/5eg/ 5th Edition D&D General

just roll a theurge wiz or a divination wiz. They're all stupid levels of broken.

>playing oathbreaker

I'm not looking to be overpowered, I'm looking to play a character that does things with his mind.

Talk to your DM and work something out. Be open to the fact that changes will happen during campaign play and be cool about that.

Otherwise re-fluff some other class.

Lucky, Halfing, Divination wiz. Just fluff the called rolls as doing stuff with your mind.
Or pick sorcerer and use subtle spell so you can do spells right in front of people and not be noticed.

The idea is stupid but the "oath" is pretty strong.
Makes it even more stupid.

Why do people complain about warlocks only eldritch blasting in combat? It's what their filler is. You wouldn't say "oh rangers are boring, they just shoot arrows every turn".

What's the name of this weapon and why they are so popular among pixies, sylphs and sprites? What benefit do they grant?

But most paths all have pretty damn useful disciplines, and it's apparently the early levels when the class is at its most overpowered.

I'm aware of those classes. Not interested.

>Not interested.
>Not interested.
no u

This game is really only fun as a DM. If you're a player, you get to pick from a few pregenerated archetypes with abilities that either (1) deal extra damage or (2) give you advantage on something. What a boring ass game. Finally getting a chance to play after 2 years of DMing and the lack of character options is really hitting hard.

Aside of being tiny, obviously.

Those are star knives, they are a PF weapon

>has access to magic
>plays like a martial
this is probably the main reason. eldritch blasting is more fun than firing arrows anyway - at least you have some room to fluff up how your blast goes whereas you can't really do much with firing arrows. honestly i really enjoy warlock and ranger more than any other class, because you have great consistent options but can always pull something out of your ass like a zephyr strike or hypnotic pattern, and you're versatile as fuck between invocations and rituals/familiars for warlocks and stuff like natural explorer and pass without trace for rangers.

One of a whopping three pacts is based around doing things that aren't "eldritch blast every turn", and yet even that pact should be doing exactly that or they're just objectively worse unless they pick a very specific patron that was only printed a few months ago. Speaking of patrons, I sure am glad fiend gives me all these fire spells I'll never get to use because I'm going to want to use hex all the time to make my free cantrip stronger than them, especially against things that resist fire. And wow, look at all those invocations. I'd hate to have to actually be able to think about my choice, so thank god eldritch blast is so central to my class that agonizing blast is mandatory, let alone the other ones that improve it.

Warlocks have all the flavor and cool fluff Sorcerers should have had, but instead it's all wasted on a class that can only spam the same cantrip every turn.

Because they're low CR and have polymorph

This too. A lot of us would probably make a deal with the devil in order to be able to shoot lasers, but in D&D Land you better be getting more out of that deal when people are doing similar shit through study or just being dirty muties.

>tg complaints department. Have you tried not playing dungeons and dragons?

if I choose a cantrip from another class using magic initiate, would it only scale if I took levels in that class?

no, cantrips scale with character level.

Is it weird that i see every class like this? Like wizard is the same as warlock most of the time in combat, with the difference being rolling once for firebolt and a few times for eb blast.

interesting
that makes my decision between magic initiate and lucky as my feat that much harder (I'm playing bard)
Magic initiate would give me reliable damage through EB and mean I never need to use a ranged weapon, as well as getting faerie fire on a long rest for free
Lucky is lucky

Well, I’m quitting my first D&D group. I’ve been playing a cleric for a while, and after personally saving each character’s life at least twice, they abandoned me the first time I got knocked unconscious. That mixed with a serious difference in playstyle (I try to strictly stay in character, 2 of the other players are so far out of character that they never even came up with names after 3 months). I’m just sick of their shit.

What made you leave your group for the first time?

What's wrong with Vicious Mockery?

How do I ask my DM to let me play a Dhampir?

>Wizard is the same as warlock in combat.

You are playing wizard wrong, holy shit. You have 9001 ways to warp reality and literally lock down the entire battlefield. Why are you throwing firebolts? Firebolts are your very last desperate resort for when you run out of god-juice.

lucky is pretty damn good. but if you're a bard then MI is also pretty alright.

First, okay vampire as your background
Second, okay vampire as your race
Third, It only makes sense if you play a vampire class now, right?

Now you are played 4e Dhampir.

Need a flaw for my character he is half elf celestial warlock that belong to a order bonded to a group of kikrin that run around hunting undead and rogue magic users.

