/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

What are the best classes for political intrigue style campaigns? That means lots of RP, little combat (against monsters), a decent amount of skill cheks etc.
Subtelty is required on the player's part, which means you can't be walking around in full plate carrying greatswords, or really be much armed at all.

Have you tried not being a little bitch? Jeez, hundreds of parties completed this adventure just fine.

Mobilty? Missing an I there, user.

Why not just swashbuckler?

How does hexcrawling actually work fluff wise? I'd want to describe things not just have them enter a hex, how would I do that?

You do know familiars are an option, right?

Besides, killing the shambling mound is easy.

Why would you pick DnD, a game primarily about combat, with zero mechanics for intrigue and meaningful social interaction, but instead with a lot of spells that can trivialize any intrigue and secrecy?
I'm not usually one of those "Stop playing DnD" fags, but in your case, you've picked a very bad system for what you want to play.

Rogue, Bard, Wizard, Warlock, Druid, Sorcerer, Paladin if they can get away with presenting as a knight.

Seems pretty simple.

I think author-user doesn't likes the motiff, name and focus of the swash.

Asking again:

How would a PC theoretically cut the tongue out of a powerful evil wizard's mouth and stop him from regenerating it?

How is it supposed to be easy for a party of level 1 or 2 PCs?

Not him, but out of curiosity: Which system would you suggest using instead?

The sexes are mainly for the ease of judging travel distances, distinguishing terrain, and helping keep track of locations in an easily segmented way.

Describing it is still a matter of the players heading along a road and seeing what they see. They have no real in-character basis for knowing where a hex starts and stops, just changing terrain and distance traveled. In some cases, you may not even need to show them the hex map at all

It doesn't seem unbalanced, which is good, it just seems very specific. Which also not bad, if you're catering to someone in your group who is really excited for that exact concept. Otherwise, you have a rogue with some other stuff pulled from other classes, and that cares about Wisdom when the other archetypes don't, so it's something you'd plan for from character generation.

Would it be feasible or even possible to remake the Bard into a half-caster like the Ranger and Paladin?

Why not just kill him?

For what purpose?

Each hex represents a portion of the world, like a desert oasis, a small town or a portion of a forest. Fluff wise, traveling from one hex to another represents a certain amount of time spent traveling and exploring, discovering the secrets hidden there or fighting the inhabitants.

Somethin sharp

Ah, sweet, that makes things a bit easier. Thanks bro!

Making sure he doesn't have access to high level healing spells

So that it isn't a full caster

Literally anything else. World of Darkness has rules for social interaction and intrigue, but the system is terrible. Everyone knows that. Legend of the Five Rings has fucking spectacular rules for social combat (Sincerity is one of the offensive skills you can use), but you might need to divorce it from it's setting. It's not that hard, though.

>hexcrawl is the point
well, yes and no. refer to . Ben Robbins states he did not run West Marches as a hexcrawl. at its core, West Marches is a safe, adventureless home base that necessitates travel beyond the known area.
search itmejp + West Marches on youtube for an example also not run as a hexcrawl.
they don't have to be mindless adventures, i think ideally there are multiple plot threads and the players decide through gameplay which are most important, more so than you as GM saying plot A, plot B, etc.
however a West Marches hexcrawl gamist simulator is right up my own dicefag alley and I think can be lots of fun, depends on your players

For what purpose?

Because bard is just not supposed to be on wizard/cleric/druid level, and you know it.

Because I would rather it not be?

They'll be level 3 at that point. Ranged attacks and chokepoint abuse make it too easy.

...

No, you get level 3 if you sacrifice something, or when you escape the house.

Why would you rather it not be?

First, they are supposed to be level 3 at this point. Second, shambling mound is easily killed by virtually any control spell. Like Tasha's hideous laughter, which is available at level 1.
This is exactly how we killed it, by the way.

After a long wait, here goes the image.
Session is coming up right now.

