the first campaign to run ToA, run it on the timer that's in the book and it'll end eventually. If they wanna run through it again to see everything then set that up after more of the homebrew

Take a break and run ToA

I can live with this.
Inb4 someone wants to play a druid always wildshaped in dog form.

What if it's the Aqua Dr Jones?

Yuan-ti, aaracokra, and variant human if you go PHB

Then you'll like 5e, mate.

Well, a decent amount of time traveling through a hex, they DON'T encounter anything. Only when they roll and get an encounter. Remember, an enounter doesn't necessarily need to be a combat encounter or a fight to the death even. It could just be a Wyrvern trying for easy prey, then fucking off when it realizes it messed with the wrong blokes.

Yes, if you want a balanced hexcrawl you have to use slower healing and class features back. You could use gritty realism for overland travel, then regular rules when you get into a town/dungeon/tomb.

Thanks mate. Remember they can be weather, trap, social, or environmental encounters, not just combat. When it is combat, you could evade by intimidating them, stealthing past, or just running.

Not half elf? What the fuck.

Literally the first post you quoted buddy.
Get those eyes checked.

More posts need to hang shit on half elves.

I've put myself into a corner with my recent character. Its a tiefling shadow monk... I know - its edgy, but that's the only way your character will get accepted on roll20. Anyways, the only way I think I can make my character useful is by going 2 levels in warlock and casting darkness w/ devil sight and shit. Any tips? Any loving advice?

Asimar Mystic, i suspect