/5eg/ - Fifth Edition Genera

>Xanathar's Guide Table of Contents
web.archive.org/web/20171016180500/https://www.dndbeyond.com/members/BadEye/articles

>Forge Cleric - Xanathar's Guide
media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/DnDXL2017_Forge.pdf

>Trove:
rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons & Dragons/D&D 5th Edition/

>5etools:
astranauta.github.io/5etools.html

>Resources Pastebin:
pastebin.com/X1TFNxck (embed)

>On the last episode of /5eg/:
What's your opinion on old adventurers, NPCs or PCs?

First for futa teiflings.

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You lazy cunt.

Does anyone actually like Hoard of the Dragon Queen? I found it a pain to run.

In the PHB on page 151 the Healer's Kit
reads:
>This kit is a leather pouch containing bandages, salves, and splints. The kit has ten uses. As an action, you can expend one use of the kit to stabilize a creature that has 0 hit points, without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check.
Specific emphasis on "without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check."

The description of the Medicine skill says:
>Medicine.
>A Wisdom (Medicine) check lets you try to stabilize a dying companion or diagnose an illness.

While the description of stabilizing creatures with 0 hp reads:
>You can use your action to administer first aid to an unconscious creature and attempt to stabilize it, which requires a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.

Now, if I am reading all of this correctly, is this supposed to imply that if a nearby PC is at 0 HP and currently making death saving throws, they are able to attempt a Wisdom (Medicine) check at DC 10 to stop the character from bleeding out even if they don't have medical tools on hand? Our group has been going back and forth tonight on the circumstances under which a dying PC can be stabilized without the use of magic - the DM is rather insistent that we need to first have medical tools on our person, but the rules seem to imply that a Healer's Kit is for circumventing that check entirely, and anyone can attempt a basic Wisdom DC 10 check for stabilization.

>I never got to play a Half-Orc Rage Mage due to friends getting tired of their characters after one all night session.

What do you guys do to make your games fun?

>Rage Mage
Are you complaining about 3.5, or are there feral homebrewers running about?

3.5

Currently rolling up my level 11 Lore Bard, how essential is War Caster?
Was planning to take Actor, War Caster and 1 stat boost, but replacing one of thode feets for another would allow me to reach 20 Charisma (at 19 with the traits).

Instinct is telling me to pick it for sure, since casting with a weapon out and not losing Inspiration that easily seems rather nice and almost essential, but the difference betwee +4 and +5 is also not to be underestimated I think.

Yes, you read that correct.

And you're complaining about this in the 5E thread because...?

Playing a Nomad mystIc with a whole bunch of awakened and nomad disicplines. Can't wait for take 4.

I ran some friends though the very beginning. They completely lost interest like half way through. It's just boring imo

RAW you can stop a PC from bleeding out, despite having no equipment, clothing, cloth or water to speak of, with a DC10 medicine check
RAW any retard can use a healers kit to stabilize a PC, even with -2 wisdom, and no medicine proficiency, in the heat of battle, in under 6 seconds
The explanation I have for healers kit is that the kit has a minor amount of magic in it, which can close internal wounds and sanitize any external cuts

Still I'm having so much fun with the class.

I took warcaster at 4th level with my cleric and never regretted it. Sure, 20 CHA is pretty good, but I'd rather drop actor instead.

...

Currently playing a Bard whose background is Spy. I want to multiclass into Rogue, when's a good time? He's currently Bard 2 and I'm thinking I'd take Rogue 1 at level 3, then Rogue 2 at level 6. Anyone have any better suggestions?

I guess I'll ask the group if they think we'll need someone with +12 on Performance, Persuasion and Deception and either up that to 13 with one more Inspiration or having advantage on those +12. Picking Actor would probably guarantee that any character possible to be persuaded is actually persuaded.

i would recommend at least getting bard 3 before multiclassing so that you can get your college feature

if you fail the pursuasion then you can say "well the truth is..." and roll a deception.

>DM fucks up HARD and kills 2pc and does 14 permanent wisdom dmg to a PC with a new monster he wanted to try from a book he just got
>wont retcon it
>decides to make a new game in same world
>I spend about 3 hours writing out back story and reasons for my rogue to be in the war we kind of started with our last characters
>no one else puts in any effort, half of them rolling stats and taking back stories from the book 5 minutes before we start playing
>next session everyone brings a different character but me
>two sessions later everyone but me swaps again
>my pc has now fought along side 8 different characters
>I go with a "i've seen horrors of war" vibe and start to RP and kind of PTSD character
>dm tells me after the session the others players don't like how little I'm RPing and that I don't seem like i'm enjoying my character
>DM recommends I swap characters
fuckoff.jpg
>I drop campaign and it ends for good one session later
what a shit show that was

Nice blogpost?

