/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

The paladin falls when they think they've fallen. Generally, unless they do something REALLY fucking heinous that gets their patron (if they're a godly paladin) to step in and slap them down personally, the only way to get a paladin to fall is to convince them that they've fucked up and broken their oaths, in letter and spirit.

note: this is generally a very bad idea if you aren't capable of defeating either an equivalent level blackguard or VERY angry fighter

I currently own just the PHB from like, 3 years ago but I want some more hard copies to have. PDFs suck badly

Which ones should I buy first?

Doing something against your oath shouldn't meet with immediate punishment if it's not some huge thing. I'd do something similar to how I treat a cleric doing something that's against their god's wishes, where a first offense is more of a visual "what the hell bro, cut the crap". A holy symbol might tarnish and eventually crack, becoming unusable without necessarily revoking the character's powers directly. Holy symbols are made by other worshipers of a deity or followers of an oath, and they're not going to just give you a new one if you fucked up and made their team look bad or upset their god. The symbol repairs itself over time if you return to serving your oath even without all your abilities.

oh thanks! i don't suppose you know how many sessions it is?

What's the lifespan on orcs?

>implying male dwarves would blame themselves for that

>marauding bands of baby-crazed Dwarf babes knocking over peasant villages and raping the shit out of the local farmhands
Too kink for the 90s, user.

generally about two or three rounds, depending on how long the PCs take to close in and if they have ranged options

That could make a great twist

>The entire female dwarven population has been GRUDGED

We are talking Ed Greenwood, user.

user, that's a good way to get the Dwarves to take over the fucking world.
>BY MORADIN'S BEARD OUR DICKS DON'T WORK
>TIME TO COMPENSATE BY BECOMING HYPERVIOLENT AND EXPANSIONIST

No idea. I have the book at home but I imagine it's about as long as Castle Ravenloft + Amber Temple?

>ironbreaker incels walking around tipping their gromril fedoras
m'dawi

First time GM trying to run the lord of lance rock encounter from Princes of the apocalypse.

One my players got in over his head and fell into an enemy trap and died to crawling hands. As the Boss is a necromancer, the corpse was raised.

The group retreated to town. They returned the next day with a new character and are now level 2. They defeated all minions bar their undead friend. I would like to make the undead former PC a bit more special without fucking over the actual PCs. He was a dwarf hunter.
Any suggestions would be appreicated.

My PotA game had a Paladin die to the dragon turtle and we found him raised as a Blackguard-type thing under the thrall of a necromancer at the top of Feathergale Spire. He smote us for Necrotic damage a lot.

That's obviously not applicable to a shitty level 2 guy with a bow, but there's barely any features there to work with to begin with. It's a zombie (not even rotted yet) with a bow, I assume.

Give it resistance to bludgeoning damage and have it GOOD LUCK I'M BEHIND 3 SKELETONS.

What would be a good challenging fight for 2 lvl1 pcs

Two goblins

Give him the benefit of the equipment he had on him. The zombie has +1 STR mod an +2 proficiency. Alternatively, take the PC's stats and apply modifiers to them (+str, +con, -dex, -cha, -wis, -int).

Maybe the zombie still has a small memory of life left, and if the players try to talk to him and appeal to something important to him (like showing him a painting of his wife), allow the player to return as a revenant PC bent on protecting their loved one.

So my players are likely going to die. Weekly CoS sessions and they are heading into Castle Ravenloft at around level 7 with only the Sun Sword.

Whether they win or lose, what should I run next? I'll be in the DM seat again, likely. Only thing off the table is Tomb of Annihilation, as that is for later. Should I just do some homebrew shit or is there another adventure worth running?

Curse of Strahd again, but this time there's two of him.

He could be the only undead there fighting with tactics. He backs away, keeps to range, stays in an elevated spot, positions himself so that the PCs can't run at him without provoking AoOs from other undead, uses terrain hazards (shoots out the rotten rope of a chandelier, causing it to fall on PCs and make the room dark).

Your goal is to tell a good story, not to assemble a game of Mouse Trap and let the PCs kill themselves with their stupidity on the third turn. I'm not saying you have to hold their hand and baby them to a great victory at the end, but you do have options to guide them towards playing the rest of the module and not have all that time you guys spent previously go "to waste" on an unsatisfying TPK.