It guy with flute, whose main purpose it to sing and seduce tavern wenches. How is it that he has spellcasting capabilites of someone who dedicated his entire life to studying arcane?

Because thematically it's supposed to be more of a jack of all trades. It isn't supposed to be as good at magic as the full magic classes. Just a half step, as with the fighter and thief. The advantage is being able to mix then.

>Gith PC options
Why? They're monsters who live in the astral plane, are way more powerful than the typical PC race, have crazy paionoc powers and would view humans as livestock. How would this ever work in a party AND retain the badassness of actual Gith monsters?

>battlefield instinct would need to be changed too
To what? +proficiency to init?
>They still use a reaction.
True, I guess I'm blind/dumb. However, I still posit that the maneuvers are better than uncanny dodge, which makes mymidon more flexible in its options. You can choose to spend superiority dice on damage or on survivability.

I'll do an errata and grammar/spell check when I get home.

Not everyone wants to buckle swashes, or play a charismatic Zorro type.

It's a fire emblem game, and I didn't feel like the class had a close enough expy in anything existing.

Thanks heaps, bro, that makes visually it a lot easier.

tomb of annihilation when?

...

How well do the mass combat rules from UA work? I kinda want to try this large pool of players as members of the army idea.

I have a player that wants to be a Cleric of Sharess, a god that as of yet hasn’t been mentioned in 5th edition for obvious reasons. My wiki search hasn’t revealed too much about their followers, does anyone have any off hand knowledge, of where I can look for it?

You're retarded. Swashbuckler is perfect for FE's Myrmidon, especially when your alternative gives proficiency in fucking greatswords.

Because there is power in stories and you'd be surprised how much information you can gather if you talk to enough people. That and who says that's how every bard is? Just because you believe in some stereotype you feel a class shouldn't have x or y? Tell us where the bard touched you Mr. Wizard

Fair enough but wizards can be Jack of all trades with spells so I still don't see the problem.

Going to cut through being obtuse- you should have a good reason to tinker with something like that. The easy, and sometimes correct, choice is to not fool with it. But if you really want to play that changed class or something, knock yourself out. Sounds tough, though.

Size does nothing for the unit rating meaning a full sized unit of ogres will lose horrifically, barely scoring casualties, against a full unit of berserkers.

It seems messy. I had a large scale combat encounter and wound "automating" the non-PC stuff rather than turn it into a different game.

>Fair enough but wizards can be Jack of all trades with spells so I still don't see the problem

Wizards would also be something I'd care to fix, though they at least don't get expertise and a lot of melee capacitt on top of their baseline.

Still, I find it hard to understand what you're not getting about this. I want the dabbler to be focused less on raw power and more on a wide skillset

>swashbuckler is perfect for FE Myrmidon.
No? Myrmidon are generally quiet, serious characters with some kind of social retardation. They're not (usually) charismatic rakes.

That and Myrmidons are usually dodge-tanks, and take advantage of multiple attacks and high crit chance. A think Swashbuckler doesn't do anything for.

>fucking greatswords.
Myrmidons have blanket sword proficiency. I guess you could call it as an abstraction, but it doesn't matter that much.

>To what? +proficiency to init?
Maybe. Alternatively, ditch it, since there's already a feature at that level.
Speaking of, level 13 seems a little overloaded. Upgraded superiority die, extra attack and relentless?
>I still posit that the maneuvers are better than uncanny dodge,
Myrmidon's Dodge, maybe, since it's an AC boost. Parry, not really. Riposte, definitely, since it's another Sneak Attack chance, though rogues can just take a feat for that.
>Not everyone wants to buckle swashes,
That's what refluffing is for.

Yeah, I didn't figure it would be easy, since that's a lot of spells and class features that would be need to be shifted around to make it scale properly.

oh shit its actually there. I thought it was a meme thing cause it loaded so fast, jeez. either way HELL YEAH DINOSAURS MOTHER FUCKERS WOOOOOOOOOO

New to DMing, and really want to make a world map for my PCs. Problem is I'm really bad at drawing.

