/5eg/ - Fifth Edition General

people shit on roll20 for finding decent games but it's just a matter of finding the right games. there's plenty of good games, there's just a sea of shitty, half-assed game. just look out for red flags. in my advice, if you're starting out looking for games on roll20, here's a few guidelines:

>try and stick to premade and official campaigns/adventures like Curse of Strahd and Storm Kings Thunder. even a shitty DM can pull off a half-acceptable games with those books
>read the ENTIRETY of the LFG. this allows you to pick up on red flags and also increases your chances of getting accepted due to the fact that you'll get a feel for what type of players the DM is looking for. besides, it's just common courtesy
>avoid games where the LFG is too short and/or has many glaring spelling and grammatical mistakes. if they can't be bothered to make a decent LFG, they can't be bothered to run a decent game
>avoid games with overly long LFGs. a few pages worth of reading is fine. a novel worth of lore that everyone is expected to read for your shitty homebrew setting is not fine.
>other typical red flags: furry shit, weeb shit, magical realm, real life politics = AVOID

stick to these guidelines and you should be fine. once you find a decent game, it'll be easier to find more, people who play D&D typically know other people who play D&D and those other people may be running campaigns. I've been invited to 3 campaigns and two one shots based off a single campaign I joined several months ago.

Why do people bitch about people being munchkins and optimizing their character? This is literally all this game is about. There are no good social and RP mechanics baked into the game, its all about combat, killing monsters, getting loot. Being as effective as possible at that task is what "winning" at DnD entails. There are many games that facilitate and reward deep RP, engagement with your backstory, and elaborate RP, but DnD isnt one of them so there is no good reason to choose not to make your character as powerful as you possibly can.

>He needs mechanics for "role-playing"
You are part of the problem

>and also increases your chances of getting accepted due to the fact that you'll get a feel for what type of players the DM is looking for.
For real, still amazes me when you look at all the people trying to join games and asking for shit like games in EST time when the dude clearly said he is at GMT or some shit.

The rules of the game as written discourage anything but minmaxing, You can have whatever P&P Bushido you want, but the product itself does not facilitate that. If you want you can play Diablo2 and sit in front of Baal monologing for 30 minutes before engaging him, more power yo you if you think that is fun, but the mechanics of the game itself in no way facilitate that decision of yours.

>The rules of the game as written discourage anything but minmaxing
Not actually true, you are just an autist

Compare what mechanics you have for dialogue and RP to the elaborate comabt system and you will see what this game is all about. But you can talk to Baal all you want and pretend the devs wanted you to do exactly that, thats okay too.

The problem is that you're "playing to win" instead of just playing to play. Is my gnome cleric the best cleric ever at level 1? No, but that's okay because as long as everyone's having fun it doesn't matter who "wins."

Three bad ones come to mind. First:
>random game with some standard homebrew world
>looks ok
>roll up to first discord meet
>12 players
>DM: "The more players there are, the more fun there is"
>double-check it isn't a West Marches
>it isn't
>nope.jpg

Second:
>cool concept
>nobodies in life suddenly resurrected to player classes and abilities
>sweet
>heavy RP focus
>awesome
>get introduced in first session
>me: "Sweet Jesus, where am I? What happened? Who are you?"
>other PCs: "[Names], but we don't care why; let's kill some shit."
>"Aren't you curious why we're alive?"
>"Nope; now where's the loot?"
>double-check with DM on focus
>he pulls a 180 from both the roll20 ad and his initial description
>get so irritated at how shit it was that I literally DM a one-shot campaign with a group of friends around that same concept for spite alone

Third:
>ToA game starting up after release
>me: "sweet; when's session 0"
>DM: "oh, I don't do that. But you can if you want."
>"ok"
>schedule that shit
>half the players show up with full characters to session 0
>"lol why would you wait for other players to make their characters?"
>wat
>first session awkward as fuck with two and a half clicks in party pulling at random directions
>drop it after 3 sessions hoping it would improve
>join friend's ToA game
>most altruistic/good/lawful party I've ever played in
>fun as fuck

Why do you need more than persuasion, deception vs insight, etc.?