Explain to me why 5e couldn't have the same level of character building options that 3.5 had? Most of the options in 3.5 were shit but that was mostly due to the unbalanced rules, and the autism of the developers who had to nerf anything good that wasn't a spell (even caster prestige class features sucked for the most part). So.... don't do that? And you'll have a game that has all the options of 3.5, without being shit. Easy as hell. You'd draw in the Pathfinder players too. And without the instant-gratification ASIs and stupid "muh diversity" racial ability modifiers, the ability score system would actually function, instead of being the equivalent of standing on a stepstool in a low-ceiling room on a pogo stick.

But instead, the developers traded that for "accessibility", streamlining the rules (good thing) and dumbing them down (bad thing) for the kind of normofucks they are trying to attract. The kind of retards who don't really want to play D&D, they want to play Cards Against Humanity, and after seeing Veeky Forums greentexts posted on Tumblr and Facebook about rolling a natural 20 to get a blowjob from the guard captain, they decide that they, too, should be having fun with this hilarious game that reminds them of roulette or the other degenerate gambling shit that they waste their money on. There's also the other half that plays Skyrim and thinks D&D is just a real-life version of that. So they join the game and make special snowflake characters and couldn't give less of a fuck about the mechanics, because it's all about "muh story," ignoring the fact that you can easily have both if you competently design a game, like many designers who aren't employed by Wizards of the Fucking Coast have managed to do.

Why don't you just roll on the table for a flaw for your already-uninspired cookie-cutter character?

Nice pasta.

Pathfinder still exists if you wana play that, as well as a million other shitty DnD knockoffs that nobody plays. Go shill Shadow of the Demon Lord more.

low damage and eventually things will begin resisting pretty well

But I want to play 5e Dhampir

How do I ask for something that's not in the players handbook, I mean?

I don't understand how customization and character building is your complaint. I agree that being a player is generally quite drab because with the exceptions of a well-GMed game where you're a full caster and you get frequent rests, no matter how much I can mess around with in character creation the final character sheet lacks options and interesting choices to make. Playing a different game is pretty easy though.

You just ask your DM if you ca use Plane Shift expansions. They are free pdfs made for MTG settings. You need the Ixalan one.
My DM allowed me to play a Zeal cleric no problem. We even roleplayed the shift from Tempest to Zeal. My PC had a crisis of faith when he failed to save some innocents from a cult. So he freaked out, changed the domain and burned down the cult's village.

It's not pasta, and that's not an argument, you fucking piece of shit. Go ahead. Go ahead, find where I copied that from. Hmmm, could it be that I actually typed out my thoughts myself, instead of some 2-line inane question about "lol guise what should I do for muh character?"

I don't give a shit about Shadow of the Demon Lord, I don't care about 13th Age or FantasyCrap, even though those games are probably better than D&D they don't have D&D's fanbase. And Pathfinder is utter shite. Trust me. I've run the game for 2 years. I've also run 5e for 2 years. Don't act like I don't know what I'm talking about, faggot. I'm asking a simple question: why can't the developers learn from their mistakes and actually progress, rather than dumping every idea they have and keeping the shittiest ones. Fourth had some great ideas and wizards dumped that to keep healing surges and once-per-day fighter actions, and 3rd had some great ideas but Wizards dumped that and made feats so shitty that half of them have to give an ASI to be worth taking. And there are fuck-all for feats. But if you don't use feats you fuck up your game because ASIs are so out-of-whack, based on instant gratification of a +2, that you'll end up with half your scores against the cap by level 20.

All of this for a cheap easy game to pander to low-effort skyrim fuckers. Sad, because they really made a lot of progress with the rules in 5e. They could have made an actually great game, but instead they made something mediocre like the previous two editions.

Can you answer for it? Can you refute a single thing I said? Maybe the "getting to all 20s" thing is hyperbole (I know it is) but you can't deny that fighters end up samey as fuck due to the obsession with stats that the game has gained. And with proficiency, ability scores are more important than ever. You can't even roll for scores anymore without unbalancing the game. And there are still fuck-all for character options, besides archetype bullshit.

Because you save your slots for when you need spells. Not to mention those spells not always sticking or outright failing. And general out of combat use.
So once you get that one spell you need to work you spend the rest of that combat encounter firebolting.

