/5eg/- 5th Edition General

Detect Magic
DarkVision
Detect Thoughts
Enhance Ability
Gust of Wind
Mind Spike
See Invisibility
Warding Wind
Blink
Clairvoyance
Counterspell
Dispel Magic
Sleet Storm

If using a pointbuy system, is it better to have all my stats be even so that I get the modifiers, then get feats when I level up, or leave some of my stats odd so that I can get a better modifier by getting more stat points when i level up?

For one entire dungeon we proceeded to seal team six doors. We'd stack up with my Half-orc at the front and then I'd fucking kick the door in. I stopped doing it after the DM threatened to make a door explode if I did it again.

Our bard got a Cloak of Billowing and for a while would always use a bonus action to billow their capes. My Half-Orc being the -1 INT retard he is thought he could go and challenge a leader of an orc scouting group to single combat to take control of the group and send them packing the easy way but ended up having to fight an Ogre instead. He somehow won thanks to a healing potion he had and a lucky crit but was on basically no HP so when the leader said "Get him" and my half-orc got knocked down to 0 HP after burning his Endurance trait the rest of the party stood on a ledge in the cave that you had to go over to get to where the orcs were and the bard billowed his cape heroically before coming in to save my half-orc's ass. The Fighter then proceeded to use his shortsword to cut a dick into my half-orc's chest hair while he was unconscious after the fight.

Generally it’s better to get even numbers (don’t forget racial bonuses). Do look at the half-feats that give you a +1 in a stat and something else decent. If you think you’ll want any of those then it’s fine to leave a stat at an odd number

(reposting)
I'm running LMOP and the Black Spider successfully captured the PCs. They spent two weeks in chains, during which the Black Spider received reinforcements. Now the PCs are going to be escorted to the nearest tunnel into the Underdark, to be eventually sold as slaves.

1. What creatures could I use for said reinforcements? Besides the MM Drow statblock of course.
2. What should happen on the way? (I plan to keep "beasts/enemies of the slavers attack" encounters to a maximum of three, tops.)

Any advice from DMs who've run PCs-got-captured-and-enslaved-and-must-escape type scenarios would be greatly appreciated.

I've never run one myself, but something I've heard is that it's very important to make it clear to the players they'll have a reasonable chance to escape. You probably shouldn't play it quite the same as a normal encounter where the ball is in their court and they can choose any options and do whatever, because if you open it out like it's a combat, they'll choose to fight without really knowing the odds of success and then if they lose, they'll be annoyed because it feels like they were railroaded into defeat.

One interesting encounter could be a group of equally bad creatures, duergar or a single illithid, and have a territorial dispute where they demand slaves as recompense. The pcs could try to influence the situation, or they could use it as a distraction, or even just roll with it.

>-1 INT means he is a braindead retard who doesn't have good judgement (which is wisdom)

Literally kill yourself.

What's the fucking point of Zone of Truth again? Anyone inside is under no obligation to answer, except if PC threathen them which can get ugly real fast, and on top of it all they know when they walk in it erasing any chance of cheating or deceiving the target into spilling the beans.
What is it good for?

He has to make a wisdom save first

Literally what you just said
When you've got an NPC or party member under threat of violence or torture unless they spill the beans on something
It can also be utilised to catch out NPCs that plan to betray you since the possibility of ZOT being employed can cause them to panic

Because anyone who doesn't take the 2 seconds to walk in and speak is either guilty or an uncooperative, unlawful asshole that deserves to die anyway.

It's OK for courtroom drama or whatever the fantasy equivalent is, although I think in 5e it can be resisted by a willpower check.

I don't, but what I do, is allow them to combo the spells out of combat, if they have an interesting or fun idea they want to use.

I had a Bard who was to host a farmer's event, and promised the people freshly cooked meat, and the largest bowl of cabbage salad they had ever seen.

He forgot about the cabbage salad, so at the festival, he had a ton of cabbages, but had to slice them up. He botched his attempt to make people help him, so instead, they put out a huge blanket, put all the cabbages in there, cast forcecage combined with a couple of cloud of daggers, to create a massive blender.

It was kind of dumb from a gameplay perspective, but I saw no reason to not just allow his shenanigans. It cost a lot of spells slots though, and took him too long to do to be useful in combat.

