/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General:

If the players never wanted to go hunt demons in the first place, you don't have to steer them towards 'well because you ignored demons there are now demons everywhere so you have to fight demons'
Someone else could probably go hunt those demons anyway instead of four bored guys.
The worst that should really happen is 'Some town in someone's backstory got fucked up because you ignored that threat, but they were held back after that, there probably won't be another incident too soon but you can still go and eradicate the demon asses to make sure it doesn't happen again. Or you can keep doing this shit.'

I let my players ignore my plot hook all they want, but they have to deal with the consequences of doing so. In one of my recent sessions, their base city got attacked by 3 mouths of grolantor. They packed up their shit and left after killing them despite knowing that mouths of grolantor arent a natural occurence. When they come back, the city will have already been destroyed by the barbarian tribe that's been planning to unleash a horde of them on the city and kill the weakened survivors on both sides.

Someone post SJWs vs. The Undead Horde

Yesterday I played the one-shot with people including a Chad friend of mine and a girl I have a crush on.

Idk if anyone remembers me posting about it a few days ago. If anyone cares I'll sum up what happened.

Go ahead senpai.

I'm not even sure that not letting them ignore your plot hooks is railroading. As long as they can choose HOW they deal with the plot hooks I wouldn't consider it railroading.

Partial double-paste, looks like.

But yeah, aasimar inquisitive archer, magical items. I need ideas!

>DMs: do you let your players ignore your plot hooks? What's the line between railroading and trying to run a planned campaign?

Nope they are free to do whatever, but there will be consequences

For example our heroes are informed a Dark Wizard is in the South (Where the dragons live in my campaign) growing in power and amassing followers. The NPC makes it clear that this is a dire concern that must be addressed immediately

They decide to ignore it and do odd jobs for The Hunters Guild because they wanted a keep and are close to being able to buy one. End up on a side arc

>That night I rolled some dice
>1d10 for how many in game weeks before the the Wizard came north (5)
>1d10 how many times I would in game remind them (3)

Now every in game day I roll a d10 and a d20
d10:
>1-3 Wizard takes his current territory
>4-6 Wizard grows in strength (Goes up 1CR after 3 hits on this)
>7-9 Wizard gains extra followers (Roll 2 d20s)
>10 All 3 Occur

d20:
*All of these were in addition to what I already had planned)
0-5 nothing happens
6-10 Wizard gains a minor follower (Sub 2CR)
10-14 Wizard gains a moderate follower (3CR-6CR)
14-17 Wizard gains a powerful follower (7CR-9CR)
18-19 Wizard gains a young dragon follower (Homebrewed to be CR10)
20 Wizard gains an adult dragon follower

If they didn't engage the Wizard before the 5 weeks were up he would bring his forces north and take a city based on the size of his forces. He would ALSO recruit an Ancient Green Dragon. Either way his forces would be spread out evenly, possibly creating a longer arc.

Lets just say they created a 3-month arc out of 1months worth of content, and lost their 2nd biggest city in the process. After the campaign it was everyones favorite arc by miles

To be spiteful after all was said and done the King granted them a keep, which caused them to almost admit they ignored his dire warnings to make $$$. I let them sell the other keep easily enough but it made for a hilarious moment.

swear to god if you didn't ask her out or the dude got her, you're a gigantic pussy

Sure, shoot.
>him and chat become buds, forgetting about girl
That would be best end

Please do

I'm pretty sure the qt has the best end, user.

A quick, painless, death surrounded by friends and family?

(Part 1)
>set up for a full day of dnd
>friend who has never dm'd is running this
>at my apartment
>players are me, my chad friend, girl I have a crush on, and another girl who is the girlfriend of another one of my friends
>I'm playing as an edgy yuan-ti sorclock
>crush playing a robot cleric
>chad and other girl playing barbarians
>game going fine, chad is drinking a shit ton of beer the whole time, otherwise nothing crazy happens
>chad says he needs to go to the liquor store
>crush wants to go with him
>pic related

If your group gets together without the aspiration to vaguely follow the GM's plot, then there has been a failure of the group. Either the GM didn't create anything worth exploring, or the PCs are uninterested in the events and world around them. If that happens, have a conversation like functioning adults to decide what exactly you should be doing for several hours at a shot on a regular basis. If you can't come to a consensus, stop playing D&D together. That doesn't mean you aren't friends or can't hang out, just that you shouldn't be in the same group together.