I would like some advice on a possible situation that can happen to my group.
PC got some magic juju thrown on them quite a while ago. They never looked into it, outside it's random effects based on d20 and % rolls. It's actually far more than they think.
In the setting I'm running, resurrection is impossible, souls gone do not return. To cheat death, you must have someone of equal value willingly give their soul in your place (short version). There are ways to achieve this, but in terms of mechanics, it must be earned, and is not lightly given.
PC with juju can actually short circuit this setup by forcibly exchanging another soul for theirs. The kicker is this soul must be someone who is emotionally connected to them, and is emotionally invested in return, ie a close friend, dear family, a loved pet. This would mean, mechanically, they, at the point of death, make a will based attack against another (n)pc, and if it hits, they deal the difference between their max hp and their current hp. If it is enough to kill them, the forced exchange happens.
Is this a good idea to throw at them? I have a strong group who is very much into roleplay, and by and large are a fairly mature lot, but this is a fairly cruel twist. I do bill my game as an emotional rollercoaster, tho, and I already have 2 players twisting due to accidentally murdering a child.

>Can you answer for it?
Why should I?
>Can you refute a single thing I said?
Your opinion? Why? You are free to feel however you want, and I am not being paid to defend a game I play for fun and recreation.
Have a good day, bait-user :3c

>2 years
How does it feel to waste 2 years playing a shitty game? Could've played VTNL with the same effect. Or hell, go play vidya.
Stretching roleplaying games over the years, fucking pathetic. No way your narrative is worth spending time on.

Where is this Dhampir info from?

dandwiki.com/wiki/Dhampir_(5e_Race)

I want to play a half vampire so I can actually travel with the group in the day. Also the vampires from that expansion don't get a physical bonus.

>2e gets released
>5e outdated and wizards goes bankrupt
Can't wait.

>dandwiki
Just refluff the fucking Revenant race

>Trusting Paizo to design a good game
There's no way the casuals would leave anyway.

>anyone playing pathfinder ever

What's your favorite bard build?

>Stretching roleplaying games over the years, fucking pathetic. No way your narrative is worth spending time on.
Sorry if I have the commitment to run an ongoing campaign that is actually engaging. My players discuss my campaign on their own and what they plan to do next. Have fun with your shitty one-shots that will never have a story because you derail it with "LOL NAT20" autism every five minutes. Go fucking kill yourself, you low-commitment, low-effort, zero-talent fuck. You are the exact kind of person that needs to be driven from this hobby. You act like you know better, pretend to be part of the game then make fun of people for playing the way that they have been for years. If this is bait, 10 out of 10, you got me. But I know people like you exist, and you're a fucking cancer. You want to play D&D yet be too cool for D&D at the same time. How does it feel to waste 2 years playing a shitty game? Pretty good. How does it feel, user, to waste time browsing this shit board for another roll20 game that will fall apart after 3 sessions, over and over, to the point where you mock people with actually-successful campaigns just to cope. Top fucking kek. No wonder you fags don't care about high level options, none of you make it past level 3 because you don't have the balls or discipline to even stick to a fucking roleplaying game. Like all normalniggers you have no real interest in anything so as soon as you ADHD-addled brain gets slightly bored, it's time to move on to the next vapid novelty for the next shot of endorphin to keep on your mindless march toward the game. God I hate faggots like you. Zero creativity. Zero passion. Zero interest, just a wide, yawning mouth ready to consume, and complain when what it consumes isn't good enough.

That one is a homebrew.

I don't play D&D.

How do I go about creating a challenging BBEG?

I've spent plenty of time hyping them up 'off screen' and they're about to pop up in game for the first time. The PC's won't be having their final showdown for another 4-5 levels so this is just to give them a taster of what's in store.

I've considered just re-skinning a high level monster but what I'd love to do is create something from scratch (or at least take an existing monster and add abilities to spice them up a bit)

As the BBEG is a Hobgoblin warlord (in the vein of Archaon) I asked in another thread and was advised to taker the Mage abilities and mash them together with Hobgoblin Captain stat block, which feels a little uninspired.

How do I add Legendary abilities, spell casting abilities, magic items etc. and calculate CR without over/under egging it? Any tips?

Well, I’m quitting my first D&D group. I’ve been playing a cleric for a while, and after personally saving each character’s life at least twice, they abandoned me the first time I got knocked unconscious. That mixed with a serious difference in playstyle (I try to strictly stay in character, 2 of the other players are so far out of character that they never even came up with names after 3 months). I’m just sick of their shit.

What made you leave your group for the first time?

5E and the D&D brand has the normies behind it. We are doomed to existence of mediocrity where the lowest common denominator determines what is successful. Streamlining a niche product and making it appeal to normies to the point where millions of them watch Critical Role always has detrimental effects to its integrity and the joy it offers veterans.