The PCs are fated to fight Strahd in a specific place. They are not fated to fight him in a specific WHEN. They go to Ravenloft and Strahd is... out, doing Darklord shit. Something came up. They may or may not see him leave. If Strahd is aware they're in the castle, he might be leaving them to their own devices as yet another test; perhaps he hasn't decided that they're unworthy to succeed him yet, and knows that a confrontation at this point would be murderous to them, or he needs to deal with a greater threat (like van Richten doing some shit).

Thanks, user. That seems fair.

Thank you. The player has made a new character, but that could lead to a funny story.

That's a nice mechanical change. Thank you.

I forgot to mention that he would regularly be playing his bagpipes and was thought to be a menace throughout the land.

Never considered it before, but it seems like a good idea to me.

Or, as a semi-serious answer if you feel like fucking with your players:
Curse of Strahd again, with them using the knowledge they've gained.
Strahd remembers as well

DM's who are running TOA, how did you got your players to go after Omu?

They meet some important character on the way the warns them that they are really not ready and should not face Strahd right now

>I forgot to mention that he would regularly be playing his bagpipes and was thought to be a menace throughout the land.
The PC's not there. He was raised and sent on a mission outside of Lance Rock, one befitting his skill and power as a higher level undead. The PCs defeat the necromancer and find no trace of their friend, giving them hope.

As they continue through the module and grow in strength, start dropping plot hooks about poor villages being attacked by a baleful noise and crazed animals. They'll think something else is going on, but that's when you drop the grand reveal on them: it's their old friend, now some kind of super-zombie, still carrying out his old orders but as some kind of hyper-competent Undead Pied Piper with Sonic and Fear attacks and a host of enthralled wildlife.

Strahd leaves and has a shitload of minions attack them to try and steal the sunsword. Strahd knows they have it and he doesn't want anything to do with that shit.

>magical realm

That's brilliant. When the mists descend on the moors, ghostly bagpipes wail in the distance...

Hey guys, so I am trying to convert my little buddies the phase wasps into 5e. Pretty simple so far, but I am trying to figure out how best to replicate their magic missile ability. The idea of it would be that they would shoot magic missiles, it'd take a couple rounds to recharge, then they'd shoot them again. This way they'd still have a reason to use their sting attack.

Now, the most obvious and rules-friendly way to model this in 5e is with innate spellcasting, which I have done. But would it be "weird" to have it be a recharge 5-6 ability (or maybe recharge 6) where the phase wasp "creates an effect that functions as the spell magic missile" (i hate how that sounds). Especially because magic missile is even better in 5e than in 3.5, at least at level 1. Or should I just make it a once-per-day innate spellcasting? What do you guys think. I really want to preserve the "feel" of the 3.5 monsters but I also understand they are different games and I want the mechanics and rulestext to fit the formatting and "feel" of 5e.

>As a result of a failed arcana check to inspect a spooky looking dragon, /mydude/ got distracted and found a book on how to create very small undead.
I've now got Create Small Undead as a cantrip, /5eg/. Gimme some ideas on fucking shit up with very small walking dead.

That's brilliant. Thank you very much. I'll do some variation based on that.

>Aesiri Kalinoth and the Wind Cult have appropriated the Dread Piper and use his sonic assaults for further evil

Depends if the DM will let you use them for a help action, or if you have a Rogue and they'll get sneak attack for the undead standing next to an enemy. Could also use them as alluha snackbars and put glyphs of warding in them that activate when they break/get close to an enemy.

>player declares himself the main character and hero of the party

>Sneak attack
AGH JESUS FUCK A RODENT OF TOTALLY USUAL SIZE NOW I'M DISTRACTED AND CAN BE STABBED IN THE BACK BY THIS LARGE MAN

Let them do it. Let Strahd fuck their asses, but let the last surviving player flee. Maybe with the sun sword, maybe without it.

Nah that's a bit retarded. OP's players are probably newbies who think this is a vidya where they can go fight the "main boss" right away. Teaching them a lesson is fun and should be savored but don't rub it in.

