/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

>Geneva exists in Fairyland #203

keh?

What if the lawful neutral character is at the top of the authority ladder, what should the lawful good character do in the heat of the moment?

That's what I was arguing for during last night's session.

Something somewhat close to it does exist.

Killing POWs is not necessarily against the law in a fantasy realm

If society at large is against execution of prisoners, the character must be punished.
If the belief that this prisoner was misled and, depending on the circumstances, not acting with malignant interests, the character has done a great misdeed and should be punished.

Example: The prisoner is a guard and was convinced by his captain that the characters are evil cultists. He leads a group of soldiers to hunt down the party. This is good faith.
The prisoner may not have been a good guy, though, maybe he's an evil bastard who still got misinformation, but was evil nonetheless.

No but in all seriousness stop using alignment. Just play a character how it should be and call someone out when they are out of character, not alignment.
Personally I used alignment as an indication of how people perceive a character and have it constantly change based on current opinion.

>starting a solo campaign
>GM wants to run it like Dark souls
I.. I am not that familiar with Dark Souls, but what class do I goose here? I have been told with a rather unsettling grin that "dying wont hurt - much, so don't be too concerned about that" and I am not sure what that means.

My first thought was a Rogue. It seems to give me the best tactical options. I have to pick VHuman, so I thought of grabbing Magic Initiate and going AT, to get myself an early familiar, and actually get sneak attacks in.

Any other suggestions? My greatest worry with Rogues is the lack healing.

Fighter was my second choice, but I feel like they wouldn't do too well the second I get overwhelmed.

Please rate some trinkets I turned into weak magic items, my players stay out please.

*You can place the toy soldier (with the head) on the ground within 5 feet of you as an action.
The toy soldier becomes a medium wooden soldier with the guard statistics.

It obeys your spoken commands and is friendly to you and your companions. If you give it no commands it will only defend itself and take no other actions.

It reverts back to a toy soldier early if it drops to 0 hit points or if you use an action to speak its name. You know its name.

It can become a wooden soldier for 1 minute. Once it has been used, it can't be used again until after a long rest.

*Your rune-etched bronze orb has 2 charges. While carrying your orb on your person you can expend 1 charge as a bonus action and deal an additional 1d4 radiant damage with your attack. The orb regains all expended charges at dawn.

*Your bright green feather has 1 charge, while wearing it as an earring you can expend the charge to cast animal friendship as an action. The feather regains expended charges at dawn.

Yes but it is not necessarily fine either so, with nothing else to go on, I used reality.
Also you could remove the word "POW" with "someone" and my statement would still be true.

The lawful neutral character is the head commander of a triple alliance between humans, elves and magical beings from a big forest, who grew up being trained by his father who was also one of the top members of the organization leading this alliance. Honor, duty and determination were supposed to be his top personality traits.

Alright I'll ask again.

Is Protection Cleric actually good? Or at the least entertaining?

How am I supposed to know if I am your player?

Have a cool head and patience. While its not necessarily a trait inherent to LG, it is a virtue and I'd consider it the best option.

>Lawful alignment = following laws
not how it works, mate

I can't speak for every lawful good character, but my LG War Cleric who worships the divine God of justice, would be immensely pissed.

If there was no (in)formal trial, judging, and sentencing, there is absolutely no ground that the LN character had to kill the detained POW, especially if it was primarily out of spite due to spitting. Doesn't matter if the POW tried to kill the party earlier, if he truely was misguided there was a chance he could of had a lighter sentence, on top of the fact that he was a prisoner of the party, so he was more or less bondsman/vassal under the party's watch.

Looks pretty good to me. I hope your players like them.
My players weren't interested in buying the Spoon of Returning my npc was selling

You'd know, bro.

In which case I'd definitely say that he should have either killed him in combat or left him alone.
On a side note, are all of your characters that powerful? I usually play peasant-knight status but he seems like a king.

