/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

If I was to create a PC centered around Mounted Combat, am I pretty much destined to roll a Cavalier Fighter?

Is Hexblade good on its own or do I need to multiclass since its too front-loaded? Going into a campaign with a DM who said we should prepare a couple of extra characters since life is cheap, so I don't want to make a shitty character and screw my party over. Starting at lvl 4.

>small dungeon
>medium dungeon
Megadungeons or fuck your mother. Small dungeons I've typically played are less than 10 rooms and generally include a puzzle or two, a couple of enemy encounters, some traps, and a hidden area that contains extra goodies if the party is willing to search for it.

Thanks senpai

Lord Baffors Manor comes to mind immediately

No

Single-class hexblade is balanced

Jon Irenicus. Admittedly, half of my love for the character stems from the kickass job David Warner did voicing him but he's still a solid character nonetheless.

It's good if you just stick to casting EB

Rule 1 for making dungeons: What was the dungeon before it was a dungeon? Tons of traps and pitfalls don't make sense if at some point normal people were expected to go through it.

Rule 2 for making dungeons: How many days do you expect your party to spend in the dungeon? If you only plan for your party to spend half a day in there then don't put in more obstacles than they could feasibly handle without taking a long rest to get back resources. That said, don't let them get away with the 10 minute adventuring day.

If you use charm spells in combat the thing you charm wont attack you but can still attack your buddies right? Could use charm and then try to convince the thing your buddies are its friend too? Is that how you are supposed to go about charming shit?

My favorite, hands down, is Obould Many-Arrows.

Badass Metric:
>United hundreds of Orc tribes, tens of thousands of Orcs into one Many-Arrows Kingdom
>Made alliances with Trolls, Frost Giants, Bog Blokes and enslaved countless goblin tribes to carve out an Orcish realm
>Literally wrestles the Frost Giantess Queen down to the ground to get her support
>Defeats Dwarven Mithral Hall and takes some of their land
>Defeats Elvish Silverymoon and takes some land
>Defeats and sacks Human/Dwarven Mirabar
>LITERALLY THE CHOSEN AND POSSIBLE AVATAR OF MUTHAFUCKIN GRUUMSH

Heart of Gold Metric:
>All this because he wants land for his people
>He wants Orcs to be farmers, traders, diplomats
>Marries off his and his general’s daughters to humans for political purposes
>Makes peace and ceases hostility with Dwarven and Elven neighbors
>The “goodly” races can’t put aside their racism, so he fortified and defeated every and all hostile army trying to dislodge him from his new kingdom

Best part:
>Beats Drizzt Do’Urden in single combat
>makes him run away like a bitch as he builds his kingdom

Depend on the party level. Against goblins/for Goblin & Bugbear player, use lightly obscured area with good cover like misty forest where they can use nimble escape. Against Kobold, dungeon with wall trap & crawling holes that can separate player and maximizing kobold pack tactic.

Holy fuck how did I forget about Many Arrows Best Orc

Remember Bugbears consider themselves above goblins in the Goblinoid caste system

If your players have racial loyalty, the dungeon is gonna be pretty one sided

I'm starting to feel like Tomb of Annihilation should come with a warning on the front page
"Tell your players to just play a Martial, cause they're fucked if they want to play a utility caster. There spells will be useless, but a Martials ability to smack something hard will never be interfered with in this campaign"

What should I go for if I enjoy the death knight theme? Lifesteal/fear mechanics are a plus.

I think WotC tried to bury him so Orcs can remain 2D humanoid antagonists even though 3D orcs are the best

Yes, i'm a simple man.

Take your complaint, apply it to every other dungeon, except swap martials and casters.

I have no pity for casters. You’ll get to play god soon, just finish your dungeon.

How do you avoid making quests just there-and-back? I know it's a classic fairy tale trope, but I worry it might get boring. I like making almost Monster Hunter-like quests where players go to areas or dungeons looking for a boss monster, so recently I've started forcing myself to make at least one story-centric quest and at least one humanoid interaction/intrigue quest. Any other good tips, or just ideas for other types of quests?

Come up with a story and then build it barely large enough to tell it

>Generic orc heart of gold Mary sue bullshit
Yawn. Why are forgotten realms heroes so boring?

