/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

Welcome to the D&D 5th Ed. General Discussion Thread

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

>Unearthed Arcana: Fiendish Options
media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UA_FiendishOptions.pdf

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

>5etools
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>Resources
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>Previous Thread

Reposting because I was enjoying the discussion.
>I have never once seen someone play a paladin in a way that was unique or interesting. You either get the stereotypical good guy stick in the mud paladin, or some edgelord who thinks he's being unique by playing some carbon copy judge dredd monstrosity. It seems like every paladin I see fits into one of those two categories and every paladin in each category is totally interchangeable with every other paladin in that category.
>Are people just bad at roleplaying, or is the paladin class just that limiting?What are some unconventional ways you can play a paladin?
>Please prove me wrong.

Since we don't have a question: what's the best character you've made in 5e, that combined storied roleplay and mechanical optimization, meshing perfectly with the group and the story you were trying to tell?

Reposting my answer

There are examples of great original palas in that thread and the one before it.
Read nigga

I'm looking for a monster but I can't remember its name. It was basically a lich whose spirit inhabited a golem made of magic items (skeleton made of wands and staffs, skin made of scrolls, wore magic items as armor, etc.).

I'm pretty sure its name started with Gri-... Grissom? Griswold? Grisser? Something like that. I think it was from some 3.5 splat.

...

Top of my head there was the gravedigger paladin

Grisgol

Which is more important for a monk,
Dex 16 -> 18
or
Con 12-> 14

level 8

Look at it this way: boost defense, or boost defense and also offence

Dexterity for sure.

Dex

How do you guys handle cone spells on a grid? If I use one method diagonals get shit on and if I use another method diagonals are fine but you can't hit somebody next to you in a non-diagonal space.

That's the one! Thank you based user.

All of these spells not fitting the right school is really pissing me off. I guess I had gotten spoiled by Mage the Awakening

I played Guile once. From Street Fighter. He was a Paladin of Bahamut on a mission to bring down the leader of a cult of Tiamat that just happened to be a bison-headed minotaur so that he could return home to be a family man.

...

I always did this, which I'm sure is super wrong, but gives a similar degree of area covered for both types of cones, even if they're weirdly different shapes because one is measuring 15 feet by the sides and the other is measuring it by length. Not the cleanest, but it keeps things more fair and generally lets you hit 1 person next to you and a few people further away.

>inb4 someone whines that 15' cone straight ahead is 7 squares but diagonal is only 6

My favorite take on the AD&D Paladin were from Ravenloft and Planescape.

Ravenloft had like three or four entire domains of fallen paladins, half of whom didn't realize they had fallen.

The semi-official materials added Paragons, however, who were basically paladins without the holy orders, without the aristocratic veneer, and without the shiny armor. Instead they were wandering warriors who were expected to commit to self-sacrifice first. I still think the alignment restrictions were too harsh insofar as they demanded purely lawful alignment, considering that in most of Ravenloft the villains are the law.

The 30 foot line ranging between 4 and 7 squares is what gets my eye.

The radius ones are kinda eh. You're supposed to occupy a single square, not 1/4 of 4 squares.

And aren't the lines supposed to be straight? I mean I can see a diagonal one, but not sure about those other two.

how can a player become a lich without warlock-like bargains? imprisonment doesn't say anything about that

The fact that there's nothing mechanically should tell you something about how hard it would be.

It would be the culmination of a campaign, not some shitty spell you can cast at the right level.

i feel like imprisonment should have different affects on a willing target, like the caster. i feel like liches are smart enough not to make deals with devils

IT's, as always, up to the DM. Only place I've seen it 'officially' rumored is that the instructions are supposedly in the Book Of Ultimate Evil. Which should be a hint as to just how hard it is to do.

there's way too many liches in faerun for that to be the case, they would all need a copy of or have seem the BOEU

I have seen one, but it was in a Star Wars game and he was a Jedi Guardian. Absolutely the fucking bomb when it came to mitigating the whole strict law abiding thing by disarming people with humor, being kind and patient even with full on evil people, and then unleashing crazy fighting prowess when shit got real. He spent most of the campaign just chilling out and healing people, taking the initiative on conversations that started to go a bit sideways, and letting the rest of the group shine while doing the average jobs.