It's great for proving trustworthiness, terrible for ousting criminals.

Which statsusually have the most checks and saving throws associated with them? Wisdom and con? Trying to decide how to spread my stats on a paladin.

It can. It makes it pointless unless your get your GM also let the character know if an individual failed or successed the save.

It is a charisma save.

Wisdom and Dexterity, although Dexterity saves are almost always to avoid damaging spells like Fireball, and damage is the least threatening thing magic can actually do to you, so I;d actually rank Wisdom and Con as more IMPORTANT than Dex, even if there's alot of Dex stuff.

Strength, dex, con and charisma. You can't afford wisdom, but you are a Paladin, you literally add your charisma modifier to all your saves, so you'll be fine.

Dex > Wis > Con > Str > Cha > Int

does a dex based fighter with CBE, shield and rapier benefit from dueling fighting style? Considering that the fighter makes a rapier attack, free action to whip out the hand crossbow, it should work with dueling too right?

>Cha as the second last
>On a Paladin
Were you born retarded, or did you just have a natural talent for it?

What?
That's not how the rules work. Readniggerread.jpg

Thanks. Seems like my dex will suck, so I better get used to begging for heals.

I think he was talking in terms of which saves are the most common/important in general not which paladin stats are best.

You add your charisma to all of your saves.

That literally makes charisma the single best stat for the purpose of your saves. And it extends to your allows too.

Charisma is far and away the best stat for saves. The second best is nowhere close to it.

I'm talking, in general, how common each of the saves are.
CHA saves are next to non-existent, they're only for banishing spells.

>Cleric tries to chase after te evil Lich when we know he's far too strong to take on yet, gets Death'd
>able to revive him through plot armor reasons and he switches to Paladin
>half a year later
>abducted into evil guy's right hand girl's vampire fortress, treats us as guests
>we comply and turn in our gear because everything is full of vampire guards
>except for our Paladin
>gets separated from party when nobody's looking, beaten to a pulp and plane shifted into the shadowfell to be killed by a demon
>DM is merciful and just knocks him unconscious, puts him in a torture chamber alone while the rest of us have been locked in dungeon cell for refusing their offer of joining, clearly start of a prison break scenario
>Paldin decides to go solo, breaks out of his chains, starts fighting through dungeon solo while we slowly try to prepare for breaking out
>Paladin dies at third encounter, gets the vampire thrull curse and his lifeless body is tossed into our cell

Wat do when the face of the party is an idiot?

Can't fix a bad player dude

as an eldritch knight I'm going to want my fighting style to be duelling since I'm gonna need an empty hand to cast magic, right?

The general consensus is that you can grip a two-handed weapon in one hand while you're casting without issue, so that's also a consideration.

You can cast with a 2 handed weapon
You only need 2 hands to attack with it.

He's not even necessarily a bad player, dude knows all rules in and out, does a shitload of roleplaying and is a huge help to the party in combat too. Fucker just constantly pushes the boundaries and usually fucks everything up in the process.

The kind of guy to throw a shrapnel grenade into the guard hpuse we're trying zo sneakily infiltrate.

If you're going for sword and shield, I'd recommend Defense fighting style to become a big tanky boi.

How would you guys build a summoner?

I assume the easiest is probably conj. Wizard and take every spell with the word conjure in it

I take that back, the easiest is probably playing 3.pf

Anyone got experience with a Shepherd Druid? Thinking of playing one for our secondary Dungeon Crawler campaign. Already know they're not all crypts and ruins but also include stuff like deep, dark, haunted forests and stuff so there'd be some room for general Druid shenanigans.

Anyway, how good is the circle? Doesn't seem like a terrible build and having useful animal companions at below level 5 doesn't seem bad either.

But since this is for a Paladin, you need to keep that in mind.

You are a drooling retard if you prioritize any stat other than charisma, if all you care about is saves. For a Paladin who should give a shit about Dex or wisdom anyway, it is completely pointless to put points into those, when you get both by putting you points into charisma instead.