You've got super autism my man
I'd kill to have someone this invested as my DM

Which one is the real one?

So, I'm running SKT and my party is trying to cross the Hand of Yartar. They intend to keep the goodies (some potions mostly) of a job they got with them, since the Hand needed the stuff but no women could get near it because of the Hand's reputation.
So what are some things I could do with them as a response?

Superb meme

your friend is going to go balls deep into your crush and it's all your fault.

>the Chad barbarian
>the Virgin sorlock

You really gotta step your game up senpai
The top classes to play when you're out to impress bitches are barbs, pally, rogues (the charismatic kinds only) and fighters

Fuck, the other thread is the real one. oh well.

I made my character way before I knew the girls were playing

(Part 2)
>they come back
>seems like nothing happened
>game continues on
>chad seems to be bonding more with the other barbarian
>end of the session, pretty late at night, chad is really drunk, everyone except other barbarian is moderately drunk
>girls leave
>DM leaves
>just Chad and I hanging out
>"so do you know if (crush) is single?"

How's Sorcerer overall, broskis? I'm debating between Warlock and Sorcerer for Yawning Portal. Warlock's Eldritch Blast spam sounds like it could get tedious but Sorcery points just seem gimmicky.

>tell him that I have a crush on her and that I had asked her out previously and she said no (which was _true_)
>we realize that we have the same taste in girls but his chad qualities are always enough to win them out over me
>he says that I am better at talking to people than he is, and that our strengths and weaknesses should even out
>our friendship is solidified and no feelings were hurt in any way
>he goes home

everything turned out better than expected

Despite what /5eg/ will tell you, sorcerers are plenty helpful. The problem is that they're inferior to wizards in every way except pure dpr

>I had asked her out previously and she said no
just give up my dude, find a new girl, you're just gonna hurt yourself in the end.

>didn't fuck chad
What are you, gay?

Glad to here it turned out well, but she already said no. Time to move on.

Seconding this
Just give up on women
Fuck Chad, he's clearly better

see

I have given up on her already. I didn't even invite her, the DM did. However, just because I have given up doesn't mean it would still hurt to see someone else get with her

No worries, but again, move on.

You should combine your qualities and double-team the bitch.
And the bro it out with each other when she inevitably can't keep up.

The stuff in level 1-9 from TtYP are all ~6 encounters in an adventuring day. You'll Eldritch Blast a lot, but that's OKAY to do so. It may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but it's not about always doing the most exciting thing every single turn. That's 4e. You can cast one good spell (Such as Hunger of Hadar) and then EB for the next couple of rounds. Go with a Pact of the Tome and Tome of Secrets and ritual cast a few things and you'll be a fun, full member of the party.

If you go Sorcerer, it's more challenging to play. You have to have a strong understanding of using spells to their fullest. You might want to quicken or twin or heighten just a few really nice control or arcane buff spells, then twin a cantrip through the fights, especially after level 5.

This absolute madman is recommending a new player to get quicken and heighten as his first two metamagics.

As a sorc player, quicken and twin are alright choices.

>Its a hypothetical, and likely a bad one at that.

of course they may never actually fight demons. the demons may get dealt with after much loss of life and limb from valiant heroes who gave their lives to save the nation.

of course after that the rival border nation senses weakness and strikes at the vulnerable country. or a disenfranchised lord separates from the greater nation and starts a rebellion. or an extremist religion rises up among the local lords and peasantry and we get witch burnings.

but ignoring a plot hook allows things to proceed at a pace. the party may never interact with it directly but its still there.

its like a shadowrun esque game I run a long ass time ago where the built up BBEG was a demented scientist who was blending technology and magic to travel back in time and stop himself from leaving his wife and kids so he could save them from the disaster that arose from the return of magic.