>1/2 reposting for user in other thread
It was a banshee without any stats, just in name really.
The idea is that a banshee-entity possessed a local performer and they began growing more powerful at an exponential rate due to the banshee+amazing vocalist combo. The whole session took place over 1 in-game day like blood borne (because thats where I drew most of my inspiration)

[dawn]
The generic 'caravan-ambush' occurred during the morning. The encounter was a lvl3 female bard with a harrowed face chasing hostile wildlife into the path of a caravan, she used the wildlife as cannon fodder to get closer and attempt to kidnap a commoner aboard the caravan train.
Only the smartest player saw through the ruse and found her in time to stop her.
At this point, the players realised I wasn't playing with a stupid villain or a bad understanding of mechanics so they were on their toes the rest of the session.

[midday]
They asked around the town for clues, looked at some magic gear for sale and pieced together a few locations of the banshee. They picked a false location, only giving them an encounter and some information about how the banshee operates. They picked another and found an old abandoned theatre-tavern in a swamp area, arriving at dusk.

[dusk]
This led them finding her (at lvl6) working with a group of impressionable goblins to herd a group of captives into the performer's tavern (its basically a prototype opera theatre). They attempted to fight her off and rescue some captives but only managed to get 2, the smart guy noticed how much stronger she had gotten and gave the party a time frame that they needed to act within (he was spot on).

Fuck alignment, what would YOUR CHARACTER do?

Anons, I desperately need some help putting together balanced yokai PC races for a planned Oriental Adventures campaign. Can I get some feedback on this stuff?

Rokurokubi
Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Charisma, +1 Wisdom
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision 60 feet
Elongate Neck: As a bonus action, you can extend your neck into a prehensile tendril that reaches 20 feet. Whilst extended, you can use its mobility to gain superior vantage points, as logical, and your bite attack has a reach of 20 feet. Whilst extended, you can retract it back into your body as a bonus action.
Poisonous Bite: You possess a bite attack, which is a natural weapon that you have proficiency with. This does not grant you extra attacks. On a hit, your bite attack inflicts 1d12 Poison damage, which increases by +1d12 at 5th level (2d12), 11th level (3d12) and 17th level (4d12).
Tireless: You only need to enter a semiconscious dream-state for 4 hours per day to gain the full benefits of 8 hours of sleep. Als, you have Advantage on saving throws against the Sleep condition.
Toxin Proofed: You have Resistance to Poison damage and advantage on saving throws against the Poisoned condition.
Claws: When making an unarmed strike, you can choose to use your claws as a natural weapon, changing the damage to 1d3 Slashing damage

Really unsure about the Claws trait; I mostly took my inspiration from PF's Rokurokubi enemy, so that's why it's there.

>2/2
[night]
They delivered the captives back to the town, rounded up a few mercenaries then purchased a (soul storing amulet) which they ignored up until now. They travelled to the theatre under cover of night. They opened the double doors into the huge theatre section to find that the remaining captives had been turned into ‘drowned thralls’ which were like strahd zombies. The remaining goblins were still present but their numbers dwindled. Smart guy asked if the goblins had changed at all, he succeeds on the arbitrarily mild DC and notices they’ve got a floatation spell on them.
>Enter banshee; Left Stage.

Do you have a neckbeard, fedora and ironically own a dragon dildo? Cause my current GM does.
I want to leave but I am scared of Mr "Grodnard Master" Blobby

This is my other most recent yokai profile, so I want to get this and the Rokurokubi done before I worry about the others.

Oni
Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Strength, +1 Charisma
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision 60 feet
Powerful Build: You are considered to be one size larger for determining your carrying, pushing, pulling and dragging capacity.
Illusory Veil: You have Proficiency in Deception.
Windstrider: At 7th level, you gain a Fly speed of 30 feet.
Oni Tricks: You can cast the True Strike cantrip. At 3rd level, you can cast Fog Cloud as a 1st level spell with this trait. At 5th level, you can cast Suggestion as a 2nd level spell with this trait. Once you have cast either Fog Cloud or Suggestion with this trait, you must complete a long rest before you can use them again. Spells cast with this trait use Charisma as their spellcasting ability score.

