/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

Besides fluff, and apart from the Oath of Vengeance, is there there any real reason any paladin should not have a sword & board?

It feels like it's vastly superior to GWF, that flat +2 damage is pretty filthy. Also, I feel the added AC will serve the paladin (who probably has a lot less CON than the Fighter who SHOULD have GWF) survive a bit longer. Paladin's damage really comes from those smites anyways.

Elven Accuracy doesn't work with Str attacks.

I love that one just because she wasn't paying attention to the scene when it was described, and then she just decided "fuck it lets do goofy Keyleth shit!"

According to RAW she shouldn't have died

RAW for falling damage is fucking stupid, Mercer did the right thing with that ruling.

That RAW is designed to keep people from abusing mechanics in boss fights and shit, not to protect retards who jump from a 1000ft cliff onto jagged rocks.

I hope to god she plays a simpler melee class for the next campaign, for her own sake.

Travis potentially playing an intelligent character gives me strength.

just throwing away the dumb as fuck players would be a great starting point

"Oh no Raishan, we don't need your help"

HOLY SHIT WHY ARE YOU CONTINUING TO TAUNT THIS ANCIENT GREEN DRAGON ARE YOU FUCKING MAD? YOU ACTUALLY LITERALLY NEED HER HELP

Fuck if I was at that table I would have cast Hold Person so fucking fast their heads would have spun. Which would have failed cause she has like +11 WIS mod but I digress

I was just being a dick but I agree.

If you look at the preview there is a Monk looking character there and she expressed interest. They are pretty simple and then the only major thing we have to worry about is her fudging Ki

At some panel Laura was at she said she was going to be a Cleric or a Paladin, but then Travis wanted to be one of those. Odds are he will be something half way intelligent.

>player refuses to act until back at the table where the other players can tell them what to do
>says I'll just wait for the party

what would you do as a DM? potentially hours in an active dungeon if they even return that way.

Force them to go, or they lose their turn. I do that with new players, I have a turn-timer (which I take away once they're familiar, haven't had to use one in years) and if they can't get something done within 2 minutes, they give up their turn.

Otherwise the whole game slows down, and it's not fun for anyone.

>lol, it's what my character would do!
Fucking faggots. Going full "The monster is weak to this thing, I read it on the monster manual!" metagaming is shitty, but I really think that fags who can't into finding in character reasons to be at a place where they are needed by other players, go where they know their character can find an interesting part of the plot or choose to foster interparty conflict under the guise of "roleplaying my character" to be the absolute worst kind of player.

It's a game, stop looking for excuses to avoid playing it.

I want to make a character that focuses on grappling. Has anyone here played one before?
What would be a good build for that? I've heard the Grappler feat is a trap.

so they lost their turn. they're alone. the other players are elsewhere doing totally different things. they lose another turn. until the other players come back to the table she isn't going to do anything but "wait for the other PCs to find her".

so what happens? What do I do that's not punitive DM? She literally doesn't want to play until the other players, in real life, are back and able to tell her what to do. I basically want to handwave it and be like "you've been captured by an _______ and wake up to find you're being eaten."

Maybe I should just wait until she is back at the table and play out her god damned solo trip and make all the other players wait while we do that. God forbid they reach the place where her PC is drooling before she gets back (not that it will be any different, I could just ask for a consensus and get identical results to when she is there).

I'm seriously pissed about this.

did the guy who wanted this ever see it

My players recently killed a young red dragon, it was an impressive feat. It was a fight that I didn't think all of them would be able to get through, but they proved me wrong. I rewarded them with an appropriate amount of loot, and maybe a bit more than I rolled for, I was impressed. However they've recently gotten really cocky, calling themselves 'The Dragon Slayers' and boasting about it all the time. They have taken to laughing at white dragons in particular, as they are described as smaller and more primal than their other chromatic brethren.

I want to throw a fucking white dragon at them to shut them up, but i've never actually fielded one in a game before. Am I underestimating how powerful they are? A lot of people, that i've seen online, shit talk them a lot. But they're still fucking dragons.

He might not have, but I see it and I appreciate it.

white dragons are fucking dumb so if they have some way of tricking him they basically win

Punch people, fluff it as grapples.

Is she a child? If not, force her to fucking move. Standing still and waiting is a completely valid option, one that her character might actually do. So throw something at her, give her something creeping towards her in the darkness. I'm not 100% clear on where they're at, but if they're in a tomb have three or for skeletons shamble toward her, if they're lost in a forest have a big natural beast peek through the underbrush and have her see it/hear it.

Force her to move, or kill her for deciding to stay in one place for too long. You're a DM, it's your job to create an enjoyable experience for the table, it is NOT your job to hold your fucking player's hands throughout the whole game. If they're new players, we all do a bit of handholding, but there is only so much you can do before you have to say: "I've given you all the info you need, and then some, you need to decide what to do." If she decides to stay put, try and get her to move (send enemies her way/maybe fudge rolls so she has a chance to escape) if she still stays put after that, kill her.