So best example as he stood for justice and freedom, abided by the laws *which could change planet to planet, let the others have their fun without being a iron rod up the ass cop, and would only step in to defuse things if they got too much. I put it down to the dude playing him had travelled a lot, done some really cool jobs and wasn't your average neckbeard, he had played enough tabletop and lived some actual life so it blended into a pretty real character. I miss that guy.

I guess I'll just have to accept different area coverage based on direction.

>The radius ones are kinda eh. You're supposed to occupy a single square, not 1/4 of 4 squares.
Sphere/Cylinder ranges are supposed to be cast centered on an intersection. I have an extra two squares on each side of the 20ft rad sphere myself.

I have a group and we meet once a week, but i want to play a bit more.
Is roll20 full of asshats or capable of fielding a good game? Better resources to find a campaign?

Well the question was 'non-warlock like pact'. Most of the liches in the universe probably made a deal with Orcus or (less likely) Vecna.

it's a toss up
you might luckily find a good group or you might find some aspies and flakes
try the gamefinder threads

I feel like liches are smart enough to think they could out-lawyer the devils and have the right hubris to try.

Geniuses are often simultaneously morons.

Has your character ever taken a wife?

Ravenloft Amber Temple

Hi, Veeky Forums, let me know what you think of the modified hexcrawl rules I'm using for my group. For context, the terrain is rough and most of the roads have fallen into ruin, and nocturnal zombies arise in hordes every night to try and slaughter anyone not protected enough to repel them. Not just normal zombies neither—ghouls, undead giants, reskinned mummies, carrion crawlers following them, etc are all issues.

Anyhow:

Each hex is 5 miles, typically on rough terrain. >in a day they can travel: 4 hexes on horseback, 2 hexes on foot, 6 on a river
>Foot and horse speeds are doubled if they are riding along a road, which is marked.
>Each hex takes 2 hours to cross. A short rest takes 1 hour, and right now they have 9 hours of daylight per day as northern fall progresses and the days get shorter
>If they don’t make it to shelter by nightfall, the group will have to figure out a camp and secure it—quickly
>Group must designate a navigator to avoid getting lost—they roll survival checks at the start of each to figure out if they get misdirected to a different hex
>Establish a marching/riding order at the start of the day, in case there’s a random fight
>We go around the table. For each hex 1 person rolls a 1d6; on a 1 they get a random encounter that I’ll determine.
Anything that I should change?

Eh, fucked up the formatting, but y'all can read.

During session 0 my players asked how broken it would be if I made a "free feat regardless of race" house rule. I am considering it but I admit I am not savvy enough to be familiar what is broken, balanced, etc. Assuming they can only pick races from PHB and non-monstrous ones in Volo's. The reason we talked about it is because my players keep rolling V. Human for the feat and when I encouraged to play other races they keep going on how the free feat is too damn good. I like to put my foot down and say "If you want to roll other races you have to deal with the fact they don't get a feat at lvl 1" but during our discussion it made me think what if I gave them a free feat anyway.

Thoughts?

Paladin in my party isn't exactly breaking the mold, but instead of stamping their feet and throwing a fit every time the party does anything even morally questionable, they instead allow it to happen and then question the motive and logic behind such a decision in a fairly non-judgmental way. It's actually been a pretty cool way of kind of vetting and exploring our own beliefs.

you didn't state it, so I'll just say "they can't get misdirected on a road/river hex"

sounds fine, but have them clear the feat choice with you just to be sure.

If you're sticking to PHB-only, there's nothing really TOO broken players can do with a free feat. My group's been giving everyone a free feat since the game came out, and the only real effect seems to be that people like playing the elf races alot more so they can wank about their long life spans.