3/2
I described the gait of the bard as “puppet-like” being pulled forward by her shoulders with her feet slightly scraping off the floor. Then under a huge hole in the tavern roof the moonlight hit the bard and the party could see a banshee pulling her along ghostly strings. The fight was intense because instead of legendary actions I let the bard concentrate on one spell and the banshee on another, also sharing seperate con-checks with lvl10 spells slightly modified. She used a lot of water spells to protect the goblins and her thralls but the party also made use of their companions. As her single non-recharge legendary action she cast a modified control water to flood the entire amphitheatre and the water pressure forced everyone out of the hole in the roof, taking the fight onto flat terrain with no cover and geysers bursting from random squares at every other initiative. One of the PC’s was knocked unconscious when the room flooded and the others couldn’t get to him. She cast control lightning and I began a thunder-and-rain soundtrack to underlay the currently playing “Lady Maria”. They all had water walk cast of them by this point and the fight ended with the fighter and rogue surrounding her on the flat water stage, forcing her to drop her bard focus and lose concentration on the ‘flooding’ spell. The water level slowly subsided back to ground level as “The First Hunter” began to play and she said “The night, and the dream, were so, so long…” (a blood borne quote), the banshee became untethered from her body as she died, but was dragged into the amulet work by the fighter. As the banshee left the bard’s horrible visage dissolved into smoke to reveal a retired PC of one of the Players. That last song really set the mood, and the player commented that “she couldn’t have thought of a better end for her bard”.

8/10

The toy soldier and green feather are pretty cool and interesting. The orb seems awkward tho, I'd find another way to make it more interesting then auto bonus 1d4, plus bonus actions are usually better spent doing other things.

FYI 2 doesn't go all the way up to 3.

What the actual goddamn fuck?!

Patron are just sorcerer with excessive sorcery point making spell slot for warlock. It would also explain why they could never go over 5th level.

Flexible Casting
You can use your sorcery points to gain additional spell slots, or sacrifice spell slots to gain additional sorcery points. You learn other ways to use your sorcery points as you reach higher levels.

Creating Spell Slots. You can transform unexpended sorcery points into one spell slot as a bonus action on your turn. The created spell slots vanish at the end of a long rest. The Creating Spell Slots table shows the cost of creating a spell slot of a given level. You can create spell slots no higher in level than 5th.

Creating Spell Slots
Spell Slot Level SorceryPoint Cost
1st 2
2nd 3
3rd 5
4th 6
5th 7

I said that out loud when I first met him and say his hentai collection (I wish I was making this up). But don't worry he assured me
>"It's ok user. Everything is ironic"
Then he blew a puff of 'weed flavoured' vape at my face.

Both of these sound reasonable enough. I'll put the two together: try to stay cool and question the motives behind his action. If I get a poor response, I'll make sure he knows he will face trial once the whole mess is over.

Not at all. My character is a simple guy. This guy is a top authority in the region he hails from, but compared to the rest of the continent, he's just another pawn. The whole thing has become geo-political in the last three sessions or so due to bigger world-shaking events.

Thanks heaps, bro! Yeah, the orb was one I'm not the happiest about, it could definitely be more interesting.

Another idea might be to act as a flashbang grenade, dealing 1d4 radiant damage within 5 feet and making enemies make a Con save to avoid being blinded. It'd still have the 2 charges. What do you think?

Are you playing with Reddit? Like, not a redditor, but actual Reddit, personified? Like an avatar?

Dude I don't even know what to say about this guy or the sessions I've had with him. It feels like that some days but he can actually be pretty funny too, in a sad sort of way.
If you want I can story time our first session but I'm pretty shit at those.

I want to DM a campaign for Veeky Forums, Reddit, Tumblr, and 9gag. And by campaign I mean a LARP with Coldsteel products.

I like that idea way more. Adds variety and options to the PC's kit. Reminds me of the 3 deku nuts my rogue sorcerer had. Had to save them for the most critical of moments (cause my DM swore to never give me them again), but they essentially acted like a flashbang/stun grenade. I got them in the very beginning of the campaign LONG AGO, and the couple of times I used them were memorable and totally shifted the balance of combat/allowed my guy to live to see another day. I might still have one left, which at this point I'm pretty sure I have to save for the BBEG.

What's a 9gag?

So my party are going up against an Aboleth/Elder God.