Yeah had a great time as a player I don't know why people bash it so hard.

>never played a Rogue before
>decide to go into Charisma as my secondary stat
>eventually get to level 11
>reliable talent kicks in
>expertise in Persuasion and Deception
>can now no longer roll less than 21 on either of these checks

feels very good man

yea xd, happened two years ago and i still get heated over it

One of the players in my group is gonna host a lvl 20 one shot around Halloween. I'm tossing around a few character ideas and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations. We rolled for stats and I got the following:

17, 13 ,12 9, 7, 10

So far my ideas are as follows
>half-elf Eldritch knight/archfey warlock. Emissary of the Archfey
>Paladin/Bard, defender of song and spirit
>Favored Soul, divine blaster with a vengeance
>Warlock, no so divine blaster with a vengeance
>Luckiest Man Alive Quickshot McGee, Swashbuckler Rogue with Lucky and Alert

I hope you're playing Mastermind you Moriarty sonvabitch

>Your players want to make a campaign that's meant to build up to Tournament of Power style final set piece

I hate when people can't control their anime boner.

>sacrificing the 4th attack on the fighter.
Bad idea.

I'd go with a spellcaster. They're the ones that are the most dramatically different at 20th level.

What was the name of the prestige class in 3rd edition that, if I remember correctly, was either a barbarian or a fighter type of sorts that HAD to destroy magic items every now and then.

"The Reason We Don't Play This Edition Any More," from Complete Mistakes, page 285.

I'm no so much going for something mechanically strong as much as something that's just fun to play. I also had an idea for a full level 20 champion fighter half-orc with brawny that just grappled shit and then beat it with it's warhammer till he crit it to death
I don't usually play spellcasters so I might do this. My favorite classes are usually in melee, like Paladin or Barbarian.
Already know what I'm NOT playing

Writing a weekend long one/two-shot for out yearly halloween session.

Plot: Doctor Licheinstein, a powerful Lich using his mastery of Electromancy and Teslacoils to threaten the world around him and empower his grave experiments. Three heros, A devout holy knight, A rogue-savant monsterhunter, and an unbound sorceress, are moving to fight him. The Players are not strong enough to challenge the Lich himself, but have been sent through to infiltrate the underground laboratory, unlock the vault, and claim the Lich's phylactery. The Sorcress weaved a mighty earthquake that shattered the foundations of the complex, rattling the forces of the castle as they launched their assault but importantly opening the path for the players to reach the Laboratory. Unfortunately this earthshattering spell has also unleashed many experiments and unbound chaos in the labs below.

Quest: Explore the Lab-Dungeon, Find all the keys held by the Doctors Assistant-Mages, Open the vault and defeat the Guardian.

I'll post some of the encounters I have planned, looking for advice, critque or general suggestions on obvious "How have you NOT got these?".

A Room containing a multiple Flesh Golems and couple Mage Apprentice trying to corral them back into their cell. Mage Apprentice cast Witch Bolt to empower the Golems, healing them and adding 1d8 Lightning Damage to their slam attacks.

A Lab containing a spike pit filled with bones and discarded limbs, Several thugs are moving equipment including cages of Cranium rats who attempt to cast confusion or dominate players.

>I also had an idea for a full level 20 champion fighter half-orc with brawny that just grappled shit and then beat it with it's warhammer till he crit it to death
That sounds pretty fun to be honest.

A room filled with alchemical equipment and hundreds of bottles and vials of various reagents and potions. A group of loose mephits are casually fawning over the bottles curiously, but when the players are noticed they start throwing like madmen. Bottles explode in various effects.

A room containing a bubbling cauldron, A smug looking mephit pours several vials into the vat and causes a magical explosion that covers the walls in goo. When the players try to cross to the other door, the goo attacks, using stats of "The White Maw" from TftV. The Mephit also revives as a Mud-Mephit.

A room containing the Professor of Alchemy, a mage, and his pet slimes and oozes, possibly some creatures using the Blessed by Jubilex stuff. After he is defeated, he quaffs a potion that transforms him into a malformed hulking giant (Hill Giant? Fomorian?).

An illusionist bard who was made professor of musical studies as a joke. He is happy to talk but not willing to help the party. He also has a Shield Guardian with Greater Invisibiltiy prepared.