Then again, almost every race except Orcs lives longer than humans anyway.

I would literally only allow "half" feats at level 1 (the ones that give a +1 to an attribute) with very few exceptions. Slap down any bitch who wants to have Lucky or the PAM/GWM/SS feats at level one.

Oh, yeah, that seems 100% reasonable. Never even crossed my mind as something that I'd do.

Balance between the players and in the gameplay itself will be fine, balance against what you send up against them needs to be adjusted a bit.

I've toyed with the idea- in general I'd say it's fine but bar your players from picking certain feats with this initial choice. The popular choices like sharpshooter, polearm master- the ones that are only picked because they mechanically improve your character- wouldn't be selectable. Hopefully this would make the players pick feats that may not be as powerful, but add to the character's flavor. Afterwards, if they want the powerful shit for their ASI, I'd say go wild.

The free feat isn't THAT good, it's just flexible. If you're a charisma race it's probably better to go half elf, for instance.

Either way I kind of like it's an opportunity for people to play non-optimized races (Like a tiefling monk or something) and not totally screw themselves on feats. you can also promise feats as quest rewards though.

Unpopular opinion here, like xtremely unpopular, but I actually prefer to play without feats alltogether. All the skill-releated ones are things I usually allow players to do with proficiency in the skill anyway, provided they roleplay the proper preparations and practice and such. All the combat ones are literally taxes. If you're playing a martial you have GWM or Polearm Master as your tax, if you're a caster your tax is Warcaster or Resilience(Con), if you're a ranged fighter it's Crossbow Expertise, ect.

Disallowing feats makes it harder for classes to shore up their weaknesses, which is actually good in a team based game. I see alot of people instantly screech that not using feats weakens martials alot while hardly affecting casters at all, but casters without bonuses to their Concentration saves are actually alot weaker too.

But like I said, unpopular opinion, flame shield is up and ready.

I can only imagine the whining if the internet had been more active during 2e

>Specialization is a proficiency taaaaaax
>How dare you make blindfighting a NWP

Suddenly, everyone is an Athlete, Actor, or Resilient

I agree with you user

It's a pretty standard house rule, my group uses it. It's not like they can't take the broken feats by being a variant human, and it gives you a bit more to work with to mix things up, if you're using point buy it makes it possible to go against type with the +1 to a stat feats. If you're really concerned it's probably better to go to the root of the problem and nerf GWM/Sharpshooter directly.

I'm playing at a charity event on Sunday that has some AL game tables. If you were going to playing a couple sessions and then never touch the character again, what would you play?

Just play whatever you want in that case, and what level will you be at? If it's Tier 1 then literally anything is fine because it's fucking tier 1. Otherwise do a yuan-ti bear totem for the laughs.

My player is unhappy with the business rules in the DMG. He says the profits don't make the deficit worth it. He proposes a different system and I'm a by the book kind of guy, but if the system is broke I'd like some outside input on how to fix it or alternatives to it. Suggestions?

A monk DESU, because they're super powerful early game, reaching some really high AC levels without spending any starting gold, and end up sucking late game as their class features just don't keep up and their low hit dice starts to hurt them more.

That and Flurry of Blows allows them some nova damage at the early levels that far out-performs most other characters.

The thing I find funny about the idea on non-feat games is that suddenly the fighter has more ASi's than he knows what to do with. That and it makes humans a total waste of time

Your player should be an adventure first and a blacksmith, brewer, shop keeper second...

Playing a non feat game, the DM turned humans into a +2/+1/+1 race.

Humans are already a waste of time DESU. Nothing about them makes them stand out and the only reason anyone ever plays them is the free feat.

Seriously, short-as-piss life span (I think the lowest in the PHB after Half-orcs), no lowlight vision, no charm resistance or sleep resistance, no free spells, no nothing. Humans suck.