Any tips on some 4th rule breaking bullshittery and general ways to handle something 'far out' there to properly get that cosmic horror feel, as the MM Aboleth is pretty underwhelming.

I'm thinking of just not bothering with dice...

Could you rate these please?
>Skull Helm of Binding
This item can be pulled of the corpse of a powerful skeleton enforcer after the party beats them. Once used this helmet cannot be removed without, killing or scalping the wearer, or by disenchanting the item.
The helm is fashioned into the shape of skull and grants +1AC. If a critical hit is ever scored on the wearer roll a d6: on a 1 the wearer is reduced to 0HP and on a 4+ the wearer ignores the extra crit damage.

>Great Axe of Minor Possession
The Melee character in the party will recive strange dreams before finding this item - they will only find it alone. To all other party members the axe will look normal but to the wielder it will speak and advise them in combat. Unannounced to them the wielder will slowly lose or break all of their other basic weapons while the axe is in their possession. The weilder will soon covet the axe and resent its absence.
Greataxe +2 but when you hit an enemy, roll a d6: On a 1 the daemon bound inside attacks the weilder dealing half the damage dealt to them instead, and on a 4+ The damage is increased to 3d6. If for whatever reason the axe is used to make multiple attacks in one turn, use the first roll for all attacks.

>Scroll of Debauchery
This scroll will find its way to the main magic wielder of the party. It will likely be sold cheaply by a merchant or left lying in the gutter - and if all else fails it might just appear in their sack. It causes great pain for magic wielders to look upon and if thrown away will return.
When the party finds themselves in an impossible situation - outnumbered and outmatched - this scroll will start to emit great light. The jumble of letters and scribbles will start ot make sence to the magic wielder and, if read, all enemies will start to attack each other growing in power as they do so. If the party stays around too long the enemy may decide to attack them still.

>Any tips on some 4th rule breaking bullshittery and general ways to handle something 'far out' there to properly get that cosmic horror feel, as the MM Aboleth is pretty underwhelming.
Don't. Ignoring the rules for muh cool spectacle always feels cheap and contrived.

Only attempt if you are a master of game design.

youtube.com/watch?v=vOtEZKfGiH0
There is always this meme.

How does shit like a 'hornet mace' get a +2?

Really, people underuse weapons that have -X for 'it has a good ability but it's unconventional'

The highest level of restraining order

Okay I can respect that.

So how do you do it in the framework of the rules while keeping the mystery and suspense? Secret rolls? And what kind of effects.

It looks like the end of a very heated argument over how cold it was and if the fire needed to be bigger vs 'just get closer to it, the fire is fine, top being an ass!"

Thanks heaps, bro! And you've interested me to what happens in your own campaigns, that sounds pretty awesome.

>Skull Helm of Binding
Reducing to 0HP seems a bit harsh, maybe reducing to 1 might be a bit fairer

>Great Axe of Minor Possession
I feel there should be some sort of Wisdom check when picking it up or something, or a saving throw everytime you use it. It just seems unfair to stick someone with it without a chance

>Scroll of Debauchery
I like this, something a player would try to ditch frequently until it's given a chance to be used. Be careful with it though, someone might waste a ton of time trying to get rid of it, It's not funny to spend an hour trying to burn, purify and wish away some scroll that's actually not going to turn you into a frog or get struck by lightning in 12 hours.

>Helm
I agree it is too harsh. Probably making it 1HP.
>Axe
You don't have to take it and you can drop it - think of it like a less powerful "the one ring"
>Scroll
Yeah I won't let them waste time on it, plus the adventure will be very fast paced so I imagine after a while they'll just cop it.

Not him but yes please, all your interesting stories. After he told me it was all ironic I probably woulda strangled him for a little bit. Especially after blowing a vape cloud in my face.

Marriage has never been defined as between a man and his otherworldly patron, sinner.

The trove isn't letting me download the PHB, it keeps wigging out and fighting my browser. Any good alternate downloads?

I wonder if there'll be any surprises in xge with invocations

This.
This type of discussion is why alignment is stupid. It encourages boiling your character down to two words and then basing their personality on the connotations of those words, rather than creating a PC with personality traits.