I'm convinced he's delusional rather than lying.

Map drawing is fun 5eg.

Is this regarding 5e?

Why do you need more than attack/AC/some saves? Because its more fun, engaging, and provides better incentives and reward structures for the players. Play a session or two of, for example, Burning Wheel wit ha good DM who knows the ruleset and you will see what a game designed to be all about RP, character beliefs, goals, instincts, and biases can provide on that front.

I am playing to the strengths of the system, and if the system is extremely combat-skewed, then not being as good at combat as possible and focusing of other aspects is just silly. There are systems that better facilitate non-combat interactions, I play DnD to murder as many dragons as possible in the most efficient way possible and haul back to town as much gold as possible, because this is what the system was mechanically designed to facilitate. Anything outside of that is just players fooling around instead of engaging with the mechanics of the game.

Lets see some of your maps then if you are such a cool guy? pls, I need maps that I can steal

Why are you playing with randos on roll20 if you have real friends that you can play with?

No, it's about Warhammer 40k

My players were looting a room, one of them found some cool item. He wanted to stash it into his pocket without telling others. Of course, OOC one player was really unhappy about that and wanted to notice it. Now of course his character wasn't really spying on others, he was looting. But it seemed like some passive perception check would be appropriate but I didn't know against what to check. It seemed like a contest at first but neither was actively trying to notice anything or be stealthy. It feels like a check of passive perception against passive stealth? But that doesn't exist. How would you rule this?

Passive perception against Stealth.

Because they rarely wish to DM. The second story did the exact opposite of what I initially wanted to do while the third one, by luck, happened because a friend glanced through ToA and said"yeah, that looks fun; I might run it" followed by peer pressure.

You could just use a passive perception check and set a DC based on how subtle you think it should be reasonably.

So I'm playing a Gloom Stalker in Tomb of Annihilation and we've just hit level 4.

I'm considering what feat I should get.
Sharpshooter always have value but I was wondering if there was anything else I should take into account.

>I'm considering what feat I should get.
+2 DEX

Me and probably the rest of the party would go
>Come fucking on don't be a faggot don't bother with the retarded secret stashing bullshit you retard.
I rarely let those resolve through skill checks. If such conflicts happen, it means something is wrong within the party and certain characters need to be vaporized and/or replaced.

Already have 19 dex, a +4 seems like a good enough stat for a while.

Medium Armor Master then

This is almost certainly accurate and the likelihood that the majority of players don't min/max (and likely have only skimmed the PHB and just go off of what their DMtells them) seems almost undeniable.

Think it's worth it?
Most medium armors usually carry stealth penalties IIRC.

Good spell list for Wild Mage Sorcerer using Spell Points? We already have plenty of support (druid and cleric) so I'd like to be the blaster or the social encounter guy.

Mine are hand drawn with graphite pencil is that ok?

What about alert or whatever its called so you can see all the traps coming before they hit you?

>Most medium armors usually carry stealth penalties IIRC.
The feat removes the penalties

Sure. I cant draw for shit but I can trace like a motherfucker.

Chaos Bolt for flavor is a must imo

Yea, I agree. Chaos Bolt for flavor fits my character perfectly.

That could potentially be pretty valuable seeing as I heard Tomb of Annihilation turns pretty nasty later on. Though does Alert even apply to traps?
It would give me a whopping +11 initiative though.

Oh, fair point, never really looked into the armor feats since there were always better options it feels like.
Hm, I wonder how much value I'd gain out of it compared to Sharpshooter seeing as Gloom Stalker is already a very frontloaded ambush-type of character.

Charger has interesting potential because of your Dread Ambusher ability. That is, assuming you actually start most off most of your encounters with an ambush.

which is better for being the group tank, heavy armour master for 3 DMG resist on normal damage types or durable for maximising my hit dice usage

It's mostly a ranged character but we do tend to set up ambushes as often as possible.
Or atleast I look to always be able to surprise and ambush people even if my party gets noticed.