The PC's made the elf mafia instead

without the PC's to stop him the watchmaker succeeded in his goal, travelled back in time, saved his family and promptly grandfather paradox'd himself, resulting in a shockwave of magical power so intense that it turned seventy five percent of all mages on earth into living bombs and turned the state of wyoming into a complete mind-wreck of a train-fuck. the players were devastated by this disaster but so was everyone else too so they took the initiative and after IRL months of hard effort managed to crush or absorb their rivals, usurp the federal government and claim new york as their personal fiefdom.

I didn't do that to punish the players for ignoring the original campaign. I did it to force an intense and climactic conclusion to a campaign that had run out of steam a few weeks ago and to get my players reinvested. and it worked.

>inb4 talking about shadowrun in a 5e game

just saying that you don't have to completely throw away your old plot if your players aren't interested in it. recycle that shit.

Just found out about the Dungeon Masters Guild, it's really neat. Anything I should look out for as a newish DM? Free preferred.

Heightened is definitely a later-game choice, but quickened is good. I would also recommend empowered. Once strong AoEs come online, it's a good value to reroll damage.

But not both early on. You don't have enough sp to use both often without needing to convert spell slots and early on all it gives you is the opportunity to maybe add an extra cantrip to your damage. Quicken is less damage per sp than empowered at pretty much all points in the game whilst being more reliable. And subtle is more utility early on if you use charm spells or illusion.

A Most Potent Brew, Horror at Havel's Cross, and The Hound of Cabell's Tomb.

Extremely good low-level free adventures.

A good Mega with the official pdfs?

The Trove

>without the PC's to stop him the watchmaker succeeded in his goal, travelled back in time, saved his family and promptly grandfather paradox'd himself
>not only travelling back 20 minutes and having an existential crisis.
Git gud.

I'll keep those in mind for future games! Gonna start off with Mines of Phandelver.

There's a lot of value in using Quickened on Turn 1 of an encounter. Encounters don't last infinity duration, they don't even last 7 or 8 rounds. Things matter most in rounds 1-3, in such a scenario stunts like Quickened Slow or Hold Person -> Cantrip is worth every SP.

Question:

What if there was a "support" system in 5e where characters could teach others skills from their class/subclass and/or get morale bonuses when fighting next to each other? Would you find it likeable, or too easy to exploit? I think it'd encourage role playing and trying to find points in common, as well as growth not just personally but as a group.

Any puzzle ideas that I can nab? What about traps? the gayness thereof not withstanding I don't want to just have my dungeons to just be endless corridors of combat I want my players to actually think.

google puzzles for toddlers, that's about the level you should use for players

See, I haven't even tried to throw a puzzle at them, should I trust that they can breath and roll perception at the same time?

Kensei, Samurai, or Monk/Fighter Multiclass?

Should I make a Cleric or a Wizard for my party's only source of fullcasting? I'm thinking Tempest Cleric, Light Cleric, Evoker or Conjurer. My party has Paladin, Ranger and EK with plenty of buff spells and single target damage between them, but no sources of area damage or utility.

Kensai with Shuriken

If you have never pulled it on them before an amusing one is just having a switch in a room. If the switch isn't pressed every minute or so then the room starts to violently shake. Shakes just keep getting more violent until eventually stops and the exit opens. If the switch is pulled then the shaking will stop and the timer begins again. Fill the room with red herring items like a single goblet, a dagger and a skull.

I say Kensei for Unarmored defense and the robes and then 2 levels of Fighter for fighting style and action surge because the capstone for Monk sucks.

yeah, you can try, but you should gauge how good are they. Does anyone in the group enjoy puzzles? If not, try to introduce them slowly.

Tempest cleric is cool, and wizards are also cool. I'd choose depending on whose fluff you enjoy the most, both are great choices.