One of each per level I should specify.

Doesn't sound like an orc to me at all.

>Rule 1 for making dungeons: What was the dungeon before it was a dungeon? Tons of traps and pitfalls don't make sense if at some point normal people were expected to go through it.
But do remember to make natural traps.

Maybe snakes crawled in and hid somewhere, and might bite after careless people walking too close.

Maybe the floor caves in.

Maybe that downward facing lever was holding up the chandelier above you, and pulling it up broke it, and let the rope hidden behind a thick layer of dust fly free, dropping the chandelier on top of you.

Maybe the ladder is no longer secured, and will fall apart if you climb it with too much weight.

There are endless opportunities for traps like this in an abandoned place.

Yes, that's also true.

Has anyone ever played a PC with a mount? What are some ways I can walk out of battles without my poor horse eventually just biting the dust?

You forgot:
>His kingdom invented glassteel; a transparent material that is strong enough to reflect an arrow without a scratch.
>His greatsword can instantly burst into fire whenever he wants
>Strong enough to catch a charging bull by the horns and snap it’s neck
>Kept the shamans/religious caste under control by fucking their leader along with hundreds of other Orc babes and producing hundreds of kids
>His first son, Urglen Three-Fist, literally headbutts his way through armies
>His kingdom lasts centuries and the last know ruler was Obould XXI or something

The author expressly explains over several chapters (dozens of pages) why he’s unique among Orcs. I’m not gonna go over it for you bitter bastards shitting on my favorite character.

Read the trilogy if you actually give a shit

I wasn't shitting on him, I like the character too. I just meant that he's not exactly the generic dumb brute that 99% of orcs are.

He's mentioned in the 5e MM I think, or possibly LMoP.

What the ideal party size? At what number does it all go to shit?

>What the ideal party size?
4-5 players
>At what number does it all go to shit?
7+

The orcs that are raiding the nearby area are from his "tribe" as it's called in that book, why the fuck they're there or who he himself is are absent.

That half orc looks like the rustled jimmies meme monkey.

>Read the trilogy
>Reading forgotten realms books
No. I don't care what the justifications are that character is a generic Mary Sue in every regard which is why he fits so well into the forgotten realms.

4
1 or more

I prefer 3-5 and I think it goes tits up anything past 6. That said, I find short campaigns meant for 1-3 characters to be the most interesting since you can adequately tell a collective story with that few amount players and actually get into some of the nitty-gritty of everyone's backstory without wasting other people's time.

A circle of the moon druid can still use their action to wild shape?
>You gain the ability to use Wild Shape on your turn as a bonus action, rather than as an action.
Does that mean you can choose whether to use action or bonus action to wildshape?

Could I used healing word as bonus action and the wildshape with my action?

Anyone wanna do an all monster party?
More specifically, anyone wanna dm an all monster party?

Already did. Ended up with everyone dead cause they ambushed and killed the King and his retinue.

I bet you’re a LotR Orc baby killin’ pleb

Hm.

Wellanyone accepting a full orc character (which mechanicallyis a fluffed half orc)

You said “Mary-sue” when you meant “paragon” or “archetypal”

The way I read it is that you gain the ability to wild shape as a bonus action, but can still wild shape normally.

Got the minis in pic related, I really like the crossbow guy, and I want to play a crossbow fighter, using a light crossbow (I know hand crossbow is better, I don't care). I was told to play fighter not rogue as I had originally intended, which makes sense. Although I guess that guy looks kinda bandit-like so maybe rogue is better? Anyway I don't know if the DM is allowing variant human yet, so here are my stats for if he doesn't:
>Str 12 Dex 16 Con 15 Int 12 Wis 14 Cha 9
Advice on that? I did standard point-buy. I'd also love advice on how to be effective with a light crossbow.

discuss

Make use of player ability, including non combat ones and rotate it per quest. For example, make one quest where fighter with longbow useful by making the enemy very hard to approach and have magic resistance, next make dungeon with lot of hiding places so Rogue can be useful, and so on. It's lot easier compare to make one quest where every party have time to shine.
If you encounter "that guy" that want to become the most useful person every time? Give him Umber Hulk instead.