A flooded sub-basement about 2-3 feet deep with water, where a professor using a waterwalk spell with arms full trying to save waterdamaged books. He calls out an attack order and will likely retreat if wounded. The party are assaulted by Sharks. The sharks are wearing circlets of blasting.

Aforementioned professor should ideally retreat, but when seen running past a broken window, is suddenly pulled in by tentacles with a sharp, but short yelp. Inside is a Frogemoth who has swallowed the professor and the key along with it. Once more the room is in 2-3 feet deep with water.

A room containing the two flesh golems and Mad Doctor Lichenstein himself, oddly absent from the battle he should be having in the castle. Of course the Lich turns out to be a Simularicrum, using Tarul Var statline.

A room containing a few rampaging chimeras, because what says mad science like a three headed lion dragon goat beast.

A sealed room containing a very panicked Mage Apprentice who reveals that the large experiment chamber has been sealed from the inside by one of the Professors, who became trapped when the experiments panicked, and the only way in is dropping down via feeding chute. Inside is a small, but dense jungle habitat created by Mirage Arcana. There are two Half-Dragon Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The Guardian when they reach the vault, is the Grand Spectator, a Beholder with some Volo-guide eyebeams and a Spectators magic reflection rather than a Beholders Antimagic cone.

I was thinking that too. Problem is we have no idea what the DM is going to throw at us. If he ends up throwing a bunch of huge or larger sized stuff at us, it might just be a little less fun (although climbing on top of a giant thing THEN beating it to death sounds fun).

>I hate when people can't control their anime boner.
Maybe they just want a series of fights without roleplay needed.

Battlerager Barbarian does the same thing pretty well too, but misses out on the 4th attack I suppose.

Do you get magic items? If so, is it possible to grab potions of enlargement or something, those exist right?

>Complete Mistakes

I really want to see someone write this splatbook.

>splatbook
>implying it's not just your biography

I know I could Google it but this might be a neat conversation starter.

I was persuaded to buy 4E years ago and never played a single campaign (damn flakes) but I HATED the combat system that felt like a pencil and paper WoW with daily skills with cool downs. How does 5E differ with 4E?

Does anyone have a template or guide or something I can use to write a character background? I'm really bad at roleplay but I'm trying to get better.

So far the best I've done is my War Magic Wizard I was playing had a limp after being grazed by a balista when he was a soldier and complained about the party when we took too long to make up our minds.

>Spend 35 sessions building up a twist where the leader of the free cities is a human form Ancient Gold Dragon. Party is 12-14. Mostly standard shit with homebrew tweaks (I use Mercer's advanced Resurrection rules though)
>Tons of subtle hints, really happy with the results
>Unleash the twist on the party during an annual summit meeting of the leaders
>Half the party is flabbergasted, the other half had an idea
>Wew, time to engage this big boy
>Make a show of having a bunch of NPCs take a 105 breath to the face
>Then next turn they take a weakening breath
>They aren't backing down
>Damage is starting to pile up on the party
>Start dropping hints that they should run
>Ignored
>Invent them an NPC that literally tells them they need to escape and he can teleport them
>They agree they need to fight this thing
>First party member dies
>Decide to cut my losses and have the dragon leave
>They MAKE FUCKING CHASE (2 on brooms, 1 with Fly, 1 with Boots of Flying))
>Decide fine, fuck you guys
>Knock them down using a Wing Attack. Fall kills 1
>They STILL WANT TO PURSUE
>Have the NPC physically grab one and tell them it's time to fucking go
>They argue with the NPC forever
>Guy with boots gets jibbed
>Finally get my dragon away from them, 3/5 party members dead
>They complain the fight wasn't fair
>Explain to them it was supposed to be a plot hook and tell them all the obvious hints to run they ignored
>"Why would you do that, it's so cliched and dumb! How were we supposed to know!"

Jesus Christ my head hurts. They have been such a smart group until now and suddenly they go full retard. This wouldn't even be the first fight they fled because they once stumbled into a Beholder ill prepared and escaped it.

They still seem into it (2 are gonna reroll, one is going to play his brother), but holy fuck they are pissed at me

Yep, RAW a DC10 medicine check is all you need. It still stays unconscious until it regains 1hp 1d4 hours later. And if it takes damage at any time while stable it becomes unstable again.

Well, despite 4e being the most combat balanced dnd, and actually fun to play, where roleplaying was mostly just roleplaying and combat was deep and engaging, 5e returned to the vein of 3.5 of being a more "DND" experience.

