/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

A worm brothel, where they can fuck worms

...

I've had shit like this happen before, left games over this.
Note to DMs: If you're planning on making a monster into a puzzle encounter, don't.

No sir, I don't like it.

Backstory NPCs

Artificer that can craft magic items for them and sell them magical goods

Intellect devourers. Best part is it doesn't really matter what level the party is.

Shadows. CR 1/2, but immune to most things a low level party will be able to throw at them.

A tavern with a level 20 owner.

Not good for campiagns that aren't about dungeon delving but then why are you trying to use D&D for intrigue?

>multiple enemy spellcasters knows counterspell and dispel magic
no fun allowed time

Vuman warlock (hexblade tomelock)
8/16/17/14/14/17
What feat?

Only if the tavern has an appearance befitting having a level 20 owner.
Otherwise, fuck you, you know who you are.

Actually this is rather logical to happen, as long as there is a reason for multiple spellcasters to gather.

Kyuss please go

Shh, let the martials have some fun for once.

>Use a cloak
>Ready action behind cloak
>Drop cloak
>Unleash spell
>They can't counterspell it
>If they dispel magic it they waste their action anyway, provided it's an ongoing effect at all

"Hey Mick, that dragon head you have mounted on the wall seems pretty distasteful. They're like, intelligent aren't they?"

The tavern has a homely appearance and an owner with red hair that doesn't talk much. His elf assistant usually does the waiter.

If that worked would you allow a shadow monk to throw a cloak over himself to create dim light to teleport?

There is no DM in the universe that would allow this even if it did work RAW.

>Pulling out a cloak and throwing it over yourself takes an action
What you going to do now?

>i shadow step into my own shadow and exit out of your shadow in broad daylight

Reposting

Party of 4th level Cleric/Warlock/Sorc/Bard/Fighter and a 2nd level druid looking to take down an oni. At the moment all we've really got is silence and using roots/webs/fighter's Sentinel opp attacks to keep it in the sphere.

Honestly that class ability is pretty bad if you're outdoors in the day a lot. The class gets darkness in an attempt to make up for it, but the ability says you teleport to a place in dim light or darkness you can see, and unless you have devils sight you cannot "See" an area in darkness.

No, no. You are not pulling this shit. Unless you don't give a shit about storytelling and are just jerking off past players who made it to 20 like the original post was all about it's bad storytelling to put crazy overpowered shit in illogical places without any hints to it like at least that dragon head.

Pulling that 'Surprise, he was secretly all along a legendary hero who just so happened to be in the inn you're in, everybody's forgotten him and though he somehow completely lost all the past feelings that made them an adventurer they're still in tip-top condition as if they train everyday!' is like the DM trying to subtley have a powerwank in the corner without anyone noticing.

Worse, an Iron Golem.

>Magical resistance, so already fun.
>Immune to charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
>PLUS no fire, no poison, no psychic and no bludg/pierce/slash from anything less than adamantine or magic, INCLUDING SILVERED. Not resistance, total immunity. It even heals from the fire.

We just faced that the other day with a bard (spells all say humanoid, charmed, or psychic damage), Phoenix Sorcerer (took all fire spells), barbarian, arcane archer (grasping [poison, slashing, Strength check], beguiling [psychic, charmed]), and a hexblade warlock.

Why would you rule stupid shit like that?
At the very least you can make a cloak that interposes itself between you and your target momentarily automatically, even with mundane technology.
Failing that, just go behind a pillar.

What is he can't use magic anymore?

Unless the DM gave you a means to combat an iron golem, I'd tell the DM to fuck himself.
It's not meant to be DM vs party, combats are meant to be challenging but rewarding, going against a creature that just flat out invalidates almost every party member is not fun.

Did you win?

Vampire Spawns when players doesn't have radiant damage

>hexblade tomelock
Going caster? That's fine just most people go hexblade because they want to melee.

EB+agonizing is a must. If you magic initate a spell in your own class you can cast it with normal spellslots in addition to the free 1/Day use. I recommend Hex. You have as many attacks as an equivalent level fighter, the necrotic adds up, especially because it hops targets on a kill.

I'd allow it.

To prevent stupid shit like what you proposed.
Fiddling about with a cloak to make it so an enemy can't see you, would take an action.

Either way it doesn't matter to me, I houserule that a caster doesn't actually cast his spell as part of the readying, and instead casts it on trigger (Under most circumstances this is a buff).

Even a high level wizard has to keep their spells memorized and spells have a good deal of intricacies to them. He's clearly having hormonal imbalance problems and no longer wants to do that shit so why would he remember all the most intricate techniques?

