/5eg/ - Fifth Edition D&D General

How many time did you use your background feature?

Why? Polearms are best, in real life, and in game.

Anyways, I generally prefer broadswords, which is a homebrew one-handed weapon I made that deals 2d4 slashing damage and has no properties. It's one of the only swords w/o the finesse property in my HB weaponset.
It's almost always going to be swords in any case, though.

Across four characters...0 times.

Guess I better start kissing men, then.

Obviously polearm. But I am a complete noob when it comes to TT RPGs so not for any min-maxing reasons. I just play For Honor too much and look forward to my "How do you want to do this"-moment on my half-orc fighter.

>ToYP West Marches Campaign
Tempest Cleric with a Whip
>"Main" campaign
EK with a big huge magic Maul
>on-again-off-again OotA
Paladin who used a quarterstaff + shield (without PAM) until he got the waifusword Sunblade.

>"I'm gonna need your weapons"
>tfw Eldritch Knight
Feels good man

I've used Free Passage from Sailor a few times, and my DM is gracious enough to work with me to build a compelling Discovery when I take Hermit.

Anyone use lance?

>spoiler
Hey fuck you buddy my Paladin is ex-military, he's got over 300 comfirmed exp and he's trained in gorilla polymorphing. You're fucking Smote, kiddo.
Smit? Smited? Smitten? I honestly have no idea how to conjugate Smite here.

That's an executioner's sword. Not used for combat, but rather ceremonial execution.

Smoiten

Personally, twice to find out where I can learn things and once to actually learn them (Sage BG). Our Rogue's Criminal Contact was super helpful until he retired and gave our Rogue a crazy-powerful magic weapon.

Last session, our party all recieved magic items from Bahamut to aid us on our quest to defeat a Dracolich.

Barb/Rogue got an Amulet of Health
Cleric of Bahamut got an Icon that grants resistance to an energy type that matches whatever dragon scale you insert into the icon.
My Cleric/Wizard of Mystra was given an actual scale from Bahamut, it grants 1/day Legendary Resistance (choose to succeed on a save).

I'm thinking I made out the best, though the Amulet of Health isn't bad either. The Icon of Bahamut seems a little weak, especially because we only have a green dragon scale and a scale from the Dracolich.

But fuck yeah, LEGENDARY RESISTANCE.

But user, there aren't many polearms with the VERSATILE property.

On my acolyte cleric, quite a bit. He lived in various temples for the 1st half of the campaign.

Feels SO good

>steward demands that only one person can speak with the duke
>we send in the party face
>the rest of us are welcome to mingle and wander, provided we allow servants to accompany us
>my Zealot Barb wants to go chat with some off-duty guards to talk about heraldry and lean some local history
>each player gets individually jumped by assassins with shortswords
>other players freaking out about how to fight without weapons
>reach for a d10 at the table while other turns are happening
>bard and paladin give me dirty looks while rolling d4s to swing candlesticks and backpacks

There's one though (quarterstaff)

>What is your character's preferred weapon?

The most common weapon is probably the bow. But in actual use I would say a rapier.

Quarterstaff with PAM feat, Dueling fighting style and Shield, because when you fag, fag for keeps.

If you have a scale from the dracolich I think the cleric made out the best; resisting the breath weapon is going to be a big deal.

>Have friendly stone sorcerer with their damage reduction on you and an ancestral guardians barbarian and a crown paladin
>be an abjuration wizard with one level warlock dip with HAM that's also a goliath
>Cast armor of agathys on yourself at the highest level possible, as well as fire shield and shadow of moil
>Make yourself really fucking easy to hit
>Enemy falls for the bait, starts taking way, way more damage than they could ever do to you
Being prone helps as it makes ranged attacks harder to hit but makes melee attacks easier to hit

But, I mean, generally, it's a gimmick, not an overpowered combo. It's hard to force enemies to keep attacking you, they'd probably just say 'fuck this' and walk away or throw things at you. Having war caster with booming blade helps, but that's just one extra thing on your massive shopping list for this stupid gimmick.