Well it kinda made sense. The paladin leading the group was really determined to wipe out every sign of the cult they were fighting. The rogue already lost special armor he found because it bore the sign of the cult, he gave it to the paladin if he can identify it and he just fucking burned it because muh evil items need to be purged. Now that the rogue find a valuable item that he didn't want destroyed, he just stashed it because it was some cultist pendant with a glowing gemstone or something like that.

Ah sorry I meant Observant which gets you the +5 to passive wisdom and investigation along with some other stuff.

Passive perception I mean.

This one’s one of my first maps its a bit banged up rn.

Why the fuck is it horizontal.

Nevermind, I just noticed that Charger it requires you to dash, which makes it a total waste.

I know its clearly a pretty simple map but man I wish I could draw as good as that. God took one look at me and said "this motherfucker will have like Dex 7 IRL".

This one was my first attempt at making a continent map that I actually completed.

Anyone got the link to that encounter builder thing

Having a 19 passive perception would be quite nice.
I'll keep it in mind!

My character was adopted by mercenaries and knows no other life. And he prefers it that way.

Has anyone ran the "Iron Route Bandits" oneshot from hoard of the dragon queen?
Im a new dm and I want to run it as a lvl2 oneshot for my group.

Never mind, its actually in the pastebin.

Are there any good resources on doing eldritch horror in D&D? I want to make a campaing inspired by Sunless Sea. Basically players sailing through an area consisting a bunch of islands, each one with different people living there all forming a sort of ecosystem, trading with eachother. As the players sail deeper into the sea, the islands get more sparse and more mysterious while weirder and weirder shit would happen and there would be some mysterious cult shit going on the players would have to figure out, not sure about specifics yet.

Basically I need some inspiration on writing this sort of adventure, maybe some mysterious looking map with a ton of islands and a system to handle madness that would be more progressive, in the handbook madness is simply an effect of some spells or abilities, instead I need it to be a stat/resource representing how much eldritch shit the players can handle witnessing.

Make *extra* bloody sure they know how to deal with the owlbear, or it will result in a TPK.

Like the Sanity score variant on page 265 of the DMG?

I'm trying to figure out how to set up a game in the Redwall setting. How would you guys handle it as a DM?

Oh fuck. Sorry. I was searching the index for madness and insanity. Didn't think to look up sanity.

No problem! Just checking if you'd seen and discounted them.

I want a Chromatic Dragonborn as a Conquest Paladin. An ex-criminal who worships some god of war and want the world to destroy itself in a huge war. What could be a good color for him?

Use mouse guard rpg

That is a nice map good job fellow

Passive perception vs slight of hand.

I'd love to see where the fuck they get these statistics.

Hot and fresh from the source, their ass.

Surveys, most likely.

I can see where he’s going, most groups tend to not reach level 17. On top of that, most groups don’t tend to spam variant human, so lvl 1 feats are out of the question. Combine that with some classes being slightly MAD like paladin, monk and barb, and you might never see a player get a feat period unless he’s going for a specific build in mind. All this assumes that he meant most groups don’t take them instead of asis.

Okay, so I'm playing in a group full of new players, and the ones with the most experience are me and my friend the DM, him more than I. Me and he were helping the players role up their characters, and I made my own. Later on another new player gets in, a friend of mine, and both me and DM help him with his sheet, DM helping him with the starting stuff, stats and all that. I take a look at his sheet, and the lowest modifier he has is a +3. That's... Wrong, considering the score was 11. Ask DM, and he says he's a tiefling, and gets +2 to score. I tell him he added the wrong place, but he tells me you add it to the ability score, and not the actual score. Now I'm pissed, because my HIGHEST mod is +3, and I thought I was wrong for having +0 my lowest stat. So... Am I wrong? And what the fuck? If I am, what's the fucking point about that retarded-ass chart that tells you what the modifier is for the score?
I feel my faith is a lie, for I read the 5E PHB reverently when I started out. Reeeeeeeeee.jpg

Calm down, you are right

If the player put their 11 in Charisma and then chose to be a tiefling they would have a total of 13 Charisma for a modifier of +1

Tell the player and the DM to check out the Players Handbook page 13

>I take a look at his sheet, and the lowest modifier he has is a +3. That's... Wrong, considering the score was 11.
Dude, what?