Then I'd give them overall 8.5/10

elterritorio.org/resources/PH.pdf
Here you are my dude

Just started playing 5e, and recently hit 3 on my Fighter. I plan on going EK, but I'm a bit curious about the way some of the cantrips work with attacks.
To me it seems like Greenflame Blade and Booming Blade either won't work at all before War Magic @ lvl 7, or can they be cast as Bonus Actions before or after the attack is made?

Please help, I want to be a cool spellsword man but if GFB and BB won't work until 7 I need to pick other cantrips at my current level.

You make the attack as part of casting the spell.

I'd still say it should reduce to 0 HP as a sudden' malfunction knockout'. Being reduced to 0 HP is just being knocked out, after all, not being completely out of action since someone can just heal you up again. And the frequency with which this all happens is incredibly unlikely (If an enemy has disadvantage, it's a 1/2400 chance of happening per attack, if an enemy has normal to-hit it's 1/120 per attack) and being put to 0 HP is justified when it's a great item for AC stacking (It looks like it could be used alongside +armour, +shield, cloak of protection, some sort of protection ring or any of the many AC boosting things out there) as well as having semi-adamantine properties.

>Great Axe of Minor Possession
Rolling d6 on every hit is just far too much rolling even if it is just once per turn.

>Scroll of Debauchery
Nice idea but I feel it'd be most appropriate if it does something like summon forth daemons that clear the enemies to an extent, though the party will likely have to avoid the demons too. It also makes the party feel less happy about using the scroll.

If you really want to focus on GFB/BB I'd actually advise going to level 7 on EK then multiclassing into rogue since you won't need the extra attacks from later.

So how it works is
>You cast Booming/Greenflame Blade
>As part of the casting of the spell, you smack a bitch.
Capiche?

Thanks heaps user!

Well I'm using gr8swords and GWF, and I want to be stay as fighter or multiclass to war wizard or abjurer at some point. Rogue wouldn't fit the character.

Holy shit, I just came up with absolutely genius start of my campaign's second act.
All PCs get killed by one of the villains in a surprise betrayal. They end up in the afterlife, and kick ass there until they are noticed by a powerful cleric residing there - but not for free.
They are revived, and now they have a personal motivation, vengeance, to fight against the villain dude (when they previously barely had reasons to think that he's evil), their geas finally ties them into the metaplot and they get a badass dungeoncrawl in Valhalla.

Anyone else incredibly disappointed by Xanathars? The SINGLE piece of non-adventure official published content we get for the entire year is material that is for the most part, already 100% available to us and free of charge. Sure there will be some polish from playtesting feedback but I can't escape the thought that "I waited 12 entire months for this?". I expected UA to eventually trickle it's way into new supplements eventually, but I also expected them to ramp up supplement production.

Two adventures and one supplement per year is dreadful and really makes me wonder about the longevity of the game. As much as I love 5e there's unfortunately so little to work with that it's heavily making me consider picking up 3.PF for the first time in 3 years again.

>badass dungeoncrawl in Valhalla
Better yet, hexcrawl through Valhalla. There'd be so many cool random little events you could throw at them while traveling.

I feel disappointed, but I also don't.
Sure, you may feel like you've already seen all the content they're publishing, but
A) It was actually playtested and changed due to feedback, sometimes in radical ways - see Cavalier
B) Every single time WoTC didn't playtest something, it turned to be mediocre to shit. Mastermind, Battlerager, Purple Dragon Knight and more.