The only reason to ever play a human is in a humans-only campaign, or if you're a min-maxer who needs the free feat that doesn't even make sense lore-wise. (You're telling me a 20 year old human can learn something a 300 year elf wasn't able to pick up?)

The book has shitty rules for a lot of stuff. If your player isn't satisfied hear him out. His system may actually be better. That said you're not obligated to approve his system or to use another system at all.

>I'm a by the book kind of guy
Well 5e is a "GM has to make a lot of situational calls" kind of system. The sooner you realize that the rules are there as guidelines that can be modified as you see fit the sooner you'll be playing a more fun and satisfying game.

Sounds really cool, any specific storytime examples?

With buy point you can get +2 to most of your stuff by stopping at 13

So let's pretend you're playing a campaign that will actually get you to 20. You're a sorcerer. Is there ever a reason, besides fluff, to take sorc past 18? I just can't see a reason to. I mean, consider the cost opportunity:
For a one-level dip you lose 1 sorcery point and the ability to regain 4 sorcery points with a short rest*. A two-level dip you lose an additional Sorcery point and an ASI (your fifth).
Meanwhile one level of wizard you get 3 wizard cantrips, 6 1st level wizard spells, the ability to copy the rest of the 1st level spells, you can prepare INT%+1 of them, Ritual casting for 1st level wiz spells, and a short rest recovers two sorcery points*. Another level (wizard 2) gets you 2 more 1st level wizard spells, can prepare an additional 1st level wiz spell, and an arcane tradition.
One level of cleric gets you light armor, medium armor, and shield proficiency, 3 cleric cantrips, you can prepare WIS%+1 cleric spells, cleric ritual casting, and the stuff from a divine domain. A second level and you can prepare an additional cleric spell, channel divinity turn undead, and your channel divinity domain ability.
*: Wizard dip only gets you half as much sorcery points on short rest, but you can get it super early as opposed to level 20.

My paladin is a half-drow gladiator who was "underground railroaded" out of the Underdark by Harper agents working with priests of Eilistraee. He was so inspired by their bravery and sacrifice (which he had never seen among the drow) that he joined both the Harpers and the church of the Dark Dancer. Oath of the Ancients with some levels in Archfey-pact warlock. Chaotic Good, likes music and nature (he never got to feel the sunlight on his skin before! As a half-drow, he gets to enjoy its warmth without a problem). He hates slavery but is otherwise kinda ambivalent about other moral issues.

>Is there ever a reason not to multiclass?

I mean, I've seen alot of DMs ban multiclass'ing specifically because of min-maxy bullshit like the example you just gave.

There's hardly a reason to go full 20 on most classes. They tend to get their cool stuff way earlier.
Cleric and Druid are the only classes that get unarguably good stuff at 20.

>Not dipping into Warlock for 2 levels to get Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast, then going Sorc the rest of the way because being an Eldritch Blast Turret is all warlocks can do and Sorcs can do even THAT better with Meta-Magic.

Barbarian's capstone is also excellent and Fighter's is pretty damn good, I'd put both only slightly below Cleric and Druid.

>Repelling Blast
>Not Devil's Sight

Repelling Blast is broken as fuck, it applies to every missile in Eldritch Blast, has no save, and no size limit. You can literally smack around Dragons with it.

Get underneath someone and EB them 40 ft into the air

I can safely say I'd never run or play a game where multiclassing is banned. There are too many character concepts that can't be done with a single class. And some things, like EK, are pretty shit past certain levels if they can't MC.

Barbarian gets unlimited rage, +4str&con and increases their cap to 24. Fighter gets another extra attack. Rogue gets a d20=20 once per short rest. Not sure how good bard/monks 20s are. Paladin's look pretty good too.
I'm pretty sure sorcerer's 20 is the only one that's so shit a 1lvl dip gives you half of it AND a whole bunch of other stuff.

>not quickening it for 80ft

You don't need multiclass if you properly use backgrounds dumbass.