Anyone have a copy of that UA Codex laying around still?

Usually people don't like "run away" fights because there's no proper setup or display

But your players are just fucking dumb.

Honestly it would've been better to just have maybe 1 or 2 of the dead to have been knocked out with serious injury instead. By the time the second one died I would've pulled that just to avoid annoying them to much.

What happened, happened. Feel free to just say to them that you expected it to go differently, and you'll make sure to try not to make those kinds of situations come up again or whatever.

I want to make a necromancer, how would one start out making this faggot.

Bonus points for keeping the character in good to neutral range if possible.

Death Cleric, you use mostly Necromancy damage and utility spells, but when a situation really calls for it you pull out your big gun of Animate Dead.

...

...

Neat!

5e is more like 3.5 than anything. It got rid of the whole at will/encounter/daily power thing but kept certain things like a classless resource for healing out of combat (5e has hit dice while 4e had healing surges I think.) 5e is basically a more streamlined, less book keeping intensive version of 3.5. Feats and multiclassing optional, everyone gets the same base attack bonus (called proficiency bonus and it's used for many different things). Bounded accuracy helps keep the math to a minimum and you rarely have to add anything on too of an ability score bonus and you proficiency modifier to any attack roll. Advantage/disadvantage takes the place of situational modifier and let's you reroll, making you take the higher or lower result respectively. Caster supremacy is greatly reduced if even present. Class balance is overall better than 3.5. Classes always get something interesting each level instead of the multitudes of dead ones at high level 3.5 for some classes.

Main issue that most everyone can agree on is that content comes out rather slow. We've had a total of two books with meaningful character options, one of which is the first Players Handbook the second of which being some setting specific stuff and not way too much was added.

Adventure books vary from fucking incredible to hot garbage.

HP bloat isn't as bad as in 4e. Not as rocket tag-ey as 3.5. Gets an okay mid ground where combats last a few rounds but are neither over instantly or drag on (in most cases.)

Overall you should check it out. If 4e left you with a bad taste then you'd like 5e. It's sort of the "winning over the old fans" edition.

Thank

Reminds me of the creating magic item rules from 2nd ed ADND. "you must spend a year and be at least a level 12-15 wizard to be able to make anything useful, or spend a year and do some crazy weird shit for a god if you're a cleric" And even the book ends this section with "shoulda just bought a wand from the store fucko"

You welcome. Shadow Sorcerer could also be worth a look if you want to become a Lich down the line.

Necromancer Wizard is pretty much just really good at Animate Dead. Which is generally a spell the good guys only use as a last resort.

That's your fault as a DM.
Remember YOU are a Dungeon Master.
You literally could have given that Dragon a spell that basically knocks them all out to end the encounter and then make a quest to find a relic to counter it.

The fact that you didn't plan for your party to try and fight it is bad on your part. You have to be prepared for ANY choice your party makes if you have an outcome you want.

Boss Monsters you have no intention for them to defeat need to have ways to end the fight easy that leave no option.

Things you could have done
1. Spell that disables them, they get sent to a secret prison the gold dragon has and have to use their wits to escape
2. The Dragons opens a portal to a different plane and throws them through, they have to figure out a way back
3. A group of dragon slaying assassins bust on in and drive him off, getting pissed at your party for flubbing up all the work they did and offering them the chance to join and train with them to get back

As the Dungeon Master YOU can figure out a way to end an encounter and you can make it HYPE AS FUCK

Well, that was really dumb of them.

>The Positive and Negative Planes. These two planes enfold the rest of the cosmology, providing the raw forces of life and death that underlie the rest of existence in the multiverse.
>Necromancy spells manipulate the energies of life and death.
>Healing magic is Evocation.
EXPLAIN

>you rarely have to add anything on too of an ability score bonus and you proficiency modifier to any attack roll
I love my players, but they're still having trouble with this and it irritates me sometimes. I don't chimp out at them because they're my friends and I like having them around, but holy shit learn the mechanics you've played off and on for a year now.

Wanted to make a necromancer that preaches that all magic is good, just don't be a faggot with it. Would think about becoming a lich if I could remain good.

Try your hand at a little voice acting for your character if you don't already. Even if you're bad or inconsistent, a voice for your character goes a long way for their memorability.

Have a goal set in mind for your character. Something that doesn't take up too much priority to detract from the DMs plot but not so vague as to not give your character motive at all.

Come up with a quirk or two. Maybe your hyper masculine heroic paladin likes to sing in falsetto. Maybe your ranger likes chocolate on his jerky.