Retired adventurers are fine but it's firstly there's 98% of the time going to be hints as to the fact they used to be some great adventurer and secondly it's stupid to put powerful things around players with no indication they're there unless you like throwing asspulls at your players.

Sure, but he was a dick. Also, the white ones are retarded so at least closer to an animal. If I ever get a dragon customer that complains I'll take it down.

How about if he asks the party to give him 3 days, so that he will tell them his tragic story?

>go behind pillar
>ready spell
>line of sight is broken so you can't see enemy until he moves
>he just sits where you can't see him and attacks others
>you just sit there being a jackass

If you're so worried about being Counterspelled just pick up Counterspell yourself or stay out of range. Stop trying to cheese shit.

...

"Nah, this one invested his horde in penny stocks."

Don't rule shit that makes little sense to fuck people over because you think it's imbalanced but instead do what you just said and say 'no, that's fucking stupid, I'm having it so they can counterspell you when you unleash the spell's effects.'

That's not how it works.
Your trigger is 'when you see the target' or whatever
You move out from behind the pillar after readying the spell.

That's actually not a bad idea, I was complaining about having to expend a spell slot on casting hex, only problem there is you cast it at its lowest level and get it back on a long rest, which means it's only good for 1 combat then you have to cast from your spell slots.

>unless you have devils sight you cannot "See" an area in darkness
This alone makes that spell nearly useless. Even with Alert, this systems Blindsight, it doesn't help at all.

The fact that there's no item or even light sensitive race like drow, ONLY a 2 level dip in warlock, makes it basically a worse fog cloud.

>he raises his voice as he says the last bit
>silver dragon at the far end of the bar looks over and gives a thumbs up

How about you make them a low level fighter who used to be a high level fighter but who'd make a great teacher and be able to help the party instead of being 'why don't we just send this sorry sod to do it instead?' and also being representative of the fact that the party just walked into a regular inn and saw a level 20 so thus they might think level 20s should be everywhere now.

For an example of done right, look at yawning portal.

Well I think "Holding back a spell's energy" is stupid because most of the time it just fucks up a caster.
>I ready my fireball for when the monster comes round the corner
>Monster doesn't come round the corner
>spell slot wasted.

Is it amiss for my version of the atropal, a fragment of the world born dead, to look like a relatively handsome ghast whose lower half is constantly disintegrating and has various gaping, weeping wounds across its body leaking necrotic energy?

Player rolls 4, 6, 6, 6, 5, and an 8

should I let him reroll?

The party won't know he is level 20. However, there can be a menace approaching the town that he can help with. Maybe a spider infestation or something.

>point buy

I don't have any detailed description but by the sounds of it that guy seems like an actually properly implemented one. The inn isn't exactly the most ordinary inn ever it seems and the guy still actually has an interest in adventures and such, even if it's just recounting them and all that.
Not the shit I'm getting angry about.

You know what we're gonna say right?
That you shouldn't have had your players roll in the first place.

Of course you fucking should unless you want him to suffer for some reason (In which case he'll probably drop out).

Some common conditions for reroll:
>No 2 stats are 15 or higher
>Total stat array totals to less than 70

But that's not how it's being used in this case. In this case, you're using it to avoid being counterspelled.
You don't wait for the monster to come around the corner, you go around the corner and fireball them.
Usually though, yes, readying a spell is harsh on casters.

Nah see this is bullshit, you CAN see if an area is in darkness.

>Rolling for stats
>Ever
Fuck off back to [any other edition]

>when you see the target'
Actually now that I think of it, you can't Ready a spell that targets another creature that you can't see when you cast it, and if you aren't targeting the creature but instead targeting an area for an AoE you wouldn't need to Ready at all.

>What monsters are just a clear "fuck you" from the DM?
Shit from Tome of Beasts with over 300 hp and resistance to everything but radiant and just uses finger of death every round and looks and acts like the Joker from Batman with a huge scythe. Remember boys Tome of Beasts is for sperg DMs who want a "le epic anime fight"

I mean, usually I make it so that when you ready something the trigger has to be something someone ELSE does rather than something you do, and it has to be something sensible and not "I cast fireball is the enemy breathes" or "I cast fireball is the enemy is still alive next turn"

>and if you aren't targeting the creature but instead targeting an area for an AoE you wouldn't need to Ready at all.
You ready it where they can't counterspell it and unleash it where they can counterspell it, but they can't because you've already cast it. It's possible that the location you want to fireball requires you to be standing somewhere they could counterspell you.