Sorcerer 20 is the sort of thing that needed to be at a way lower level. Much like the Ranger 20

High level cleric spells are junk, the 20 itself is fine but, if you actually care about efficiency over fluff, you should never get there.

I didn't consider multiclassing warlock because then you lose 19 spell points.

How do I make fireball do no damage to friendly creatures with backgrounds?

Devil's Sight in Darkness grants you Advantage against all enemies and Disadvantage from all enemies, and because no one can see you no one can take opportunity attacks against you to stop your escape, all for a level 2 spell. The most enemies Repelling Blast can effect in a turn is 4, and you have to hit in order for it to work, although that number goes up to 8 if you spend sorcery points.

I'm playing a 10th-level hexblade warlock, how do I wreck shit most effectively?

>inb4 "play a hexblade warlock"

Yeah, but you've also gained the best cantrip in the entire game and the class features that make it even better.

>Falling for this meme when Blindsight becomes common as fuck at around mid-level.

Next time you can just come out and say you have no idea what you're talking about. This is an anonymous board.

DMing my first-ever campaign (been playing 5e for a couple years) in roughly a month, any tips?

run a session 0, make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to shit like yelling about nat 20s and when it's appropriate to roll something. 'Yes and' and 'no but' are your friends. If you've been playing for awhile, I'm sure you know what you like and don't like in your campaigns.

How is that a character concept?

If you're gonna hide in the dark anyway, you might as well step out to cast then step back in to hide.

It's a moot point anyway though as enemies that can attack without sight become fairly common later on anyway, to deal with characters who have Greater Invisibility and such.

The knockback is mad cool, but I think I'd rather just twin firebolt for damage.

Except Agonizing Blast puts your charisma bonus on every projectile while firebolt is one projectile, and Force is basically unresisted while Fire is one of the most common resistances in the game.

Where do you think I got this meme from? Goddammit why do I gotta be the one to step out and be retarded so someone can slap my shit straight? Why can't someone else be the retard for once?

My first sorcerer was an dragonborn dragon sorcerer who was fascinated by his heritage and focused entirely on using fire, lightning, and thunder to rain destruction on his foes.
But even if he became strong enough to challenge Liches, he couldn't sculpt his evocation spells as well as the shitty little college dropout (level 2) wizard.

Because the meme build is really effective at low-level.

But we're talking about long-term level 20 builds, and Darkness is one of those things that's hardly even an annoyance at high level, when everything has blindsense, dispell abilities, ect.

So your character was a highly destructive mage, with the blood of something that levels villages for fun, and yet somehow being very careful and particular to be able to exclude a kitten from his fiery wrath was very important to your concept? Nevermind the fact that you could already do it pretty well with Careful spell despite it being the complete antithesis of your actual concept.

A character concept is not 'man, this multiclass gives me some neat abilities that I wouldn't have otherwise'

This right here. The mental gymnastics that powergamers do to defend their multiclassing is absolutely hilarious

A barbarian with the acolyte background or whatever really doesn't sell the concept as well as a few levels of war/tempest cleric.

Also the change to your character might only occur after character creation, so background would be incapable of covering it.

What level do you think EK turns to "shit?" Legitimately curious.

just don't a allow variant human and you're good

I'd love to play a kid who got lost in the fey woods, got a pact with them, and left 100 years later to find himself questing for light and justice as a paladin of the green. War 2/Pal X, and I'd do it without EB.

All of them.

Oh yes, that's definitely it. From my quick one sentence explanation of the character you know more about the concept then even myself. Clearly all characters are extremely one dimension and have no further depth to them, so there was nothing more to him solely because I didn't bother typing his entire backstory out. I apparently had no idea what I was doing, someone can rain destruction on his enemies can't possibly be good at controlling his magic so I made a mistake in being a sorcerer in the first place.
You can rightly go fuck off. Having control over his evocation fits the character concept 100%.