I mean, the main draw back of quicken is that it's only really ever useful early on if you don't fight in a lot of encounters. If anything empowered is a lot better in low turn combats because it's incredibly cheap, and helps out with poor rolls that could screw you over. At the end of the day, the ability to maybe add five whole damage at the cost of 2 sp or 11 at later levels just seems horrible to me, compared to the reliability of empowered, the utility of subtle or even the early game cheese that is heightened.

So what should a kensei/fighter look like for tenth level?

/5eg/, I've just come up with a new variant rule and I need feedback.

Combat takes very long in my group of relatively experienced players. I want to mend this by instituting a timer for peoples turns.

I've also noticed everyone in my group dumps INT unless they are a class heavily reliant on it like Wizard, whereas stats like DEX have a lot going for them.

What I propose is a standard turn timer of 45 seconds, plus a number of minutes equal to your intelligence modifier.

This makes Intelligence a stat that does more than just help you make saves against ~1% of the monster manual and in practice will probably tone down everyone's choice for bonuses to be DEX or CON, since higher int will give you a real tangible benefit in combat.

So, thoughts? Theories? Holes in my theory?

My dad asked my mom out 3 times before she said yes, and asked her to marry him 4 times before she said yes. They've been happily married for 40-some-odd years now, with three well adjusted and successful children and me, too
Dare to dream, user. Don't throw yourself away chasing clouds, but dare to try.

I feel like this punishes most casters except for wizards.

I'd go Light Cleric or Evoker honestly.

Light Cleric makes more sense then Tempest if your party is all frontline characters. Just sit in your medium armour flinging Sacred Flame's and Word's of Radiance while they run the front, plus you can help them with Warding Flare and use a nice safe AoE once per short rest.

Evoker I'd go for Wizard quite simply because no one plays it and it'll make you able to safely throw AoE's into the party without concern. Conjurer could be good, but it weirdly only has Demon summoning spells for low levels which might be a little strange with a Paladin around.

A Treachery or Knowledge Cleric would be great for your party. Or a lore bard.

nah, if you're going to do it, just tell people to think of their turn before the next happens. Use clothespins to display initiative order for everyone.

8 Kensei/2 Fighter imo is a solid choice, or wait til 11th level to multiclass into Fighter to get the d8 for monk weapons that aren't longsword and unarmed strikes, which are cool too

How big is the group? A Sorcerer may need bit more time than a marital but they probably won't have much INT, what do you do with a negative modifier? Does the timer run out once they declare action? What about rule clarification. What happens if their timer runs out.

Flat 1 minute timer unless the whole group is discussing strategy. No spending too long looking over your 100 options without talking to the group about what they think.

As for INT in combat, I'd add it to initiative honestly. That way the turn order is slightly less random while also allowing people like Fighters who dumped DEX to not have a terrible turn order if they invest in other areas.

DMing a 9 player group is suffering.

Instead, maybe give everyone a minute but give them a number of second chances equal to their int mod. No mercy for those with negative int mod.

stop.
that could be two groups easily. one of those 9 players can be kicked in the nads and told to go DM for another 4, leaving you with 4 and everything is peachy.

I think you may be correct. Perhaps upping the flat time to around 1:30 and making the other Mental stats have an extant but not as potent impact? CHA nets 30 seconds, WIS 45 and INT 1 minute? I'd have to test it in the field to get concrete times down. Thank you for your input.

I do indeed already keep track of initiative via cards on my DM screen and I've tried telling them to get their turns worked out ahead of time. The timer was the last resort, but thinking about it I realized a more intelligent character would have more mental "time" to analyze a situation than a 6 INT, 10 WIS 8 CHA Barbarian, hence this whole train of thought.

>Not DMing a 7,000,000,000 player group
Step it up senpai

Trust me, your players hate it too. Set up a west marches style campaign where anyone can play any session with basically any character they want. Then set up a rotation where you only have to deal with 5 players at a time.

God pls go
/wodg/ need you.

>run a completely 100% mundane campaign
>kick out two players when That Guy convinces them to go off of your rails
>Other players keep joining.
>Never let them play casters
>every few hundred years send down a DMPC who conveniently gets to take levels in caster.