>the paladin of the party keeps screwing them out of extra money by protesting if they loot shit they are not supposed to, lie about having killed more enemies then they actually have, convincing NPCs to do things that are not fair deals, etc.
I sure hope he is not expecting any reward for this because he is just throwing away free cash for the sake of RP, which is alright if he is doing it to stay in character but silly if he expects something good to happen to him for it.

>general consensus
It's confirmed by the errata. The latest printing of the PHB states that the two-handed property "is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it."

Shepherd druid.

His question was, which statistically has the most saves.
I was answering his question, not pretending he asked a different one like "Which stats should I choose as a paladin"

>useful
>animal companions

>What kind of crazy stuff do you or your players get up to?
Nothing unless I nudge them along

>What kind of crazy stuff do you or your players get up to?
Playing a Necromancer with high Medicine, finding a obviously cursed monkey paw, get taken over by the curse, amputate arm and replace it with the paw and am now perma-geassed to subconsciously always try to convince everyone to go into a certain direction to return the paw to its owner.

At least it gave me 1 cast of Plane Shift per day and +1 on all Acrobatics and Athletics saves but disadvantage on all saving throws against spells.

>Bard player writes a journal on their feats and heroics, to share with song and music for the people.
>Never includes herself.
>Also uses a disguise kit with actor to not be noticed by the people there, who just wonder why the girl they saw present when they were rescued is neither mentioned nor present at the celebration
>I don't know how to reward the Bard without it seeming completely out of place.
Help. I don't know how to handle this player.

I don't mind it, and it seems interesting, but... How do I incorporate this? I thought of having a villain be surprised to find a rather powerful bard in the group, but that is rather... Low value and impact, considering the sacrifices made. I asked if it was a mistake that she didn't include herself, and she just quietly responded by shaking her head.

I can't ask her out of game, she is terrible at talking when we aren't IC for some reason, and see isn't even giving us much reasons for the characters actions IC either, even if she plays it well.

It is either the best roleplayed I have met in my life, or I will get seriously bamboozled at some point down the line.

Alright, help me out here

>Fresh campaign, level 1 characters
>Doing some quests from tavern notice board
>Murder mystery, turns out to be a vampire, characters don't know what that is so they don't know whats up
>Blood trail leading into the sewer, go to investigate, leads out of town to a spooky house
>In house, investigate, find corpses, signs of people being eaten
>While investigating the attic the vampire returns
>Surprise round for us, fighter hits him and the vampire reacts with a swipe
>"Oi DM, old mate can't react, this is a surprise round!"
>That was a legendary action!
>Fighter almost one hit, Session called to an end

I thought we were being good players by following the plot hooks, no one else in the group has DM'd before so we've got no idea what a vampires stats are and aren't aware of the danger, is this a good move by the DM to have a plot hook that leads straight to this situation from level 1? Apparently he thought we'd turn around once we found the blood path in the sewer and get help. Is someone in the wrong here or is this just a bad situation?

No, his question was But fine, if saying you messed up is so hard for you, I won't push it. Have a nice day, mister autist.

>crazy stuff your players get up to

Having a bunch of people who are centered around various zoological and biological fields of study usually leads to lengthy discussions about the monsters the party encounters.

The almost-death of a familiar derailed our night into talking about how even though people forget, owls are often apex predators, and giant owls would be quite fearsome if they existed.

Can't you read? His question (Hint, the sentence that ends with a question mark you fucking retard) was
>Which statsusually have the most checks and saving throws associated with them? Wisdom and con?

>I put a blood trail in spooky sewers for my players to find
>For some reason, they decided to follow it, instead of reporting it to the guard, and then doing something else
>I know, I will give the vampire a legendary action against a group of level 1s!
Our GM is retarded.

Our group uses a "RP reward" system to encourage it a bit more. Whenever the DM thinks you did something super fitting to your character and are consistently playing them correctly, he gives out "strikes" after the session for every one of those scenes, worth 25 XP per level. It's not a lot and usually 2 or 3 party members get 1-2 of them per session but it's a nice bit of leveling help.

Does this encounter seem appropriately difficult for a level 5 party as a chapter-closing boss? If not, how should it be balanced?

More importantly, is it too video game boss-y?

It sucks to be shit on that much at level 1 as beginners, but your DM should probably just bullshit you out of that debacle somehow.