>you can't Ready a spell that targets another creature that you can't see when you cast it,
I'm pretty sure you can, because the spell's effects that require you to have a target don't activate until you unleash the spell.

You can't have any stats below 8, also how the fuck did he roll those; did he accidentally roll 3d4 instead?

What are you supposed to do instead?

Anyone know any good discords to talk DnD?
Preferably ones that have an actual population.

>I'm pretty sure you can, because the spell's effects that require you to have a target don't activate until you unleash the spell.
HAHAHAHA! Let me guess. You like Zone of Truth, right?

I'm going to run a campaign soon that will last levels 1-15 about. Some of it will be about factions and soldiers fighting. I'm looking around for that that'll break the game, and one spell I'm looking at is Fireball. A spell that will pretty much annihilate a group of 30 normal soldiers in a tight formation instantly.

I dislike it. This means that a Wizard is pretty much a ridiculous artillery. A Wizard can ambush an army, hiding in a bush, and disintegrate dozens of soldiers. He can then cast another spell and disintegrate the same number. He runs the fuck away with the aid of his party and he just proceeds to guerilla warfare with artillery fireballs and long rests.

How do I fix this?

Point buy 30 is objectively the best method.

Nope.
No we sure don't.
Not a single one of us.

Anybody? We've got one vet player, this is the best he's got.

Easy. Every army has advance scouts. They detect the wizard first.

Point buy with 30 points and 16 costing 11

Maybe you video gaming fags need to learn that sometimes retreating is the best tactical choice?

Nope

I asked how to determine stats, that was the consensus. so shut the fuck up.

disgusting

Just do it the normal way, it's really well balanced.

Then why fucking ask us you twit?
Enjoy having a player drop out, I'll be expecting your "Why are DnD players such crybabies" post on my desk by monday.

doesn't make you any less of an idiot, friendo

Rolling is the normal way.

>the spell's effects that require you to have a target don't activate until you unleash the spell.
Absolutely not, targets are chosen when you cast the spell. Either you can't target them when you Ready it because you're casting it where neither of you can see each other, or you're casting it where you can see each other and you can be dispelled.

>can't get a stat to 18
>Probably never going to be able to afford feats unless you go Vuman.

yaaay, fun.

What's stooping the party from killing the scouts? And you're telling me an army now has to break formation every time a level 5 Wizard is on about or risk losing dozens and dozens of soldiers incinerated?

>will annihilate soldiers in tight formation

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest not fighting in close formation

If your parents are blood related, maybe.

I won't open the can of worms that is buying 16 in a stat because that has upsides and downsides, but 30 point buy is objectively better than point buy 27.

Point buys above 27 don't allow you to improve the stats you actually rely on, but instead the more flavourful dump stats, and allows someone who would otherwise have 15/15/15/8/8/8 to customize those 3 dumped 8 stats a bit.
If you chose not to go for 15/15/15/8/8/8 but instead a more 'balanced' selection, then it's compensating you by allowing you to buy back some of that main stat you sacrificed or to boost one of your less imporatnt stats even higher since you were already doing that for flavour.

>I'm a huge bitch
Thanks for letting us know I guess?

Yeah. We technically had NPC help (though she eas also fire specialized she at least had a magic weapon) but really the Warlock carried that fight.

Haste works miracles, let me tell you.
Speaking of, should I mention it was a timed search-and-rescue mission? Because of an alarm we had two minutes to storm the place and rescue the good doctor and our retired PC artificer friend before reinforcements arrived. When we get there, turns out both had been Geased, which explains why both had continued working for him after turning out to be evil, but also meant they were resisting recovery. After some "split up and search for clues gang" the Hasted archer finds them, rushes in and grapples both after a couple failed attempts because squishies have bad grapple but were rolling high. We reconvene remove curse one, but the second breaks free and with an apology summons their security golem. The Barb says screw it, knocks the Doc unconscious so we can deal with him later, then we go to see what just got let loose from the door we passed with all the warning signs on it.

We eventually made it out alive, the warlock found but was unable to really recover some info about his amnesiac origins, and with the doc and our friend recovered we found out about the BBEGs final FMA philosopher stone-esque plan for immortality, which was going off the next day.

Hey, it's just what the book says you know.

>Play fantasy tabletop to feel like a hero and have a good time roleplaying an evolving story
>DM throws creature that can't be beaten in anyway and is completely intent on killing the party or having the party solve the encounter in one specific non-obvious way
Not my idea of a good time.

>Intellect devourers
>CR 2
Biggest bullshit monster in the manual.

>What's stooping the party from killing the scouts?

more scouts obviously