>never even came up with names
Why have you stayed with them for 3 fucking months? You only have yourself to blame. You can run a decent 5-session long complete story in this time. Two even. And you wasted that time.

What level is your party, currently?

Shit guys, I thought it didn’t post this last time. Sorry, I’m just salty about it

Don't make it something that can merely be bumped off by hitting it till it dies.
Make a set piece out of it, requiring skill rolls and such. I will point to the battle against Psycho Mantis in MGS1 as an example.
The DM was shit, and I disliked the group. The DM's SO and best friend were a part of it, as well.
Why you in a D&D thread, then?

We saw you the first time, user.
And your whole story seems to stink a bit - Poe's Law is a powerful thing, but no character names after 3 months? How did you even refer to each other? How did you even start playing without everyone having character names?

>We are doomed to existence of mediocrity where the lowest common denominator determines what is successful.

You do realize we're talking about Pathfinder, right my dude?

5, about to hit 6. Planning for an 11-12 level showdown. They're not on the baddie's radar at the moment so it's going to be a role-play encounter this time, just so they can see him in the flesh.

To trigger grognards such as that spastic. It's hilarious. I'm also lying.

>DM
>wouldn't give their left nut to play a standard array, staight human, champion fighter with no feats

>I will point to the battle against Psycho Mantis in MGS1 as an example.
This said, I didn't know about the statues or the controller port, and proceeded to punch him to death.

So you admit that 5e has fuck-all options? That characters have fuck-all difference between them? I mean, each class has its priorities for ability scores, so already the differences in characters are going to be cut down already from that. A standard fighter is Str > Con > Dex > Wis > Int > Cha. It's been that way since forever. Allowing players to arrange their stats has led to this. Okay, so what other options do you have? Class, and archetype. Cool. I get to pick from one pregenerated bullshit path, and another pregenerated bullshit path that is a subset of the first pregenerated bullshit path. Fucking awesome! Oh and I get a background, too. That's nice, at least, even though I'll probably pick one that complements my class like most players do. So it's pretty much pick a class, pick a race, pick an archetype. That's it. There's nothing interesting to do with character building. That's not by accident, either. Mearls said he wanted to shift online discussion away from char-op and more toward tabletop stories. Which is like the equivalent of someone telling you about the dream they had last night: no one really gives a fuck 99% of the time, because most RPG stories are boring to read. Why would I care about some other faggot's campaign? This is the problem with Critical Roll. D&D is fulfilling for all the reasons that a spectator sport is not. Yet they decide to make it one. And retards without an ounce of creativity eat it up and think it's the best thing ever. Then join D&D groups and make really shitty players.

>herp derp
My tea is very good, user.

So you do play D&D, and what I said is probably true of you, then. What's the longest campaign you've been part of, user?

>Psycho Mantis
I've always kind of wanted to have some kind of meta-boss that fucks with the mechanics somehow like Psycho Mantis did, reversing controls or deleting your save slot and stuff. Or have a dungeon like Eternal Darkness, which would show your volume turning down and the such. Not sure how that would even work in a TTRPG though, or if it even could.

That's how I handled it. Crawled toward him, stood up, punched him once. Repeat. Took fucking ages.

The principle encompasses everything in life under a materialistic, capitalist society.

Matt Colville has a good video about memorable villains breaking the game's rules. Like if the BBEG is a god wizard, don't just have ultra magic missile, give him the ability to erase spells from the system entirely, etc.
youtube.com/watch?v=FUrlRZu2uCc

Here's a halfling subraces homebrew.

>Narrative doesn't matter in a game about making make believe stories
If you want a bunch of mechanical depth where the story you play through doesn't matter, you want a video game. The point of a TTRPG is this ability to do anything to influence a narrative and have your GM act as the world to react to your actions. To assume a role and play it out within the confines of the world.

DM railroaded and the other players didn't know any of their abilities. Every time someone other than me had a turn they went "uhhhhh" and fumbled around as the DM politely gave them hints on what they should do. Also, I was the only one who tried to play in-character. They kept talking unsure of themselves and confused in third person and it was really jarring.

an example:
>DM: "You've killed all the rest but the final orc has taken a hostage prisoner and holds a knife to her throat! She cries out in tears for help and the orc frantically tells you all to drop your weapons and get back. What do you do?"
>Other guy: "I, uh... uhmm... I have really high Charisma, so... My character tells the orc... to like, not do this, because, like, it's not right, and stuff. I try to... (awkward pause)... tell them to surrender and drop the knife... and change their evil ways... because it's bad to do mean things?"
>DM: "Great! Roll a persuasion check with advantage."
>Other guy: "what's advantage again?"
>mfw it's session 5