>Not also with shillelagh on a paladin

Yeah, the dragon is Venomfang (Lost Mines of Phandelver), who followed us to Barovia where Strahd turned him into a Dracolich. His breath utterly destroyed my monk (RIP). Sadly, Absorb Elements on my new character doesn't affect Necrotic damage.

You need 3 Tome Warlock levels or 6 Lore Bard levels to cast it from Cha though

Couple times on my barbarian since we were out in the middle of nowhere.

Several times for paladin since he's nobility and a traveling diplomat.

Two, actually (spear). The joke is that, upon the Lawbringer's release, the developers repeatedly described his poleaxe as "the most VERSATILE weapon ever invented".

Spears don't work with PAM do they? So are they technically not polearms in 5e?

spears dont no
Pike/Glaive/Quarterstaff (odd one because it's not 10ft reach like the other 2)

Pike only works with the opportunity attack, not the bonus action attack. That makes it half a polearm.

Huh. You're right-they don't even gain the "Provoke When Entering Your Reach" bonus like pikes do. That seems bizarre.

It is weird, maybe because you can throw a spear, for some reason? Anyway out seems like spears kinda got the shaft (no pun etc etc)

based on the improvising weapons rule you could just ask your DM to improvise the spear as a quarterstaff.

>That's the metaphor for how easy winning fights is for me. It's not combat. It's an execution.

true
also somehow forgot the halberd
the 5e weapon system is a fucking mess, halberd/pike/glaive are identical in stats yet the pike doesnt get the full benefit of pam and i cant remember the last time dealing slashing vs piercing damage actually matters in 5e.

Lawbringer-user here. What's PAM? The abbreviation doesnt quite fit anything I know about 5th ed polearms (which admittedly isn't a lot).

Polearm Master, the feat that makes polearms as gross as they are

>the metaphor is actually that weilding one is like an execution for you, because you couldn't possibly swing that thing as a proper weapon.

>5e weapon system is a mess

THIS SO MUCH DESU

Spears and Tridents are almost identical, nets can only be thrown at disadvantage, whips are martial weapons...

I want to do Hermit but I don't even have a vague idea what I would do for the discovery.

Doh. Well, that was easy. So easy I didn't even consider it.

e weapon system is a mess
let me fix that...
e is a mess

Seriously, this is the sloppiest version of the game that ever came out.

Can we fill the other thread up first before moving onto this one. Whichever user that keeps making duplicates, can you please stop being an autist about shadshit & just ignore the links:

fuck off shad

Anouther fun one is that the quarterstaff and the mace are the same, except the quarterstaff can be weilded in two hands to deal more damage, and it costs considerably less.
I made a weaponset where all simple weapons are balanced to eachother, and all martial weapons are balanced to eachother (except weight and cost, which are based on real-life and material components respectively).

Nah, think I'll keep posting in threads that don't advertise child porn.

Kill yourself Shad.

>I made a weaponset where all simple weapons are balanced to eachother, and all martial weapons are balanced to eachother (except weight and cost, which are based on real-life and material components respectively).

lets see it

>The government is pouring stuff in our water supply to turn the frogs gay

On my phone right now, so I don't have access to it.
The biggest criticism I got of it is my choice to allow two-handed finesse weapons, to which the most valid argument I've heard against it is that dex-characters don't deserve to have access to them.

Oh, there was the idea that sneak attack shouldn't work with two-handed finesse weapons, which I agreed to, so using my weaponset, I also edit the sneak attack rule to say "[when weilding a finesse weapon that does not have the two-handed property, or has the ammunition property]".

Anouther thing I should mention is that I took out the ranged catigories, instead saying that any weapon with the ammunition or thrown (when throwing) is considered a ranged weapon.

/pol/ is 100% welcome here.

I won't post in that thread sheerly out of principle. Not even because of the shadman link, but because the autist that made the thread posted it when the last thread was on page 4. He's not a genuine member of the community, he's a child who wants to troll and as such he'll be ignored.
Besides, his threads keep getting less unique posters and less replies than the non-troll threads, so I have no reason to post there.

>Half-orc Paladin
He used the same war hammer the entire campaign until he found a magic longsword. I'd like to go back to the war hammer but he'd be daft to not use a magic weapon at his disposal.