We recently also started a level 1 campaign and our Fighter managed to be 1-shot chunky salsa'd by the first Skeleton we ran into.

That sounds like a fine idea, but considering this is especially relevant for the big end-of-arc moments, where the players generally recieve magic items an a lot of gold, I can't really give all that much without putting her too far ahead in experience. This is also a problem in a group with a Thief Rogue, Battlemaster Fighter, and Paladin, where it will be VERY noticeable if the full caster gets a couple of levels on the other players.

>3 introverts with high charisma and no idea how to use it
>The guy who's the most talkative is playing a Goliath Barbarian

everything is wrong with this

but tpk needs to happen as a lesson for both the DM and the party

She's likely shy, has low self confidence/self worth, and attention makes her nervous.

Perhaps you could quietly have an NPC she helped rescue slip her a magical item she'd like as a way of saying "I understand you don't want the spotlight, but you deserve to be thanked"

Interesting, I'll have to rethink my character then
Sword and shield requires War Caster right?

Give him a way to cannibalize the spirits to regain hp, and have the spirits be able to return so many times, albeit in a weaker state.

kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

Use this to check for balance. Unless you made up creatures yourself, then its hard to tell and you need to compare them to other ones with similar abilities from the MM.

How well are your school tests going?

Not even him, but trust me, you will fail a lot for your exams if you stop and respond after seeing a question mark, without accounting for the premise or additional details presented. Right now you sound like underage b8

>player who constantly asks random NPCs the most blunt DM-aimed questions
>are there any adventures around here
>are [current monster] attacks common? how often? Any tips on fighting them?

I honestly can't tell if she is roleplaying or just thinks this how D&D works. Pretty sure it's the latter.

You could consider giving her some kind of unique trait or something. What's her combat style and behaviour like? If she doesn't actually loot stuff or gets noticed by most NPCs to even be present, acquiring some special ability or getting some god's blessing for being so humble and calm all the time could work.

Hmm, I could, but that would be a bit weird unless the rescued individual was at least somewhat important.

And a shy Bard is probably the weirdest concept I had ever seen played.

Good ideas.

Completely homebrew encounter, don't know any creatures that use HP as a resource and spends their whole turn summoning other things. There might be, but I don't know. The spirits are modelled after specters though, but I can't know exactly how many will be summoned at a time.

Very backline focused. Usually runs around healing, buffing, dissonant whispers, or similar non-flashy stuff.

I haven't dares to start throwing around traits. What exactly can I give to someone - a bard no less - that won't risk making the character overpowered?

Overcomplicated

I would have murdered you all in this session and then stated off the next one with your characters now being thralls of the vampire in an evil campaign as he has brought you back to life to serve him.

Either way, lvl 1 characters are expendable peasants nobody cares about. I usually do not even think of serious backstory or motivation until I hit about level 5 because then my character has better chance of surviving rather than being a waste of effort. I just have some basic ideas about his personality, alignment, and habits based on his stats/race/class.

He's asking for what saves are the most common, he has more than enough brain cells to be able to come to the conclusion as to which stats to prioritise with the knowledge given. Most likely scenario is he rolled stats and got good ones, and wants to know what to put his third highest stat as, which is why the question was "Which saves are most common" and not "What stats should I prioritise as a paladin"

>And a shy Bard is probably the weirdest concept I had ever seen played.
>A shy cute shota who makes all the MILFs fawn over him by accident, and constantly have motherly women chasing after him.
I.. I want this as my next character.

>He is still trying to explain himself

Just let the autist be, he won't stop until you do.

Is she a regular lore bard then? Maybe one extra charge of Inspiration or a free Cantrip of another class or something minor with a lot of possible long-time value.

That'd be railroady as fuck dude.
IMO encounters should be medium/easy until they hit level 5, and should only go into deadly if they have magic items.

>And a shy Bard is probably the weirdest concept I had ever seen played.

It's not that strange, user. We are the heralds and the storytellers, the ones who will write down what transpired and the heroics of those we journey with. It is not our place to take the spotlight, for it is a poor bard indeed that tells her own story rather than those who have protected her.