>be me
>20 year old ausfag
>after year 12 became an electricians apprentice because shit VCE
>haven't played d&d offline since high school where I used to play it like every second day
>end up running into old highschool friend/DM at LGS and we get nostalgic about our old sessions
>he tells me that he has found a new group and tells me to come along next time they play
>fast forward a week
>pick up some pizza on my way because want to make a good impression
>apartment is in shitty condition but who the hell am I to judge (just moved into the white people commission building)
>I knock
>I knock again
>knock real loud this time
>"WAT DA FAK DU YU WAN BOI!"
>There is an enraged Vietnamese man screaming at me
>drop the pizza in fright
>I go to pick it up but he yells louder
>try to back away and he takes the carpet pizza and slams the door
>hear my friend laughing behind me
>he plays that fucking "you just got pranked bro" audio clip on his phone
>cringe.exe
>he takes me to the real apartment a little down the corridor
>walk in and there is too much to take in
>when you walk in you first notice the stench
>putrid smell of semen mixed with sweat
>then you see everything arrayed on the walls:
>A Nazi flag, A kekistan flag, the Japanese flag, a couple of hentai posters and MLP posters
>On a (shrine?) was a massive anime collection, a dragon dildo and a fucking katana
>and rubbish everywhere, like christ you could barely move it was just too intense
>in the center of the room was where we were meant to play
>on a rickety table piled high with disgusting amounts of food
>and that's when I meet IT
>IT was a meme personified
>IT had a BMI equal to what someone his height should have weighed
>IT had a neck beard fedora and was trying to blow rings with a grossly over sized vape
>IT had two similar minions at his side who will will call Tard A and Tard B
>And comment too long. More?

Yeah I'm of two minds about the helm but in my session it is more likely the enemy will have advantage than disadvantage plus many will be getting crits on 19 and 20.
We've played with something similar and we just roll the d20 with the d6 so there is no time lost.
That was actually the original plan for the scroll but the only problem is that the session is all about demons, hell and corruption (basically think 40k warp spilled over into a part of d&d land).

>Nazi flag
>a dragon dildo
I swear, he's not one of ours.

>the session is all about demons, hell and corruption (basically think 40k warp spilled over into a part of d&d land)
At least by standard 5e shit, devils and demons don't actually get along with each other, I believe, and especially demons will in-fight all the time.

I'd have it so that the demons summoned are particularly deranged and senseless and will fight pretty much anything, though I suppose if the enemies are all demons it might not be too illogical if it powers them up and makes them go berserk.

I don't want more
I need more

>Two adventures and one supplement per year is dreadful and really makes me wonder about the longevity of the game. As much as I love 5e there's unfortunately so little to work with that it's heavily making me consider picking up 3.PF for the first time in 3 years again.
3.X had such a crazy amount of supplements though, most of them were balls awful in terms of balance.

I would definitely prefer a better content output than this tiny annual trickle, but 3.x's over-saturation of mediocre-to-alright products wasn't much better, looking back.

Thanks guys!

Even if this isn't real I want to hear the ending

Last thread I got some great feedback and I'm wondering if someone could check out my homebrew now that I've revised it.

What would be the best 5 player mono class party? I think all rogues would be fun.

Please do.

Just remembered I have to fit in sleep before work in 3 hours so I will do a proper story time thread tomorrow night.
Prepare thy selves for full penetration.

I could see a few being great fun. An all-rogue campaign about establishing yourself as crime lords would be amazing. Perhaps an all-paladin game romping about in the name of JUSTICE.

And naturally, an all-bard campaign where you're a band on tour.

Here's the pdf by the way.

>What would be the best 5 player mono class party?
All-bard party. You can be the Beatles. Except there's five of you, and you're all Ringo.

Thanks heaps, bro! Sorry I m missed this.
Damn, those are some unwise players you have there lol.

Frankly, my issues with Xanathar's are mostly because i am afraid of there being too much shit of dubious quality that it will eventually break the game.
If anything, my issue is that there will be TOO MUCH content.

I really don't understand your note about the UAs being available free, though.

Five Fighter Archers for tactical superiority.

Hi, I'm the idiot who asked about familiar cheese last thread.

I'm not even DMing, I just don't want to pick a familiar and be a dick to my DM and bore other players by scouting absolutely everything. But I also don't know how to make it useful in combat other than "it goes next to enemies and uses Help forever."

I also don't like how everyone picks owl because owls are strictly superior to other flying familiars, and flying familiars are strictly superior to non-flying ones.

Free, yes. Refined, no. They gotta make this shit sure it's balanced, you know?
Sad thing is, I kinda like Mastermind still.

You'd earn more as an electrician anyway.

Anybody?

>Not picking a raven familiar

Don't pick an owl, still use it as much as you can though. As long as you're not Divination Wizard with an Owl number 193 then it's all cool dude.

Pick a cat, they're fun.