I'm not the guy who wanted the shop, but I am the guy who loves those happy little fish bastards.
I love it, fukken saved.

>little fish bastards
Man, I had a blast running them and their goofy names in OoTA. "Ia Ia leemmogoogu fhtagn"

No, but you can flavor a regular bard w/o any trouble.

Ditch Marisha and Liam and don't let Ashley come b/c she has an actual acting job. Replace them with Joe Mangianello and Reinhardt's VA and you have the perfect show.

needs will friedle too

So how well could you build a Jojo's character with Ancestral Barb? Should you multiclass into something?

Was he grouchy cleric guy? If so that would be perfect.

Only way to get me back into the show. I don't think I can stand any more of Marisha's and Liam's roleplay and cheating regardless.

I'll admit that my sperging out about Marisha getting to banish Vecna after Sam deserved that RP reward so much more after she ignored her concentration checks for two hours wasn't my finest moment, but if the endgame didn't tell you everything bad about that campaign then I don't know what would

>Liam's roleplay and cheating
GOOD OL FOUR LUCK OBRIEN

Sam is the shit

Why don't Oathbreaker Paladins do necrotic smite damage instead of radiant smite damage?

That sounds like an ok ruling in my book. Why don't you go with that?

It triggers me because Marisha seems pretty smart IRL. If you watch her interviews with D&DBeyond, consider the fact that she and two others literally saved Geek and Sundry from the brink, or have the opinion that it's been better since she became Creative Director sans the Alpha launch its been OK, but not my cup of tea. She was also great in Sagas of Sundry but she was AWFUL as Keyleth. I'm hoping it's just the character.

Just a reminder he legally had 4 lucks. He had this background+lucky feat

Guys, I'm making a bard and have no idea of what spells to make, my last 4 characters were martials. We're starting at level 6, and I'm going college of glamour. So far I chose:

Cantrips:
Vicious Mockery
Thunderclap
Minor Illusion (not sure about this one)

Level 1:
Healing Word
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter
Thunderwave

Level 2:
Hold Person
Invisibility
Suggestion

Level 3
Sending
Hypnotic Pattern

I still need another spell, but I'm not sure at all about a lot of things I picked

How do you fix TWF so its as viable as other options

First question, user, tell us about your party and what is your character's deal. His (or her) theme.

Then what about your party. What is their composition.

But even without that much info, I can already tell you are kinda heavy on the Concentration slot there.

Just make paired weapons a single item and treat them like two-handed weapons, mechanically.

>checked
The digits have spoken, Liam must be Orion'd. >On Marisha
If she proves herself to be so good of a RPer that she does it while falling-over drunk, never breaks character, and can divorce herself from Keyleth and pick up a new character, I'll believe it. But her incompetence and Keyleth's personality were too similar for me to hope for that.
>On Liam
He did 4 lucks long before Matt wrote that background.

Speaking of , i'm creating an Oathbreaker NPC to be a major player in my game. Mechanically speaking, are they better suited to be dueling sword & board fighters or GWFs?

I'd incorporate the feat into the class as it's mandatory to make a dual wielding build viable.

Maybe not the AC bonus, but definitely the bit that lets you use non-light weapons.

No one else came up with their class yet.
My idea was to make this arrogant bard who uses his charm effects to gain fame while traveling, in combat I was thinking about being the crowd control dude because last time we had none and there was nothing I could do about it because of my class
I wasn't thinking about concentration, thanks for reminding me

Why are you making an Oathbreaker?

And GWF is better at damage dealing, as obvious.

Thats because that background was written for the home game. If you watch (I THINK its either the fireside Q&A or the wrapup) Matt explains he gave it to Liam during the home game because it fit his character and he felt like the whole "controlling your destiny" would be a good message for Liam in a dark time in his life

Why isn't the default normal+light? Why does it have to be two lights?

He was an NPC from the beginning Phandelver module, the players saved him and got along great with him, and i'm going to bring back.

We're at 16th level right now. So if I go dueling he's going to do 1d8 + 5STR + 5CHA + 2 + 3 Magic Weap Dmg flat, which is fucking nasty.

Really quickly... does anyone like these two feats? I think they are horribly worded and either slow the game down tremendously (Dual Focused) or they don't really make any sense (Spelldriver).

Ok, so CC + Charisma with Charms. Yeah, you got a good thing going.

Just one advice. If you are the only arcane caster, try for Detect Magic and/or Dispel Magic. Magical control is 50% of a party dynamic.

Suggestion is the best charm spell this edition and I see you got it already, but consider Enthrall, Calm Emotions and Sleep. All pretty useful for an enchanter.