This isn't a bad option. Depends on how you want things to play out OP. Depends how much you like the characters they created.

Personally not a fan of these.

>Had someone do this
>Next time they needed me to pull their ass out the fire simply shouted to them
>But you're the hero of the party! You got this
Eventually did save him, it's nice being the only arcane caster some days.

You try not being distracted by an undead rodent climbing your leg towards your junk.

Rip off castlevania. Put a big fuckoff bad guy in front of the castle that almost wrecks their shit, like a giant wolf or something. Get it in their head that if just fighting the gatekeeper is this rough, maybe they should hold off on the final boss.

Oh gee, my players were about to spank Strahd with Sunlight, but a quick bullshit reveal later and they learned what happens to the electromagnetic spectrum when you cast Invisibility upon yourself

I was and , mostly just suggested 'em for shits and gigs
>he doesn't whip the party into shape and take them from a wandering band of bounty hunters and miscreants to the most famed heroes in the land, beloved by all and possessors of their own pages in the annals of history while hoarding ancient necromantic and magical lore to become a kickass skelly and do it all over again with their descendants every few generations in a futile attempt to recapture that spark he felt when they first met in a dusty old tavern

What, ironically?

>DM seizes on a tiny detail of my PC's background in PotA and blows it up, making him possibly very important in the world (but not so much to the campaign)
>campaign gets put on hold due to scheduling conflicts, but we play other campaigns with different players that are also in FR and the same region
>PCs and events from the PotA campaign are apparently chugging along in the background
>in SKT, we run into a Knight from the Keep that our PotA party took over, now representing THE TRUE DWARF-KING OF BESILMAR RESURGENT
>Iymrith (and the Kraken Cult, separately) were also doing something spooky involving Olhydra, the water Prince from PotA
>at the end of SKT, King Hekaton gifts the dwarf PC the Wyrmskull Throne and bids him find a "worthy dwarflord to bestow it upon", so he's now wandering around meeting with all the important dwarves (and ostensibly the PotA PC)
>our CoS party got its start by being sent on quest from the former secretary of an SKT character who is now tied in with the PotA group as well
I fully expect we'll start PotA again at some point as a much higher level campaign by making the titular Princes more powerful than the base adventure gives the impression of, and all the bits and pieces of this multi-campaign "cinematic universe" will come back into play.

5e dies have recharge rules.

If you're worried about the damage output, just make it a single dart.

>He's not actually wrong

>tfw your PC realizes he's an isekai protag

>the rest of the party considers you the leader and the hero
>you just wanna cast spells and dick innocent bystanders

Too bad, user. You're going to save the kingdom, marry the princess, and live happily ever after, and you're going to LIKE it.

Tell me anons, what are YOUR backup character plans for ToI? About to get started on a tortle mystic and githzeri monk myself in case my kobold eats it, and I'm curious as to what other people plan on doing if their first character gets blasted in to the night.

>plans for ToI
Tomb of Inhalation?

Getting fucking lit.

*ToA, fuck, question still stands, what are the fallbacks

>5e dies have recharge rules.
Yeah that's what I was originally doing, was a recharge 5-6. But I'm not sure if that's a "faux pas" of monster design, to just say "it casts magic missile as the spell" or if it's more "right" to put it under innate spellcasting.

friend wants to play a kobold ranger
how do I maximize the amount of regret he feels about this

At least you get to dick the princess.

>doing a new campaign with a new team
>lone wolf ranger
>dick ass thief
>antisocial wizard
>i made a lawful good fighter
I ended up making the only character in our team with any kind of morals or impetus to get anything done outside of spending time at the tavern snarling in a corner or stealing from poor townsfolk. Just by default I ended up being the main character. I was the only saying anything more than one word quips to NPCs. I was the only one doing anything outside of looting corpses or ruminating on arcana.

>all this happens
>ranger at the end complains that I spent too much time on my character and nobody else got to do anything
I fucking prompted you guys all the time, I'd let the DM idle for a bit after one of his NPCs spoke. I gave them time, but they only wanted to steal, read, or brood. We're playing a team game of adventure you dickweeds. Not too mention they were the types to just go pure numbers for combat and added no flair. The "I rolled a 19 for hit, and 6 for damage, that's it." kind of people.

why would you wanna spite your friend?