>players ask to have a document so they can reference my setting without having to ask me questions
>make one
>they never read it anyway


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That's a lot of good info. I want to play 5E now but I really enjoyed the plethora of options available in 3.5. It's a shame I always had fellow players get bored of their generic "I'm an orphan looking to get revenge on the person who killed my parents" characters. Hell, I was super hyped to eventually play as a Dwarven Defender and that dream died after 1.5 campaigns.

Welcome to being a college professor. 9/10 times it's in the god damn syllabus.

>have an eng lit degree
>if the writing gigs don't start coughing up properly I'm gonna have to go into teaching

I imagine teaching is like having a dnd group, but the group is like 30 kids several times a day

fucking christ

there's university lecturing, which is like the same thing, but with even more people, but they're older now

The next big splat book is coming out in a month. Adds a whole 20+ new subclasses, so once that's out there should be a good chunk of content to work with. Wizards also occasionally releases test material for 5e and some of it is pretty good, some of it not so much. If you have a character concept, you can still probably make it in 5e, just maybe not in the exact way you imagined. Once good thing though is that options generally see as weaker don't cripple your character and most of the time you can feel like you can contribute, so if theres a character concept that seems weak but fun, go for it.

My necromancer died/was NPCd yesterday. Played him as a Lich that decided to lick away his powers and memories and hide them all someplace safe inside his Phylactery and forget any of it ever happened. Lived on as an undead gnome with his sister's skeletal hand as his companion/familiar and was absolutely hideous to look at and terribly socially inept.
Not gonna go much deeper into backstory, but maybe it's a bit of an inspiration for what to do.

As for spells, I usually used support things until the later levels and my undead were more often than not cannon fodder. If you go with a Necro Wizard, don't expect to get a ton of use out of your Grim Harvest, I can't recall ever healing with it in the range from level 4 to 11 that I played, since the only Necromancy spell reliably killing stuff at range is Blight at level 4. Getting the extra undead with Animate Dead is pretty nice, however. Also lets you create a near unlimited supply of undead provided there's enough time and corpses.

I tend to prefer fun and goofy characters of grim-dark super serious ones. Add an allergy, make a character afraid of heights, make them adverse to hygiene, let the character have a harmonica for comedic effect...

stop it i want to die

Hey 5eg, if your DM was making a setting document, what kinds of things would you want on it?

Which adventure books are fucking incredible and which ones are hot garbage?

>If you go with a Necro Wizard, don't expect to get a ton of use out of your Grim Harvest, I can't recall ever healing with it in the range from level 4 to 11 that I played, since the only Necromancy spell reliably killing stuff at range is Blight at level 4.
What? It only has to be a necromancy spell kill to get the 3x heal bonus. You still heal 2x spell level when you kill a non undead/construct enemy with a level 1+ spell, up to once per turn.

Gods, a map, a basic small paragraph about what's the deal with each race, a little bit of basic info about 3-4 countries that matter.

Some basic common knowledge about any fantastic creatures that's different to normal ones (werewolves are an actual race, rather then a curse for example).

The nearest 4-5 important cities to wherever we're beginning as well.

Keep the info small and basic, for example saying a country is basically ancient Egypt with dwarves where the halflings are the mutant slave caste is simple enough to give everyone the basic idea of the place.

>world map
>known factions overview
>important religions and deities
>summary of key events on a global scale in the last 500 years
>political situation
>treatmenr of different PC races in the setting and their relations to each other
>same for classes
>brief summary for each major city we're likely to visit that anyone in the setting would know about
>original main quest hook that leads to the party forming said psrty and starts their adventure
Optional: quest log updating with finished quests.

Curse of Strahd is amazing.
Out of the Abyss is a little crappy.
Rise of Tiamat is pretty bad but some nice bits.

*healing significantly
Nearly all of my kills were from small shit like basic orcs or animals being fried by a fireball. Might have been partially because of our party composition, since we had a Pyromancer dedicated to blowing shit up, a Druid throwing lightning everywhere, a barbarian with stats so good he's at 20 STR, 18 CON, 17 INT and 15 CHA while also packed with a 2d6+6 magical axe and a Cleric/Paladin skillmonkey amplifying that killiness by a landslide.
Rarely had any reason to try and kill shit when the rest of the party would then just overkill by 20 HP rather than overkilling by 35 HP.

>EXPLAIN
If it isn't a wizard spell it doesn't matter at all what school it's in.

I love all of this, and might shamelessly steal it.

