/5eg/ - Fifth Edition D&D General:

Can I get some ideas on how to use Phantasmal Force effectively please?

Rolled 2, 2, 10 = 14 (3d10)

That's pretty cool. You going to make the trinket do anything or become magic? Or just let it be?

Well he has another item that is magical that is linked to his past. I felt that the trinket should stay non-magical. It gets its magic through its meaning which is fine enough.

idk though, maybe i will do something with it. he's gotten himself and the party sliiiightly wrapped up with devils who are after his patron who is a bit of a notorious demon.
feel like i could have some enchantment fun with that.

It's a fun multiclass and people like gishes.

Oh! I really want that idol to tie in with the true name of a devil/demon somehow.

So... it is something people do in private and you shouldn't concern yourself with it unless you want to fuck them?

>its fun to multiclass
my swashbuckler rogue/sword bard agrees

...is he gay?

About an hour from now I am playing in my first campaign ever (As opposed to just playing in one-shots)

I am playing Barbarian and am terrified I will say "I would like to rage" because I watched a lot of CR.

>multiclassing CHA classes
DOUBLE GAY

>playing SKT with our usual group
>playing a Rogue
>most fragile member with no revive mechanics in the party so always have a backup character ready
>party gets wrapped up in some horrible paladin sect nonsense
>get trapped in a Get Out scenario in Helm's Hold
>end up having to deal with the corrupt Paladin leader
>he breaks his oath right as the fight starts
>almost die at 3 different points
>constantly worried i'm actually going to die because my backup character is a Conquest Paladin similar to this bad guy

boy the party will not be welcoming if I have to switch

>CHA classes
>Rogue

I suppose the swashbuckler initiative stuff counts.

>I'm terrified I will say "I would like to rage" because I watched a lot of CR

Why? It's a normal phrase in English, and only an autist would probably pick up on the subtelty.

That, and swashbucklers can be very good at the talky talk. Panache is strong.

What's objectively the best level 4 Wizard spell and why is it Polymorph?

True, I haven't hit that point yet. I'm 7 Rogue/3 Bard on the multi. I probably will not hit that point anyway as we are doing a module.

So, long story short; do anons think Gorgons/Medusae could ever be made into a PC race in 5e?

I figured if you toned down the effect of their gaze attack (slow instead of paralyze, for example), made it a 1/encounter power, and used racial feats to unlock more potent displays ocular spellcasting, that'd bring them into balance with the classic races, but what does Veeky Forums think?

Polymorph is good but it is no dimension door

How do most people on Veeky Forums find inspiration for characters? I've hit a lowspot in inspiration, just in time for a campaign, go figure, and I'm trying to expand beyond my usual, "just scroll through art on pintrest or google images and look for something cool"

Yeah, sure, sounds good. Throw in some "at first level, the character is just starting to manifest their inherited Gorgon traits," and you got yourself a stew goin'.

>1/encounter power
Wrong edition you are balancing around, friend. Gorgons are going to be tough. You'd have to wait a long time before giving them something too rough. Although, a gaze affecting a single creature that slows movement speed? That isn't that bad. Work around that.

Anyone who has seen the show will pick up on it. It's the characters marquee phrase and something he says multiple times an episode

>Dimension Door
What did he mean by this? Surely he doesn't think a peice of shit teleportation spell is anywhere near as good as the King Kong simulator?

I was actally thinking of including a gorgon race in my setting who are basically a degenerate elven offshoot that tried to absorb the magic of the long-dead dragons, and it hasn't reacted well with them, making them prone to mutation - not least of which is a variety of potential gaze attacks. If I can figure out what gazes to give them, that's definitely a good start.

1/short rest is, to all practical purposes, the same thing as 1/encounter, it's just trying to hide that it was taken from 4e.

But, yeah, the level 1 gazes should be weak, single target effects - petrifying is probably something best restricted for... what, level 14? That's when the wizard can cast Flesh to Stone, right?

I look for somebody I like in a town and follow them, making a character up to fit their personality. It really helps the RP if I make a suit of their skin too but I wouldn't suggest it

So, anyone know when or if WoTC is going to be putting out Unearthed Arcana or the like in 2018?

Likewise, the most recent issue of Dragon+ assures the readers that a Plane Shift: Ixalan is planned, and we even had a PS:Ixalan adventure released on DM's Guild. But, if we get a proper Plane Shift for Ixalan... what's it likely to have? We've had a motley assortment of races and subclasses in Plane Shifts up until now.