What do you guys use to make maps?

That's just it though the bard is built to do that, with the way it's set up they can cover the weaknesses of your other spell casters. Say you have a cleric and a wizard, the cleric has some healing but also grabs some damage, the wizard grabs damage with little cc. The bard can help by grabbing a bit of the weak spots like cc and some extra healing to lighten the load on the other spellcasters.

It's still a jack of all trades

You do realize that your character and class are distinct entities, right? There is nothing wrong with playing a broody and mysterious i.e. fag swashbuckler.

>No? Myrmidon are generally quiet, serious characters with some kind of social retardation. They're not (usually) charismatic rakes
Not all fighters are knights
Not all wizards are old men in towers
Not all bards are musicians
Not all rogues are edgy hide in shadows slice throats guys
Not all swashbucklers are pirates

Just because a class has a name doesn't mean you have to follow that name

'jack of all trades, master of mine's does not mean that you fill in equally well for whatever spell the actual master in your party chose not to pick up.

The ideal should be the Bard making do with lower level spells he picked up from elsewhere, with the advantage that he can mix them together in ways a full caster could not, alongside his more martial talents.

It's the exact sort of class that's begging to be a half caster.

>Not all bards are musicians
Wait, aren't they? They even have musical instrument proficiency as class feature and they can use it as fucking spell focus.

Also, swashbuckler explicitly uses charisma for class feature. (But admittedly, that is easy enough to change.)

>Can it be done without sacrificing interesting storylines and not being a hex-crawl?
user, the very basis of West Marches is hex-crawl with sandbox going on. By not having those two things, it's no longer WM game.

I'm definitely interested in reading more about this setting and PDF as you update it. Will you regularly be posting it in these threads? Because Endless Legend is a favorite game of mine and I would love to run a game in Auriga

So do sorcerers and warlocks, but they aren't inherently charismatic.

>ditch instincts.
Not really something I want to do, since Myrmidons are supposed to be fast alpha strikers, but perhaps they don't need it since they focus so much in dexterity.

If I did happen to trash instincts, should I move extra attack or relentless down to 9?

>refluffing
How do you refluff panache??

>your character and class are distinct entities.
Kind of? In the same way that your ability scores and your character are desperate entities. They're supposed to be representative of something about your character or their training/capability.

I still haven't found anything I prefer over pencil and paper. It boils down to squiggly shapes anyways, and other methods you have to learn how to use.

Inkarnate has potential for laymen, but it's in development last I checked it out. But don't stress out over fake geography too hard.

Bards don't need to use instruments, any good DM will let you swap out the instrument for some other equally fun thing, like inspiring speeches, jokes, or whatever.

>bunch of fuckos stuck in the middle of nowhere with just the clothes on their back
>wander for days without finding civilization and nearly die to wild animals and goblin-looking things which we barely fend off with sharp sticks
>decide to stay put and make a camp while we heal up, make some ghetto wooden equipment
>party is making stone tools under direction of our dwarf fighter
>ranger with a carpenter background is doing some light forestry and making a leanto
>wizard seriously regretting his decision to not know Mending
>four days in and the dwarf is producing metallic iron and copper from alluvial sands at the bottom of the river
>week two and he's successfully tanned wolf leather with a bunch of fucking berries
>wizard continues to regret his lack of appreciable survival skills, worldly knowledge, and dry socks
>ranger has created wooden breastplates
>bard has an entire brace of disposable rapier-sticks
>dwarf and ranger have macuahuitls and somehow manufactured a crossbow
>wizard has a spellbook made of bark and a rock with tiny specks of quartz for an arcane focus
>dwarf trying to convince us that searching for a way out is too dangerous when we could stay put and make a wall out of mud and clay
>says he has plans for a tower
>pretty sure there's an evil sorcerer overrunning a kingdom somewhere but we're all in the woods playing some kind of tabletop survival game

>Not all wizards are old men in towers
I have yet to see a PC wizard that this is true of and frankly it would be refreshing at this point

I mean, is there a way to update it and adapt the idea to a more story-driven game, basically?