Good call. I'm sort of an over-active idea guy, so whenever I have downtime I just churn out quests. Should probably go back and refine them, and use your advice to adjust to party abilities. Cheers.

My IRL INT score is 8 and what is this? Averages for rolls with greater Advatage to Disadvantage?

Tell me of the Dark Lords

This is why Elven accuracy is OP.

why do they wear the masks?

I've come to the following conclusion:

The most overpowered classes in D&D5e are:

1) Variant Human
>FREE
>FEAT
2) Half-Elf
>pretty much the best Charisma based character possible, no competition (best Bard/Warlock/Sorcerer, viable alternative to Variant Human Paladin as well)
3) Stout Halfling
>Lucky combined with +2 DEX +1 CON (the only two stats in the game EVERYONE needs) makes them the superior Halfling choice that's good for everything
4) Yuan-ti Pureblood
>literally Magic Resistance
5) Mountain Dwarf
>+2 STR/+2CON makes them the best Barbarian possible, free armor proficiency for armor-less classes and +2 CON makes them a viable meme race for STR dumpers as well

>Be playing Curse of Strahd with some friends
>Be DM, because well, none of them want to.
>Party is a Pally, a Fighter and a Bard.
>Fighter and Pally are meeting irl for the first time
>Fighter is a /pol/tard. A good guy, but a /pol/tard
>Pally is a total dumbass that's here for shit and giggles
>Fighter convinces Pally to make her holy simbol a swastika
>Welp, let's have fun

Next play sesion
>Players are meta playing, because we don't really care, they just know there are vampires in the setting because well, gothic means vampires, right?
>Don't really care anymore, keep them going until they reach the town and to an inn.
>Players starts asking around, Barovians being barovians are scared shitless of the Bard, a half elf.
>Pally starts to grow suspicious of the innkeeper, pulls out her holy symbol to intimidate him
>Wait a second, isn't her holy symbol a...?
>Shout holding back laughter "I'M NOT A JEW"

Did you mean races?

>good guy
>/pol/tard
Pick one.

He's not an asshole. That's enough for me. He's just a /pol/tard for the shits and giggles, there's no maliciousness in him.

Good luck convincing people Variant humans are OP. Like 80% of people here are V. Human mains.

Stop.

I want to do a monstergirl campaign

But i cannot because humans are lame. And playing a horny girl is for loosers

You'll be far more comfortable there.
Now get the fuck out.

3.finder is a bad game though

I forgot about Obould. It’s a shame Fifth did nothing with him. He’d be right next to Thrall in discussions about this Orc popular cultural revolution if Wizards was competent

Yes, gomene

>Like 80% of people here are V. Human mains.
That proves my point

>the minmaxed super powerful combat character gets a powerful magic item
What do I do?

Suck your DM off for a better item.

Underrated character who should have been the real main protag in the Drizz't saga, Jarlaxle. He gave no fucks and all the fucks (especially to two twin dragon sisters), swole as fuck, and actually had charisma comparatively to most of the cast. He also bounced of Artemis Entreri as Jarlaxle was the smooth operator and Artemis was even more autistic than Drizz't. I'm kinda sad we didn't get the not Army of Two/Outer Heaven arc with those two. It would have been much more interesting than Drizz't edgy-stuing his way through the entire story.

You want a fetish wank game. That is better to discuss over there. You don't need to discuss rules anyway.

Its not a wank thing? I'm actually asexual.
I just like the aethstetic

>Trying to work on my descriptive storytelling during an encounter
>Putting in a little more imagery than just "you walk up and hit" or "you miss"
>Everyone seems to be liking it during an encounter with some goblin ambush squad
>Everyone except this one guy
>After a while this guy looks up from his phone and gets upset that I describe what happened when he hit a goblin, citing "he can do it in his head alone"
>He's visibly upset, gets kinda quiet for a moment and I go back to doing it for everyone else and kinda skim over him
I spent the rest of the session worried about what the other players were thinking, but I asked each of them afterwards if they enjoyed it or not and they all said they really enjoyed it.