On this same line of thought, if we got a Plane Shift: Ravnica, would they give us Ravnica Gorgons as a PC race?

Sorry, but I just think that Plane Shift has been some of the more interesting ideas to come out of the UA so far, so I really want to know if this could be possible.

I miss those months last year where those madmen tried once a week UAs.

>when is UA coming out?

Probably roughly once a month, just like last year.

>Will they give us Ravnica Gorgons as a PC race?

Probably not, Ravnica Gorgons are incredibly rare. At one point there was only Ludmilla, after all.

As a player? Look for things in the campaign setting that interests you and build off off it.

Random question; since that user asked about PC gorgons above, what about 5e Lillendi PCs? They did have a racial class writeup in 3e. Mayeb something like this?

Lillend
Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Charisma, +1 Wisdom
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision 60 feet
Serpent Body: Instead of legs, you possess an undulating tail, like the body of a giant snake.Your unusual anatomy prevents you from using footwear-based magical items unless they have been specifically designed to fit your monopedal anatomy, or can magically reshape themselves to fit. Additionally, you must have armor custom-fitted; properly-fitted armor increases its cost by +50% (rounding up), whilst improperly fitted armor has its AC reduced by -2 points, minimum of AC 0, to represent the glaring vulnerable spots it presents. You cannot use magic armor unless it can be made to magically reshape itself for your anatomy.
Divine Muse: You have Proficiency in Performance.
Serpent Angel's Strength: You have Advantage on saving throws against attacks that inflict Poison, Radiant or Necrotic damage.
Wings: You have a Fly speed of 10 feet, which increases by +10 feet at level 3 and level 7, maxing out at Fly 30 feet.

Racial Feat: Divine Resilience
Prerequisite: Lillend race
Effect: Your Serpent Angel's Strength racial feature now gives you Resistance to Poison, Radiant and Necrotic damage.

Racial Feat: Crushing Coils
Prerequisite: Lillend race
Effect: You gain the Constrict racial trait:
Constrict: Your serpent body is a natural weapon, which you can use to make constrict attacks as an unarmed strike. If you hit with your constrict attack, you deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier, and the target is grappled (escape DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and you can’t constrict another target.

When a pc is KO and stabilized do you wake him up in 1d4 ingame hours or what?

I'm pretty shit but I decide on a race/class first. Then decide what kind of quirks I want my character to have like coward, funnyman, afraid of water, dumb, heroic, faggot, and write a decently vague backstory which supports the quirks. Flesh it out if I can be bother and then go.

Rolled 9, 6, 10 = 25 (3d10)

Let this trinket forge my destiny.

as a first time DM should I do my own campaign or use a premade one?

I' will be a first time DM soon, I will be running 4 person Mines of Phandelver in two weeks, I'm reading up, playing some mockup encounters with a friend to be ready, but there are some things I'm still not sure about. This time I want to ask about maps and battle grid maps.

So I've got couple maps for this starter adventure from remuz, but I'm not sure if, when and how should I present them to my players. While generally accesible maps (in this case Phandalin or Sword Coast) I can let them be bought in a shop, or make players to ask some street urchin to show them around thus producing a map, then how I go about giving them maps of Redbrand Hideout, Cragmaw Hideout & Castle? They will instantly know what is where (even if I remove tags and pointers), and there will be little to no exploration. I'd like to keep maps for encounters and because I'm new I'd like to keep them if my descriptions won't be enough. Did someone come up with some form of fog of war to reveal map elements? Like if I was to cut piece of paper into squares and keep taking them off the map from places they've explored?

And the question about battle grid, how strict should I be when there is a fight in small limited space (say Redbrand Hideout)? Do you let two or more medium character stand in 5x5 square. Friendly fire when someone rolls 1? How often do you resolve fights without grid and figures, tokens and what not? Do you use generic_battle_grid.jpg for random overnight encounters?

Man, we should put up a pastebin FAQ for "hey, about to DM for the first time" questions

Play a module, that way you only have to focus on arbiting the rules properly and not managing a storyline.

>Man, we should put up a pastebin FAQ for "hey, about to DM for the first time" questions
yus

Depends, do you think you’ll be able to read a module enough times to be able to run it properly without having a proper grasp on the rules?