>buffing casters
They're shit

Casters are already overpowered as fuck, they don't need the ability to break even MORE rules of the game... rules which exist explicitly to keep them from being Pathfinder levels of retarded.

I don't really mind either as long as it's not a retard playing

Dual-Focused is horribly boring to play but pretty powerful and the time the CON saves takes is usually negated by the fact they spend their action just keeping concentration.

Spelldriver is OK for Clerics and shit that may want to use two spells in a turn. It's not great for most casters

Then you want GWF if the players don't have a main melee striker, or SwordNBoard if there already players that use great weapons but no one using shields. That way you can deal the magic items accordingly and the styles don't clash too much. You know it is a wobbly composition when more than two players/NPCs are doing the same actions turn in and turn out.

Oh boi, just what I always wanted. More cool shit for casters. Not like half my group doesn't always pick wizards already anyway.

how retarded are we talking, never read anything about pathfinder

That's a good call, i'm planting him as an eventual "traitor" anyway. They'll do something he doesn't like, they're all good or at worst LN characters that generally do good things, and he'll turn on them. Might be a session or two before that happens though, so I wanted to balance him out right.

Their fighter uses a shield, so I might GWF him out.

First response wins -

We're going to be starting a new campaign next week and one of the major elements my players are interested in is working for a patron (noble or otherwise wealthy).

Should their patron be:

-A landed noble with several estates
-A self made man of wealth who owns a large business interest and the supporting network

Speaking of critical role, have any of you had to deal with a spotlight hog like Liam that would keep attention on himself with cringeworthy, overdramatic rp for 20 minutes?

Another good advice, but I think you already got it covered, is to different from an oathbreaker and an anti-paladin and a blackguard. These three are very similar, but they are different (and increasingly disturbing) flavors of evil.

Oathbreaker is just a paladin that gave his divine oath the middlefinger and lost faith and hope in humanity, yadda, yadda. The other two are way more disturbing in their unholliness.

Yeah we just made fun of him whenever he did it till hew stopped

Self Made Man

self made badass

Neither. It is a Beholder and/or Illithid disguised as a powerful, wealthy and influential wizard! They rope in adventurers, get them to do their dirty job, win the-

Ah fuck. Someone was faster. I tried to be special. Oh well.

When they saved him he was an oath of devotion paladin. But i'm going to have him be kicked from his order when he returned, and eventually he lost his faith altogether, hence the 'oathbreaker' class.

The last guy I kicked from this Roll20 group had 'protagonist syndrome', and he was hitting on the one girl in the party (who was already in a romance with another character). Ironically, that dude was a rogue too. I don't know what it is about that class.

It's decided - self made it is.

One of my favorite characters was the Illithid mayor of the Droam town in Eberron. Maybe I'll find a way for him to have an interesting 'unusual' monster lieutenant.

For bonus points, make him into a belligerent, self destructive hedonist. This was done super well with another fall-from-grace paladin in BG2. The idea of the dude then becoming completely self-destructive and indulging in drugs, alcohol and vices make it super cruel to the party. Watch their old friend spiral into death and lash at them when they try to help...

tell me you know that you don't build NPCs out of the PHB as if they were PCs. please say you know that.

>building an Oathbreaker out of the PHB
Sure, i'm also choosing the standard Half-Dragon PHB race.

Check out the Speaker in Dreams adventure from 3rd edition. That was a very well done "Mind Flayer dominates the town" kind of plot twist on an adventure. One of my favorites from back when.

Dual Focused
>Breaking the DMG's statement on not messing with concentration rules
>"Standard Action" is not a term in 5e. Its just an action.
>Also being forced to use your action removes the ability to use a lot of concentration based spells that ask you to use your action. Your better off playing a Sorcerer with Twinned spell.
>At the end of EACH TURN you make a Con save. That means at the end of every single persons turn in combat you have to make a new save. So the more people in combat the slower this ability makes the game.

Spelldriver
>You can already do what this feat is allowing you to do. You can cast any spell as an Action, Action Surge, Reaction.

>What I think it should say is
>"If you want to cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 bonus action, you can cast any other spell before or after it on the same turn, that has a casting time of 1 action and is 3rd level or lower."

Regardless both of these are some pretty powerful buffs to casters (Who really don't need a buff), Sorcerers mainly (Who do need a buff, but not this way).

you're asking about feats in the PHB and building a homebrew class for PCs

that's not how you fucking build NPCs

Fighting styles are not feats, and I need the character to seem like a temporary party member to fool my party as I said before.

Go be a sperg somewhere else friendo.

Should the man(or woman?) in question have made his fortune in:

-Mining
-Timber
-Caravans
-Other

It can be. God knows I give NPCs and some monsters player abilities I deign to be appropriate and useful in an encounter.