How'd you get in that situation, and why is all that preferable to just leaving? It seems neat and makes me want to do more heavy survival stuff, but things never really seem to work out that way.

>should I move extra attack or relentless down to 9?
I'd say drop both of them, too. You get one feature at each archetype milestone, not two or three.
>How do you refluff panache??
Against hostile creatures, it's just a taunt. Against non-hostile creatures its convincing someone you're their friend. There's no specifically piratey fluff there.

My favourite bards are variant class from 3.5, where you are a bard, but you're also REALLY into religion.
youtu.be/_FdnA4SyYzE

All you have to do is ignore literally one word out of this description and it fits perfectly.

Paladin/Bard multiclass is basically that. It does Paladin better than 20 levels of Paladin does.

>pretty sure there's an evil sorcerer overrunning a kingdom somewhere but we're all in the woods playing some kind of tabletop survival game

>ranger's face

Not really.

So Improved Monk Movement lets you move up walls and over water, but can you break up the movement between turns? I.E. 45 feet up one turn, 45 on your next, and then dash onto the top?

It kinda doesn't make much sense for 1st level noob to have tower and impressive beard.

>jack of all trades, master of mine

what

No.

I made one like that, but he was just a middle aged hobgoblin. Paranoid misanthrope diviner.

We were present at the culmination of some magical ritual and, like idiots, decided to throw a wrench into the works instead of watching it unfold after the much stronger guards failed to stop this guy or simply running away. Whatever it did when we broke everything zapped us somewhere else, though we have wondered if perhaps we're dead and this is just a really terrible fugue plane or crappy afterlife.

Staying put seems nice because we've gotten our asses kicked in every random encounter trying to find our way out and once we sat down to try and kludge together some redneck equipment out of trees and rocks, half the party got addicted to seeing how closely they could replicate actual equipment with things found on the forest floor. We're a few dead turtles away from turning into a Dark Sun adventuring group, equipment-wise.

I kind of want to see how far we can take this and if we can build a forest fortress and subjugate these goblin tribes to do our bidding. It would be nice to roll up on the asshole responsible while looking like a bunch of hobos at the head of a small goblin-thing army.

Isn't Warlock or Sorcerer even better?

None, in case it wasnt obvious

You're an old man because learning magic is hard and the tower is your master's. Frankly, I think one of the places D&D went wrong is settings where Teen Arthur can be as good at magic as Geriatric Merlin if only he kills enough rats in the tavern basement and graduates to goblins and bugbears before the summer's over.

Great argument
Sorcerer maybe, warlock is just weird. The paladin is only good at one or two things, which are dealing lots of damage in one hit from smite and Aura of Protection.

>Master, you called for me?
>Ah yes, mr.Dwarfson, have a seat. Now, I need you to deal with a particular group of individuals
>How so, master?
>They may try to interfere with my conquest of Velunia.
>That sounds terrible mr.Sorcerer.
>Indeed. Thus I have left this task to you, my most loyal servant.
>Well gee, thank you master.
>Just be careful mr.Dwarfson. These are highly skilled adventurers.
>Highly skilled? Then how am I supposed to keep them occupied for long enough?
>...
>Camping trip?

...

Gives them a ranged option and more short rest spell slots for more smiting, plus other various options.

Anyone ever make a game that takes place during wartime? How'd you have the PCs make meaningful contributions?

Raid them baggage trains, son.

>More martial talents
Unless choosing valor bard, a bard is better off not doing much martial stuff since none of the bards features help in that aspect at all. I get it's triggering you that they built the bard to be decent but maybe you should just ban them because you'll have to completely redesign their base features to even match what you're claiming they do.