If his score is 11 that would be a +0. If he adds +2 from tiefling that makes it a 13 and therefore a +1 to the modifier.

If tiefling has +2 charisma then you add 2 to the score. 14 becomes 16. And the mod for 14 is +2 while the mod for 16 is +3. I think he might be wrong here. Just consult the phb for easy of proof.

/5eg/, I need some help. Can you help me come up with a ritual to destroy a phylactery? What I've got so far is
>Ground 1000gp worth of gems to dust, mix with the blood of a celestial, the blood of a fiend, and the blood of who wants to destroy it
>???

Throw it into a particular volcano.

Stealing that 40k OP idea

What's your favorite bit of obscure lore?

Couldn't you deliver the phylactery to whatever god judges the dead in your setting (easier said than done, really) and then kill it's owner? That would leave the owner in the afterlife in both body and soul, which is basically the same as being dead, right?

Pretty damn easy to destroy phylactery.

Summon lesser demons is a 3rd level spell and the only difficulty would be the celestial althouth planar ally or conjure celestial could do it

Really just ask any nice celestial like a unicorn or a couatl and they'd be OK with destroying a phylactery

What is it that makes 3 goblins as hard an encounter as 6 bandits according to the encounter planner? Is it just their disengage ability and them being able to see in the dark?

Pretty much.
The ability to easily ambush with goblins is a pretty powerful tool.

You want to make it personal to the stuff. If the lich is a summoner, it should involve summoning. If the lich burned his hometown to the ground, it should involve the ashes of that long lost. If the guy trying to destroy it is avenging his sister, it should involve a memento given to a sibling in love. And so on.

If it's just some random assholes ultrakilling a different random asshole, just list pains in the ass. You've got expensive and hard to fetch, so add any of the following as you prefer:
>Hard to reach (into volcano, at crossroads of leylines)
>Hard to physically do (climb mountain, wrestle large pig)
>Hard to mentally do (endure pain, some kind of mental skill check)
>Hard to schedule (phase of the moon, get from Point A to Point B within three days)
>Hard to fight (underworld guardians, specific fiends you need that blood from)

New D&D beyond vid is up on Youtube; Raven Queen and the Shadowfell.

youtube.com/watch?v=ZYou87fg1f0

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Thank yous. I shall convey that information to him shortly.

reee

oh boy my favorite

OH BOY THIS IS A TOTAL SURPRISE.

Yes. Literally that. And not just plopping them down on the battle map to fight the players, but playing to their unique abilities to pull a goblish ambush.

With gobbos disguised as bushes.

Yeah I always place emphasis party cohesion
No stealing or fights unless that fight is really really REALLY justified

>more elf subraces
>more raven queen

user...are you actually literally autistic?

There's no "winning" D&D. You're ignoring the "role play" part of "role playing game". It's essentially a giant game of fucking pretend user, with the mechanics giving it structure so its not just us going back to being kids going
>"well I use my infinity damage weapon to hit you and you DIE"
>"nuh uh, i use my black hole to suck you and your weapon up so YOU die!"

If you do not understand that this is the case for D&D, especially 5e, you should probably consider that you're not playing the game you really want to be playing. You really want a wargame like Warhammer or a video game like Skyrim. And there's nothing wrong with that, you just need to stop transposing those things onto 5e

>not dog+rat+lizard+bold+lins

I really wish they'd write her outcsome how.
>Turns out this was all a big gambit by the gods, give a mortal godhood to show how mortals would abuse their power and then havd all gods agree to remove magic from the world by destroying the weave permanently.

What are some interesting encounters to have for people traveling around the north in SKT? Obviously there's the random encounter table but I want more suggestions.