>Threadly topic is "what kind of crazy stuff do you or your players get up to
>/5eg/ gets assmad about someone playing their first game not knowing how every mechanic works meticulously
The absolute state of /5eg/, ladies and gents.

Oh I've definitely seen it played before. There's different reasonings, from just literally being shy to wanting to tell a story without diluting it with their inclusion.

Yeah, important works best. Could also be a family heirloom or something

Yep

How would it be railroady? They chose to just go and attack some vicious creature as ignorant lvl 1 peasants, now they will be paying the price for their decisions. It is a circumstance of their idiocy, not the original plan of the campaign.

In a new campaign I usually lose between 4 and 7 characters until I hit lvl 5. Life of retarded lvl 1 and 2 characters is as expendable as random forest bandits you cleave through once you get to a more respectable level.

>Help. I don't know how to handle this player.

Let her shine IC. RP is obviously a place where she doesn't have to be shy- don't reward her with attention IC or OC, reward her with opportunities to come out as a PC.

and then fingerbang her IRL

>medium/easy until they hit level 5
you know I'm sick of having to untrain your coddled idiot players.

If "I didn't really know how to play my character" counts as crazy, our barbarian going into Sunless Citadel hasn't raged yet in the three combats we've been in, but also complained that he's a very healing-dependant class, and thus beholden to our cleric and bard saving their spell slots for that healing.

... going into a rage is supposed to be the very first thing you do as a barb, though.

They didn't CHOOSE to attack a vicious creature, they followed a trail of blood, a plot hook set by the DM, and got stuck in an encounter WAY above their level.
Losing 4-7 characters before level 5 is a sure sign you're a shit DM that can't create encounters that actually challenge anyone, and instead substitute clever enemies for overly strong ones.

A bit late, but if the kidnapping happen before Forge of Spells, make Black Spider accompany PCs to said dungeon and have the undead there attack him first for chance of fight, or PCs going there alone and have the cave entrance collapse when PCs find Lightbringer so one of them can attune to it, throw some helpful consumable item and have them fight incoming Black Spider.
Otherwise, you can have Black Spider use PCs for other dungeon exploration, which you can use for PCs to escape.

This, I can't even tell what stat does what and I know that raging and soaking up hits is basically all I'm good for. That's why I have 49 HP (98 effective with Bear Rage except against Psychic). As far as I'm concerned the objective best path is to go Bear Totem barbarian because of the fact you become the ultimate tank even if you dump DEX because you've never played DND and had no idea what DEX did. Never dumping DEX again.

THey could have done plenty of things that did not involve going straight to the house and attacking. They could have looked for help, investigated what the creature might be, scouted the hose and waited to see who goes in and out of there to get better intel before rushing inside, note down what hours it is usually outside and they are free to investigate the interior, etc etc. The players are shit and did not employ any tactics, rushing inside and getting themselves killed instead.

I meant as a player myself I have to remake a character 4-7 times before I even get one that survives to lvl 5. With that being said I usually play extremely punishing hex crawls or campaigns which involve facing overwhelming odds where you need to plan every move of yours, who you speak to, what you say, and what information you can or can not trust or get murdered because you are an inconsequential peasant that nobody will even notice missing.

>instantly taking it to magical realm

In German we have a phrase which roughly translates into; "There's no herb that cures stupidity". It very much applies to some of the players here, though the cleric seems okay, even if his attempts at doing a "Tolkien Dwarf" accent make him sound like a Swedish guy trying to sound Indian.

>THey could have done plenty of things that did not involve going straight to the house and attacking.

they didn't attack they went to the house to investigate and daddy came home. I mean I guess they attacked at that point but instead of the DM giving them clues as to how fucking powerful this thing was he just had it stroll in.

>In German we have a phrase which roughly translates into; "There's no herb that cures stupidity".

which is?

The DM is not obligated to give them any clues if they did not do the proper detective work beforehand - study the suspect's habits, surroundings, diet, identity, possible powers, etc. Preferably I would also put a clock on them as DM so they have to do that relatively quickly, discreetly, and efficiently or the creature will figure them out and start hunting them down anyway. They could have avoided getting caught if they had a scout overlooking the area/knew his typical routine/had a plan of escape/had something to offer as a bargain for their lives etc.