I mean, he's already gonna feel real bad once he starts playing the ranger. Isn't that enough?

Tell me about your kobold.
Also, I will use the grung rogue surrogate should my lizardfolk druid dies

Well, it's your fault he was able to. If you didn't want him to play a kobold you should have said so. I understand your plight though. I let one of my players play a kobold in an otherwise standard campaign and I just put limits on how much he could reasonably interact with people. He ended up hating the campaign because I required him to deception check and persuasion check almost every non monstrous NPC. I did put them in a kobold lair at one point, but the rogue of their party ended up turning it into a blood bath before the kobold player could do anything.

>Trying to align my map to the hex grid on roll20
>It keeps fucking changing from where I placed it
>Take like 30 minutes cropping images, etc...
>All I had to do was hold tab...

Fuck... meant hold Alt

How does a character shit wearing a cursed full plate?

Butt hatch, like onesie pajamas.

They don't, it's like that one episode of billy and mandy

The butthole is always completely unarmored.

It's part of the curse.

>kobold artificer, hopes to open a trap shop/ personal defense contracting shop when this chult thing is all over
> helped from saving our Druid from a pit trap and some sort of koala with mange last session
>Obsessed with self defense and preparedness
> has set bear traps and caltrops around the room in kaya's house of repose after a pseudo dragon came warning of danger

He's also sort of become the trip planner and note taker for the time being, even managed to get the party fighter in to the colloseum despite a -1 in charisma. Been enjoying things so far, but we've been having a deaths door per session lately so I've been getting a touch worried. Thankfully pack tactics plus gun artificer means I can still be useful to the team despite having 5 str and the general problems that come with being an artificer.

It probably is. Look at medieval kings like Henry VIII of England who had multiple wives, still struggled to produce any healthy offspring but apparantly it was because all six of them were """""""""barren""""""""" and definately not because the king's trebuchet was firing blanks.

>Henry was actually virile
>just a bad run of unlucky barren wives
>history will remember him as impotent
henry had a hard life.

>Barren
I thought it was because none of them gave him a son, which is fully on his part of biology but at the time was believed to be the woman's.

is this okay?

Gnoll Paladin.
His flaw is "I hunger, still."

Seems fine to me. Btw magic missile is V, S

Well he still only produced three kids, one of which was extremely sickly and died as a child, despite having six wives and by all accounts, an active sex life, at least in his younger years.

Doesn't say much for the state of his little swimmers.

True, misremembered what it was because the education here in bum fuck Midwest is just the best on the planet Earth :^). Spent time trying to relearn shit that was outright wrong but still get mixed up.

do you think it's worth including "verbal or somatic" as well?

Tell me about your favorite uncommon/exotic race character that you were in a party with.

>as a 1st level spellcaster.
Did you mean "as a 1st level spell."? Either way, when casting a spell at its native slot level you're better off not even mentioning the level.

>Sting. [...] one creature.
Should probably be "one target" if you want to be able to sting non-creatures like doors or windows.

Celestial Warlock is the most boring snowflake-y shit i have ever seen. This and Samurai is a waste of space.

...

Ok, anons, I finally got into a Roll20 table, players and DM are fairly new to 5e.
Setting is Eberron and I'm rolling a Dwarf Cleric of Moradin, with the Acolyte background.
Elves and Dwarves are so apart in the setting that I need reasons to know the elvish language, can anyone help me?
Alternatively, other languages that make sense for a Hill Dwarf to know.

Currently thinking something around being a Cleric meant I traveled the world, which lead me to contact with elves and their language.

You are fucking delusional. The only person being irrational is you.

>Setting is Eberron and I'm rolling a Dwarf Cleric of Moradin
Moradin doesn't exist in Eberron. Read up on the setting before making a character.

>rolling a d20 for each ability
Shit sucks, way swingy. Clearly 2d10 down the line is superior.

Nice

We're only at ~100 posts, why would you start rolling now?

Rolled 3, 3, 2, 3, 2, 10, 3, 7, 3, 4, 8, 6 = 54 (12d10)

FUCKING... MOBILE!