>Human rogue
Shortsword, mostly. He's got a magic dagger but it mostly does not do anything special for full-on combat. He's got a crossbow, but only one hand, so he can't reload it unless he casts Mage Hand, which requires knowing a fight is coming up.

>Lore Bard
Vicious mockery+Cutting words makes up for terrible rolling on my part, nothing ends the encounter like a DM anyurism.

>Protection Battlemaster
Warhammer/shield bash

>Conqueror Paladin
Two hand executioners sword, because I liked 3e's Mercurial Greatsword reference.

What blood hunter order is the best? I was thinking most are about even but lycan is interesting even on a ranged character.

newbie at DnD here, i'm going to run session 0 with my players soon
after the characters creation, i think it would be nice to run a small adventure to get us more familiar with the rules. I was thinking about them hunting down a low level monsters that ate peasants cattle
is an owlbear to strong for 3-4 level 1 adventurer ?

Just made a new character since my Gnome Artificer was literally eaten by a dragon. So I'm making a wizard, and part of getting a new character at level 12, to my DM, is I get to pick two uncommon or one rare magical item to start out.

What should I pick and why?

An owlbear can and will kill a player from full HP in a single turn or down two players in succession from full HP or instantly kill a player with one hit from full HP with a crit. It'll probably also take the players a lot of effort to take it down.

Newbies definitely can't handle that shit. Experienced players could manage it.

Yes, especially if they don't yet know what they are doing.

I suffer from a rare disorder where I can only roll ones on a d20. What build best helps me overcome this crippling ailment?

What sort of stuff have you guys had happen on your sea faring trips? Players are going to be out at sea for about a day heading to another port and I don't really want to just fast travel them there.

Divination wizard so you can make other people roll 1s too

Even for experienced players, an owlbear at level 1 is a tough fight if the dice don't play along.

Try something around CR 1, maybe CR 2 if you want the fight to be challenging, which I still wouldn't recommend for newer players.

Also, wizard has a lot of tricks where they either make enemies roll instead or simply don't roll at all. For example, you can trap an enemy with wall of force without a save or use web and make everyone else throw lots of dice everywhere.

Div. wizard is the way to go.

a single monster is a good start, action economy (the number of actions the party has vs the enemy) is the most important factor of difficulty, time and time again people will be suprised their big bad beholder dropped in 2 rounds against a party of adventurers and it's because even with legendary actions they get overwhelmed.

so a party vs 1 beasty have a good natural advantage but the owlbear is easily capable of 1 shotting party members with ease at that level, and the fight will most likely become whack a mole of people getting up and down if they have access to healing

look towards some of the weaker cr2 creatures. maybe one that isnt just dealing damage but will make players think about getting knocked prone or grappled

Pay attention to the CR of monsters/encounters.

>Dex characters don't deserve two handed weapons
Deserve ain't got nothin to do with it as Will Munny would say, it's a matter of game balance. Dex characters can have equal damage as S&B, far better at ranged combat, a much more useful save, a big initiative bonus, and only 1 less AC (for 1450gp less) than Str-based characters. The factors that compensate for all this are that Str characters can use bigger weapons, PAM, GWM, and can grapple. Having Dex 2h weapons available is just crazy strong in my opinion.

An owlbear is taking it a bit too far, I think. Use a weaker monster, or even normal beasts that have been forced out of their natural habitat and into the peasant's lands by the owlbear. Have the players face it when they are more experienced, both when it comes to game mechanics and levels.

Well my next charcther is screwed
I let my neice choose who he would be so now I'm going to be a dwarf transmutation wizard

I've never even seen a commoner, much less one that could grant me hospitality.

If you really want it to be an owlbear, have it be wounded already and give it the stats of like a brown bear. Have some other predator nearby that it killed to explain why it's hurt, or leave it a mystery for the players to discover this bigger fish when they are at a higher level.

Mountain? Nothing wrong with a medium armor high-HP Wizard, and Transmutation is a weaker school but any Wizard can be strong if you pick non-retarded spells.