I've got some issues with your game from a purely gaming perspective.

In order;
Five players and myself

I've decided to allow CHA and WIS to effect the timer, though not as much as INT

Negative modifier would have no effect, the timer would have a minimum time regardless of how dumb your character is

Timer only pauses if there needs to be any clarifications to the player about the situation, monsters, etc. It only counts down when the player is strategizing.

If the timer runs out, their turn ends unless they can in the moment come up with as quick a summarization as possible on what they want to do; if They can't, their character freezes with indecision and their turn is passed.

I found a massive list of Magic Weapons and armor on Reddit and wanted to share them with you all. What do you guys think?

Wizard for Counterspell and Dispel Magic. Evoker is meh if you ask me, but could be pretty important with frontliners like that. I would go Transmuter if you wanted more utility though.

Tug a braid and smooth your skirts, user.

Also spend hours describing clothes with cutouts to demonstrate bosom (not breasts, bosom).

>be me, doing exactly this
>weird meta-narrative gets popular in one clique, completely overtakes the campaign
>half my players are busy with that shit and ignoring all my other plot points
>just kind of watch their games, never touch them
>always amazed to see how they insist what I'm doing (which is nothing) is so great
>they're just fucking freeform LARPing with each other
>only guys still playing the actual game are obsessed with cows
The sandbox was a mistake. If things don't shape up by the end of this kali yuga I'm converting to a new system, maybe something with better support for sci-fi.

Thanks user. I was just brainstorming this subject and help is much appreciated

Blame the normalfags who keep asking to join

>no ring of sustenance
Im still disappointed. Do DMs not make people keep track of food and sleep? Or is it just mine?

I bet your DM doesn't keep track of bladder fullness or model fiber and water intake to determine what grade of shit each PC is producing and how difficult their bowel movements must be based on their level of activity.
>Cerilieaeiea, your Elven digestive system needs far more roughage than you've been consuming in all these trail rations, and all that coffee is actually dehydrating you. Give me a Constitution check, DC 20 to overcome your constipation since you already have two failures. If you fail this time, your bowels will become impacted and you'll need to see a Fecocleric within three days or risk intestinal rupture.

>Fecocleric
>not travelling with a Scatcerer who can twin cast Otiluke's Bubbling Laxative and keep the party regular while incapacitating the enemy

West Marches?

This, that ring was my favorite magic item for years. Plus it always felt flavorful to take, because who the fuck would say no to not worrying about eating/drinking (but still being able to if you wanted) and sleeping less. It doesn't help that I fucking hate Ioun stones, too.

It's Shadowrun without guns.
>characters hang out in a tavern or some other place that hears tons of rumors and is central to interesting locations
>one of them hears of an adventure they'd like to go one
>they recruit a party of PCs and go off to do that
>the party doesn't have to be regular; if Dave plays the Cleric but couldn't come tonight and you need a healer, Jeff, the guy who plays the other Fighter, could roll up a new Cleric and fill that role instead

What would Madam Eva's spell :Temple of the Gods look like?

That, or
LA
SE GRA-DA
FA-MI-LI-A

Anyone have ideas to help flesh out my Tiefling Cleric? This is what I got with the random tables.

Origins
>You know who your parents are
>Both parents were human, their infernal heritage dormant until I came along
>Born at a healers house
>No siblings
>Raised by aunt and uncle
>Parents died
>Was raised inside a mansion
>I had several friends, and my childhood was generally a happy one

Personal choices
>I became a Folk Hero because I hated my mundane life, so when it was time for someone to step up and do the right thing, I took my chance
>I became a Cleric because I saw the injustice and horror in the world and felt moved to take a stand against them.

Life Events
>A celestial or a fiend visited you in your dreams to give a warning of dangers to come
>You went on an adventure and lost 3 fingers

I find the idea of her tent having the properties of a Temple of the Gods to be delightful

THE WIND HAS CHANGED
THE STORM IS OVER