Not that guy, btw, I just find it funny how you think you think you are the ultimate authority on building NPCs.

Mining

Caravans!

The arabian nights~
Like arabian day-

Fuck. Late again.

Any of you niggas have any experience with Swashbuckler?

Humans don't look up very often.

Hmm I too like Caravans, I'll have to find a way to add it in. Could just be a supplement to his mining business.

Perhaps his monstrous lieutenant runs his caravans.

>Oathbreaker is just a paladin that gave his divine oath the middlefinger and lost faith and hope in humanity, yadda, yadda. The other two are way more disturbing in their unholliness.
The oathbreaker is literally dedicated to evil. It's more than just not being good or dedicated enough to still be a regular paladin. They are Evil servants or leaders of Evil powers. The difference with an anti-paladin or blackguard is that the Oathbreaker wasn't always evil, while they others may have been. You don't become an Oathbreaker for just giving up the fight. You have to actually join the other side.

Hence their abilities, Oathbreakers usually follow deities of death. Their whole class is built around raising and/or controlling an undead army or powerful undead creatures.

Oathbreakers as bosses are a blast to be able to control, they can raise an army or control a fucking death knight at higher levels with very little issue, their aura of hate is fucking filthy too.

I could make an argument that the fact Blackguards bring demons into this world, raise literal armies of the dead and dominate the minds of lesser creatures make them a primer force of evil. Anti-Paladin is even worse. The asshole is a living vector of all the worse diseases in the world and can kill an entire village by spitting in the well.

But I guess where you are coming from.

Doesn't that imply a dedication to Orcus? He's the master of undead and all that, no?

I played a Half-Elf Variant Swashbuckler/Battle Master and loved it, I felt like the best most patient duelist around countering people with Riposte, Action Surging and waiting for the opponents to make one wrong step to attack them, and I had booming blade to mesh with the hit and run mentality. I do wish I had picked up the Sentinel feat to drive home the heavy counter role I was playing I did not think about it at the time though.

There are a number of deities that it would fit, but Orcus is certainly high up there.

For instance, a Half-Dragon Oathbreaker might be more inclined to follow someone like Null.

Depends on who you ask. 4th edition? Apparently so. But in 2nd edition he was actually dead and the later dates of 3.5 Orcus ended up losing his domain over the undead to Kiaransalee, the Banshee Goddess of the Drow, with Lolth's help.

He is still a necromancer of immense power and a Demon Prince.

Even Tiamat, was he inclined for destruction.

Well there's also the matter that the anti-paladin/blackguard aren't statted (unless you count the Volo's NPC block, which I really couldn't) and the Oathbreaker serves as the villainous option that represents them currently.

Tiamat certainly works too, less because of the undead angle though. A Half-Dragon with chromatic heritage might feel obligated to follow their queen though, regardless of how their powers manifest.

For players. In my opinion the Oathbreaker is as close to playable you can get to Anti-Paladins and Blackguards, as of yet.

But yes, a lack of 5th edition rendition for these archetypes are a huge hurdle against using them. I have, but I am incredibly old-fashioned, and I like my Githyanki to be as close to original as possible - meaning red dragon riding anti-paladins and fighter/mages.

Tiamat is big into destruction and mayhem, avarice and rage, all that good stuff. If her servants use necromancy to further those goals in their name or hers, I heard she was pleased enough.

Be careful when giving your characters the Oathbreaker option. I've allowed it, but I make them break their fucking oaths. An Oathbreaker is not simply some dude that controls undead, it's a person who has betrayed a sacred oath and done something extremely evil to do so.

Make the player do something uncomfortably evil in order to become an Oathbreaker. If they are ordered (by their patron deity, king, order, whatever) to not allow a bandit to kill a single innocent during an incoming raid, have the paladin kill every villager himself, adhering to the letter of the command not the spirit of it. Make the player feel legitimately terrible about what they're doing, have them roll for damage against old friends and family. And Oathbreaker is an evil character for a reason, don't diminish that.

I am full aware. I have only allowed Oathbreaker once, in a fully evil game where the players are trying to escape hell.

Understood. Though I have to say if I had confidence in the player, and if their alignment was Lawful Evil as opposed to NE or CE, i'd allow it in one of my regular campaigns as well.

They'd start running into a lot of fiend and undead enemies though.

I don't like hitting players over the head with their own class abilities and features. I mean, I have semi phenomenal nearly cosmic powers to make up shit as I go, nearly infinite features to draw from. The players need some sort of sacrisaintity, of sanctuary. Otherwise they'd feel like a slog, fighting enemies set to counter them at every turn.

I too look at the cieling of every building I walk into. Nobody's getting the drop on me

that sounds like a great quirk for a paranoid character, maybe even an insanity option