What level(s) are you intending this for?

Because healing magic used to be necromancy, but since WotC wanted to say NECROMANCY IS ALWAYS EVIL, they changed it in 3e.
Since then they've been randomly changing what school it is.

I need roleplaying advice, and I'm interested in knowing what you would do in my character's position. A group of thieves stole a bunch of my party's stuff during the night. We aren't entirely sure how that happened since our fighter has the alert feat, the rogue has a weapon of warning, and my character has a homebrew boon that warns telepathically of incoming attacks and nearby enemies. I'm not interested in knowing what you think we could do to avoid this in the future, we'll figure it out ourselves.
Anyway, we managed to capture three of the thieves, and turns out, they are good people who thought we were working for the BBEG. One of them is even a member of my order. I wanna know, role-play wise, what should I ask these NPCs? In particular, the girl who is in my order, except the symbol she carries is slightly different. It has a crown on top of it. She recognized me in the middle of the combat and attacked me, before we all figured out why they attacked, but I have no idea who she is. I don't want to create any animosity between me and her, and I want to be friendly and show signs that I'm willing to let them go if they cooperate. The party agreed that I question the girl on my own terms, away from them, so I can ask pretty much anything without her spilling too many secrets about our order. So far I got these questions:
>names
>who are you?
>who are you working for?
>why did you mistake us for baddies?
>why are you so far away from our headquarters?
>how come the symbol you carry is slightly different than ours?
>where did the other two in your party go?
What else should I ask her?

Picture unrelated.

Thanks user! It's meant to be a nice over the top campy experience. Not sure if there are any other interesting combats I can include that fit the theme but it seems a little bulky already to add much more.

Level 12, short rests are 5-10 miniutes due to the "Urgency" of the quest, and they have a magical item that lets them take a single long rest in 10 miniutes due to some timeless demiplane. That should be enough resources and vitality to handle all these combats, even if some of them are pretty hardy.

I'm more than happy to "Level up" monsters, the Sharks for example, are getting Multi-attack 2 bites, and some extra health so I don't need to throw a dozen of them to be a challenge.

Speak with Animals isn't as useful when all the animals are gone thanks to necromancer shenanigans :

Using True Polymorph to turn your level 17 warlock into a CR15 Vampire Spellcaster; what are the pros and what are the cons?

>You run into some guys from my character old mercenary company trying to kill me because I was framed for murder
>The party doesn't believe I'm innocent
T-thanks guys, thought we were friends. Guess I'll break myself outta this cage before they execute me.

So what exactly separates a player character from your average man on the street, anyway? How do you handle the fact that these four (ish) random bozos who were presumably people of little note before their adventure started have the potential to, over the span of only a few months or years, become so powerful and skilled that they can potentially challenge even the gods themselves?

What IS a PC, /5eg/?

It can if you multiclass wizard. Stuff like Expert Divination still works when you cast Drd/Brd/Clr divination spells.
I see your point though, if I changed the healing spells to be of the necromancy school it doesn't look like it would change anything.

I guess what irks me more is that a character can't study and learn how to manipulate the forces of life unless it involves singing and dancing. Did religious zealots go around killing everyone who wanted to learn how to heal or something?

Polymorph a teammate into a vampire and force it to turn you, so you gain the template without losing the levels. Best of both worlds!

I always kinda liked the Fable series way of describing it, some people just ARE heroes. Not everyone can become an all powerful spellcaster or a legendary warrior, you've got to be born with these super human qualities that allow you to heal super fast and lift boulders.

That doesn't mean that they're the only people who can get things done though, a very well trained normal person might not be super strong but he can still be smart and tactical enough to kill you.

I always figured bards cheat a bit, and manipulat divine energies in a roundabout fashion.

If I were to give players a basic rundown of the Forgotten Realms in 1491 DR, is this an apt description?

>in 1385 DR the world fell into chaos after the Spellplague
>in 1479 DR everything got worse
>then Ao restored everything in a cosmic event in 1482 DR
>within a decade, the Faerun returns to its former state over a century ago
>prosperity and triumph ensue(mostly)
>but now its 1491 DR and bad stuff is happening again

Why would you ever want to run the FR in 1491 though?

1357 master race.

Paladin 2 / Hexblade 1 / Favored Soul 17 is going to be the best Gish once XGE comes out, right?

If your DM is any good, then if your character doesn't escape and dies, the mercenary kills all of them too. You don't sell out or kill teammates unless they're THAT GUY...and you're not THAT GUY are you user?