>messier than THAC0
>messier than the million splats of 3.5e

i thought CR3 with low enough, my bad.
But yeah, i thought that he was hitting really hard
too bad, its a funny and iconic DnD monster

>whichever user keeps making duplicates
You made that duplicate when the last thread was on page 4 you unbelievable faggot

I've played as barbarian and a monk only
So it's gonna take some getting use too

hey guys
help me come up with some cool character concepts for a bard of the college of whispers
how do i separate myself from a valor or lore bard?
what could my motivations be?
what feat should i grab?(i rolled good stats)

Haven't been on /5eg/ for the last few weeks, what's the general consensus on the new not lore wizard?

you can always bring them in later
or you can use the stats of a weaker creature and just call it an owlbear, maybe it's ill or weakened by something, can lead into another adventure as to what caused the creature to attack the livestock

If you used the owlbear to, say, teach them that there are some fights they should avoid or think around, it would be okay, instead of a straight-up fight.

What are your stats?

I have my team coming up to an important encounter soon, against a Kraken Priest. They are a team of six players at level 5.

The priest is mostly normal, but I might give him a special ability to really put the pressure on: an auto magic missile, starts with just one missile at the start of his turn, increases as he gets weaker and his minions are offed.

The question is, what minions? The party have fought kuo-toa, sahaguin, and deep scions throughout the dungeon, and none of them gave them very much trouble. I don't want to completely overwhelm them but I want the fight to be serious, and I don't want to keep track of a dozen small fry enemies either. The party has some zombies on their side and the druid is capable of summoning lots of dangerous animals, but the party is not at 100% because they won't have taken any long rests in this dungeon.

Water weirds are out as an enemy because they learned their weaknesses, too.

Maybe throw it in as either a weaker owlbear, a smaller owlbear or a crippled owlbear if you want. Say, it might only have 2/3 or half as much health and only make one attack every turn. However, even then I'd be doubtful as if it crits it could still bring a character to instant death.

I wouldn't use it as a 'there are some fights you can't win' example either as it's not very obvious to the players without a lot of foreshadowing that they can't beat it.

What are the odds of my group making it out of Curse of Strahd alive?

Right now we're a level 5 group of:
Ancients Paladin
Beastmaster (Revised) Ranger
Swashbuckler Rogue
Grave Cleric
Land Druid

Run into a kraken that pulls them into a giant underwater sea-bubble at the bottom of the ocean and have them explore around. The kraken is just lonely and everyone he meets tries to kill him. If they manage to figure this out and become friends with him, the kraken will take them back to the surface and can be called with a special flute, but will not fight for them. If they kill him, they ride his body to the surface and gain xp and a magical item called "heart of the kraken" which is used to open up a door leading to another part of the oceans floor, that eventually leads to a lost city that the kraken was supposed to be guarding (but they obviously don't know this, and the heart only lasts for a little while before decaying). The door only works for the kraken, so obviously having his heart will open it for you, otherwise you'd just be stuck at the bottom of the ocean doing nothing with a door that goes nowhere. If alive, they can potentially go there if the kraken deems them worthy.

It's shit, the magic armor seems tacked-on, Reckless Magic would make sense for WM Sorc but is bad for a Wizard compared to their other options, and overall doesn't at all feel like an "inventor" class.

They will still solely have GWM and Grappling.

My weaponset also allows more effective STR dual-wielding w/o the use of a feat (weapons with just the light property and 1d8 damage)

Magic missile is great for disrupting concentration as as per sage advice they somehow count as different instances of damage even though they strike simultaneously. If he hits the druid, he'll break the concentration on whatever 'summon lots of animals' spells he comes up with.

Also don't forget you get to choose what animals are summoned by conjure spells.

If anything, you should be using enemies that they've learned the weaknesses of, such as water weirds if you can. Force the players to play around what they've learned with new situations, such as dealing with water weirds when the majority of the room is water.

is there anything like the old orcpub character builder but with all content? d&d beyond is obvious shit if i cant even use the content i have purchased in hardcopy.

Better-than-average, that's a pretty solid party. Lacking some arcane casting but it should be fine with your Cleric and Druid.