There's no time crunch for when this is starting so if need be I could commit it to memory if running a module would be better than making my own

Looking good but the resist radiant and necrotic damage, why? Resisting poison damage is pretty good, radiant maybe makes sense but necrotic could then even be a weakness rather than resisting both.
> Max fly of 20 feet at level 3
Also seems strong

Dont try and commit it to memory

Start with Lost Mines of Phandelver

Try it this way. Run a module but make the module your own. What I mean by this is follow the book as a guideline and not a hyper strict narrative. Change things you do not like. Add things you want.

Agreed! Multiclassing is the realm of filthy sub-humanoid trash unable to attain maximum level in a single class, so choosing to suck at multiple ones instead.

The questions you asked can almost all be answered "depends on how you want it"
> Look at you. You're the DM now.
Personally, if they're having to actually explore a place I prefer a dry wipe board where they discover and have the discoveries added to their map as they go. The paper thing would work the same way too, you're right though and showing a whole owlbear nest off as soon as they enter it isn't good sport. If it's just a map of the town or anywhere neutral and explorable / visible they don't need to have bought or found anything in game - you're just displaying what the characters can see already to the players.
(Personally I like to consider standing space, LOS etc also making 1s, 2s, perhaps 3s friendly fire if someone is almost in the way of your shot, depending on how tight it is and other things. Makes players think and move more, much more interesting)

Rolled 2, 9, 8 = 19 (3d10)

>cut piece of paper into squares and keep taking them off the map from places they've explored?
That'll work. But if you have an eraseble battle grid, consider just progressively drawing the dungeon/castle/explored area.

>Do you let two or more medium character stand in 5x5 square.
One medium creature per square in the battle grid.

>Friendly fire when someone rolls 1?
I've only done that if a friendly is grappling the target or directly in line of fire. Otherwise rules as written, a 1 is just a failure to hit.

>How often do you resolve fights without grid and figures, tokens and what not?
When it wouldn't add any useful info to the players. E.g. 1vs1 brawl.

Would I be shooting myself in the foot by making a Wildhunt Shifter cleric instead of just using Human or Halfelf or whatever the fuck else?

Just got my copy of Storm King's Thunder. Any tips for running it?

When I was writing those questions, many things became much more clear to me. Because it is my first time I will try one thing, and if that won't work I'll try another one, they are also new so they won't know any better.

When exploring Echo Caves, I'll try to make them get pic related map from somewhere, which is not detailed enough to give you a lot of information, but clear enough to avoid confusion.

>I prefer a dry wipe board
Was that metaphorical or you actually have a board (like a white board for markers?) where you draw (or make players) draw maps as they go?

Be prepared to write as much as a homebrew campaign. Anything not really related to the actual Giants storyline is pretty fucking empty.

+1 Dex, +1 Wis

Nah, you'll be fine, just not super optimized like VHuman or Half-Elf builds.

After making my group trudge through the jungle twice and take a ship once I said forget it. Luckily they found the crashed airship and limped it to Nyanzaru.

Boom, massive goldsink, and the group can experience more plothooks around Chult.

Yeah there is some genuinely super interesting stuff to do around Chult that I feel the hexcrawl is a disservice to it.

Pick an interesting race and class, preferably a combo you haven't done before. Try to make it fill a need in the party lineup. Chose a starting location in the campaign world. This will give you a feel for their cultural background and social status. Choose a deity that your character would be exposed to as a child, even if you are not a cleric. Then do your background character stuff and mix and match if needed. If you like having a pro character portrait, go look for a picture before you choose appearance. Make up a reason to have a positive connection with one of the other PCs. By now it is usually easy to finalize your personality, Choose your skills based on all these factors.

Since they earned the ship; I.E. Earned sufficient gold to repair it, went on an adventure to kill the pirates in Jahaka bay, now they are flying to some areas all around chult.

Also with the hex-crawls you are basically forcing encounters. If the group LOVED It, I would do it.

It's actually a large mat, rollable for easier transporting, but yes we draw dry wipe maps as we go quite often for proper exploring. Well, I do the drawing. I feel like that echoes caves map you show has too much info already, they can just say "well let's head up the left here avoiding that obvious big room" and skip your carefully formulated set piece battle entirely. Keep a printout for yourself, out of their sight - let them feel their way along like proper adventurers.