But the thought still lingers

>Proves my point
Yup

Can you recommend Jarlaxle books? I’ve read one with him in it, but I think he was the antagonist. Not sure

You can't perfectly please everyone at a table. If he's on his phone at other times he's not invested enough for it to really matter. Just make sure you're genuinely receptive to feedback and that you're focused on generally improving the fun at your table and you're fine.

Thoughts on these Epic Spells? On how they work, specific elements of the spells, etc.? They are from 3.5. I have more spells I plan to add but I wanted opinions on the framework, and how epic spells should work.

As a player, I like to describe what/how I do things myself, but my DM often jumps in ahead of me and narrates it instead, which can be kind of annoying/disappointing, sometimes when I get excited I end up talking over other players/dictating how they do/should do things myself, which I've been trying to work on, especially when he sticks too closely to how the books describe things. Maybe ask the guy if he wants to describe things out loud so everyone can hear. If he still refuses, just treat him like you would another player who doesn't engage in roleplaying and ease up when it comes to him.

>>After a while this guy looks up from his phone
Drop him. Immediately. If you are on your phone during a D&D session, and are not engaged in an actual emergency (no, your wife needing you to come home and change a diaper is not an emergency) then you need to actually kill yourself and get the fuck out of the game session. I am so sick of these fucking niggers who think they should be allowed to be on their phones during a session. What the hell? If you aren't enjoying the campaign, then leave. And you clearly aren't, because you are on your phone. I cannot compete with a device that gives you more distraction than you could peruse in a thousand lifetimes, at your fingertips. I just can't. No Dungeon Master possibly could. No, the simple fact of the matter is, you are an ADHD-addled millennial piece of shit. You cannot go five minutes without referencing a movie, video game, anime, manga, or some meme. You apparently cannot go five minutes without showing other players a meme you found on your phone. Seriously, why are you playing D&D? Because you saw it on Critical Roll or Stranger Things and thought to yourself "those guys are having fun, maybe if i do that I'll have fun too." Except you didn't, because your imagination has been drained away by constant consumption of the most banal, nihilistic, low-effort media, to the point where anything that has any weight to it can only be enjoyed "ironically" lest you actually show that you have a soul, and are vulnerable. And that just wouldn't do. So you stay in the D&D game even though you aren't having fun with it, because other people seem to have fun with it and you think they are doing something right but you can't figure out what it is, and in your warped mind you figure that if the people around you are having fun, that means you are having fun too, even though you are so utterly dead inside that you cannot experience enjoyment, a vapid soulless husk that spends the whole session on his fucking iPhone 8.

this is dumb as hell. There's no reason any of these need to be some special new level of spell instead of just normal 9th level spells.

is this a pasta

I've had good fun with an Artificer. It's not the most optimal class, but it's a shit ton of fun to play.

>Want a monster girl setting with explicitly horny girls
>N.. not magical realm at all, seriously guys!

The guy is a shit. If he dampens the group enjoyment in other areas, kick him. He is entirely unengaged and will cost the fun from other people.

I'm planning on playing a dragoon soon. The best you can do to protect your horse it to have the mobile and mounted combatant feats, along with some good barding. Forcing attacks to target you rather than your horse will keep it alive longer, but there's always the chance a fireball will just fry it.

Not sure, but I will be now.

It is now

>Your main race
>Races you want to see added to the list of PC races?
And/or
>Your main class
>What class do you want added to the game?

...

>Gnome
>Modrons

>Wizard
>Hireling-Master fighter

The Sellsword Trilogy goes into his background and shows the give and take relationship he has with Artemis as he builds his Metal Gear style mercenary core. Exiles is his first appearance but he's still a bit player at that time. I don't know a lot about the newer 2016+ books but I remember the Neverwinter books especially Charon's Claw gives him a lot of screen time with Artemis and shows how he's still a charming bastard but actually cares for that Autist Assassin as they both despise Drizz't and have respect for each other, (until Drizz't bitch of a mom uses Psionics to screw with Jarlaxle's mind and almost ruined the bro code Artemis and Jarlaxle had).

>Half-Elf or Human
>No idea
>Warlock
>An artificer focused on actual Alchemy, combining ingredients to make various effects.