What should I multiclass my nature survivalist themed cavalier? Ranger or barb? I just want a few levels cos he's a cavalier frontman above all

Unironically true

meant for

>join new game
>DM plays to his buddy
>deal with it for the sake of a game**
>important scenario where we finally got the thing
>DM ambush, handwaves that his buddy has the thing
>I'm like wait, we never said who has the thing. we kind of need to figure out who has the thing before this
>DM just says no, he has it and proceeds to center the whole fight and scene around his buddy

that was the last straw, and last session

**I've finally learned not to force myself to endure bad games for the sake of having a game. it's costs me having to be forever DM but no group is better than bad gaming

>Don't make it something that can merely be bumped off by hitting it till it dies.
>Make a set piece out of it, requiring skill rolls and such. I will point to the battle against Psycho Mantis in MGS1 as an example.

Yeah, the rest of the story is revolving around recovering pieces of an ancient artefact, so I was intending the final battle to be a pitched battle where the PC's have to hold on as long as they can while the artefact is activated. Wave after wave of enemies and the Boss at the end.

You literally have no argument. Why even respond?

Actually I'm playing a crossbow guy because of a mini I bought. And I am astounded by the lack of options the game gives me to differentiate myself. At least crossbows are viable in 5e, I'll give them that. Mostly due to Dex-to-damage. But there is no reason why that must inherently be a trade-off with character building options. Just because 3.5 had a lot of shit rules, that does not logically follow that a game cannot have non-shit rules while still providing the same incredible depth of options for character building, while still being an accessible and easy-to-learn game.

The reason, of course, is that Wizards are lazy. They wanted to grab some quick normie cash in an attempt to "appeal to new markets" while giving the rest of their fanbase the finger. Check pic related where he basically tells players who aren't on bored with rules-light dumbed-down shit that they are all woman-haters and are no longer welcome in the game's playerbase. And yet you people still line up to buy the latest low-effort splat that has maybe 2 pages of actual content, like a bone-thin african child lining up to suck lead-infused water from the village's only well pump.

Cheers, will give it a watch, that's exactly what I want to add into the mix. How do I avoid making it over/under powered though? Just judgement?

Why are normals so acoustic? Why do they have this much trouble stepping in the shoes of their character and acting in 1st person? It's like they can't imagine being anything other than themselves.

>goes to playground
>stands by merry-go-round
>screams and bitches about how it only goes 'round
>people suggest playing something else if you don't like it
>just continues to stand and autistically screech at the merrygoround for being boring
>mad that other people are playing on it
>don't you see how boring it is?
>never actually rides

seriously dude you're like the worst kind of faggot in every possible way

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO
join us fag

You can build a Paladin at least 15 different dramatically different ways.

You have literally no idea what you're talking about and it's clear that you established your reactionary point of view of "NORMIES AND CRITICAL ROLE REEEEEE" and worked backwards from there to justify it.

Honest question. What do you user's think about this whole diversity and gender equality and transgender push?

Nice job misinterpreting and completely failing to understand my post, retard. I was talking about the online discussion. The value of an RPG is in the shared story with friends, but outside of that group no one really gives a fuck because they have no attachment to it, they have no reason to care. The stories that achieve meme status are the funny ones, hence the nat20 greentexts that spread like a cancerous tumor. Also, at what point did I imply that you cannot have mechanical depth and a good narrative alongside each other? That doesn't make any sense. Just because Pathfinder failed at it doesn't mean it can't be done. It can easily be done. Most of 3.5's balance issues would have been easily fixable if the developers hadn't been fucking retarded.

But instead you wasted time typing out a post stating the obvious. Nice going. Maybe instead of strawmanning your opponent and being flat-out-fucking wrong and looking like a dumbass, next time you'll actually read and try to understand a person's point.

CoS ends a similar level so you could peep the Strahd statblock for a general idea of the power level you want your big bad to have. Assuming it will be a deadly encounter.

Most of the examples he gives IIRC aren't really that powerful, they just fuck with the players, often outside of the final battle. So it's not something that would be taken into account for CR calculation or anything, but you may of course weaken the party to various degrees.

So I'm working on some simple "try to bypass the language barrier" houserules.

Alice only speaks Dwarf. Bob only speaks Halfling.
Carol only speaks Common. Dave only speaks Undercommon.

Who has a harder time communicating: Alice and Bob, or Carol and Dave?