I ran it so that if they had a good guide (They took Shago) they could get through the jungle quicker. We played in roll20 so I just had them draw me a path how they wanted to go through the jungle, and if they got close to a skull they got that encounter, plus 1-2 encounters.

After that I ended up just making it fast travel because the jungle is SO FUCKING BORING, the encounters aren't difficult enough to warrant them (Unless you do like 3-5 a day) and opted to just have them do more plot hooks

>Also with the hex-crawls you are basically forcing encounters. If the group LOVED It, I would do it.
Fair point. My group much prefers a narrative and getting to roleplay out their characters with some combat tied into the narrative as opposed to random encounters and various monstrosities attacking them.

Granted, they're fine with that every so often, but not a whole adventure tailored around that. I feel like they'd get more out of getting wrapped up in other shenanigans around Chult.

Outside of the skill and CHA, I don't see myself missing on too much since I view the shifting features at least comparable, at least.

Maybe I'm just worried about something bad happening if I don't go the "best" route.

What if I stacked Heavy Armor Master with Goliath's ability to reduce damage?

Yeah, don't sweat it. It's actually pretty hard to build non-functional characters in 5e.

Yeah, they want people to test it, not abuse it for multiclassing.

You're making a connection that requires common sense instead of RAW. RAW is RAW, it is not what you think sounds right. The time the creature falls is clearly defined as just 'when its speed becomes 0' and the time the barbarian falls is clearly defined as 'at the end of your turn'. Those are two different times. The DM can then decide 'well, it doesn't say when the speed 0 person falls, so they might fall at the end of their turn instead' or whatever but that's DM intervention.

Bladesinger is not shit, but shit design.
They should swap extra attack for a melee-only war magic and swap +int to AC for something less silly.

Races other than humans are no longer level-capped, bozo. Actually, everybody is level capped.
Now everybody, even humans can be sub-human.

RAW you can't choose what creature you turn into, the DM decides.
So it's far more shit than you believe.
Though RAI is that you decide so it's time to scrap polymorph completely.

Speaking of ToA

>Introduce my party to the Shilku plot hook, they decide to investigate
>They end up doing Hrakhamar side quest
>Get to the smelter
>They fuck up, BAD and make a ton of noise getting the attention of the striders AND all 8 warriors
>roll 1d3, roll 3
>Lose 2 players in the fight
>Rest decide to continue toward the armory
>They roll a nat 1+3 on a lockpick attempt, triggering the bridge trap
>1 more dies on an athletics check to get across a pit since they are stuck

Wew lads my players are pissed (at themselves, they agree with my choices). I could have been a bit kinder with the bridge but I told them that they are skip the slog of a hexcrawl but I wont be merciful elsewhere

Since we're finally talking about ToA-

Any good tips on notes or whatever I should prep before trying to run it? Obviously I've read through the module, but I'm not sure what notes might be useful to have on hand for reference.

Funny enough, my players are heading to check out the Shilku stuff now. Unfortunately, I feel like they'll take a gander at it and just go "welp it was a volcano, time to go get our reward for looking at this place."

I had an idea of having them try to get captured by Kobolds of that red dragon nearby named Tinder. Perhaps Tinder saw them rolling in on their ship a day or two ago on one of her daily coastal flybys and got curious at a ship coming this far south this near the coast? Sent some Kobolds to capture them and interrogate?

What sort of stuff did you do around Shilku before they got wrapped up in the firenewt stuff?

sounds like you have a pretty solid base
a once per short/long rest (depending on strength of gaze) sounds pretty good. Could start with your slow at lvl 1. Work up to a stun, then maybe some limited paralysis until full blown stone.
Other races that have access to racial spells like teiflings casting darkness seem to be 1 per rest.
Also if any of this sounds like its getting too powerful you can make some racial feats. So that way the PC can get their crazy powers but it's balanced out at the cost of a feat.

They actually ended up with the Firenewt stuff first because I had them land East enough they would come into range of it.

After they were done there the Dwarves offered them passage through their tunnels which I parlayed into them finding newts and shit and went from there. It helped that they had already met Hew Hackinstone (Even though they didn't pick him) and remembered about the Red Dragon.

Your idea would also work though.

Can I have some feedback on my death giant?
Just if there is anything wrong with it, or if it looks okay?

Why Necrotic Resist? Because the traditional immunity array of lillendi is to all Positive Energy & Negative Energy effects, which in 5e translates as Radiant & Necrotic damage.

Don't forget that Winged Tieflings from the SCAG get Fly 30 feet at level 1. 20 feet at level 3 is still well within the reach of any bow-wielding schmoes you'd be facing at 3rd level.

Appreciate the sentiment. What I meant was I'm thinking of making "Eye Color" into a subrace equivalent, with different subraces having different gaze attacks, like Blindheims.

and take feats, that's also pretty homosexual...

looks fun

Add the spell attack modifier to the innate spellcasting description. Flame strike doesn't seem to fit the theme you're going for. You should probably put a cap on how high it can stack its AC. Seems cool otherwise

whats your preferred way of rolling ability score?

Incoming greentext

>DM decides to make pulling out a weapon an action rather then free
>To stop the caster's getting to good at being so adaptable
>Druid uses their quarterstaff as a focus
>Warlock uses has improved pact weapon
So the only person this hurts is me, the Ranger. I was going to go melee but if I need an action to draw my sword after casting I might just go Ranged so I can use a hand to cast without putting away my bow.

Relatively new DM here with a pretty inexperienced, four-person group. For context, we're about halfway through Lost Mine of Phandelver after two lengthy sessions (characters just hit level 3), but one player's brother is in town next time we're scheduled to meet, so we've decided to shelve the main campaign and try a one-shot.

We figure this could be a good opportunity to try some new characters/classes. Of course, since my players are pretty inexperienced, it's up to me to roll up five level 2 characters for them--which I don't mind doing! I just need suggestions.

One of my players has asked me to roll up a tabaxi rogue for them. Otherwise, the options are pretty open. What are some fun (and perhaps unconventional) race/class combos at early levels?

Related question: what race do you think would make the most fun warlock at level 2? I've never played alongside or DMed a warlock, so I know next to nothing about the class.

>Illendi considerations
That's as may be - immunities from 2e? as a monster- but two things; surely you don't want a flying super resistant half sexy lady outshining the rest of every party (unless you do?) and second, it makes sense that she'd resist necrotic damage the least of the three. Goodguy Fey type IIRC
RE Tieflings flying around the place even faster, while that doesn't seem terribly good and just in the first place at least they're not hauling half a reptile around underneath them. Maybe 20ft isn't so obscene though, as a monster I'd expect more anyway but players don't need that kind of power that fast.

It's an honest question but I sure do like greentexts.

Have you considered telling your DM this? I mean if you can demonstrate to him that this houserule actually achieves the opposite of its intent he will probably drop it. (And if he doesn't you should really reconsider if this game is worth it),

So how would you guys stat out a item like this?

Eldritch summoning spellbook

Eh the Druid's already bringing up that this doesn't actually hinder them at all, so I'll let her handle it for now.

He's a first time DM and I can see why he's probably trying to introduce this rule, after last session where the Warlock went nova on a boss. I don't even think he realised that it would affect me.

My DM made us roll 6 sets of stats and then choose a set we liked, which I felt was pretty decent.

10d1 for each stat in order.

My DM let us take 18 in every stat, which I felt was pretty decent.

Point buy.
I don't see appeal of rolling and the dice screwed with me few times already.

My DM made us suck his dick and then choose a set we liked, which I felt was pretty decent.

I once had powerful notNecronomicon be used during Dagon-summoning ritual. When the ritual got interrupted (by killing all the involved Kuo-toa) the book levitated, raised all the dead fishmen as undead and started to fling arcane projectiles at the party.

After it was contained, it had following features: requires 8 hours of reading to attune. All effects are when attuned. Decreases maximum health by 12. Type changes to Fiend. Gain truesight and waterbreathing. Gain ritual casting. Be considered to know all necromancy spells. Once per day can take psychic damage to summon shadow demon servant. Can add double proficiency to knowledge rolls referring to dark arts. And the book is sentient, chaotic evil, but mostly mute.

ngl I would probably suck my DM's dick

Now, i don't want to jump to any conclusions, but does your DM allow multiclass? How about feats?

Has anyone ever played a D&D Adventurer's League session before? If so, what was it like? I might join a group like that sometime soon(mostly one-shot adventures within a timeframe of 2-3 hours), but it would help to know about other people's experience with it.