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If your group is fun and your dm is competent then you'll be fine, but be aware that a lot of old grognards are saying that the fighter is lovely and that casters are overpowered. Won't matter if you have a cool group, although from a role playing standpoint barbarians are more rad
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Mar 16, 2015 00:39
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Warlock levels would go fine with polearm master, if you want to go that route. Dip Fighter1 first, get armor and whatnot, then go all warlock. You Hex and get bonus hex damage on each swing of the polearm. You can get advantage on all those swings via Darkness and the see-through-magical-darkness invocation, if you want to add in GWM's +10 damage for -5 accuracy thing. I'm doing a tankier version of a fighter/warlock here.
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Mar 16, 2015 00:39
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QuarkJets posted:If your group is fun and your dm is competent then you'll be fine, but be aware that a lot of old grognards are saying that the fighter is lovely and that casters are overpowered. Won't matter if you have a cool group, although from a role playing standpoint barbarians are more rad "old grognards"
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Mar 16, 2015 01:08
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I'm no stranger to DnD, I'm well-aware of the existence of caster supremacy/versatility. That said, I think since there's only one full caster in the group, either short rests will be reasonably common, or there's going to be some grumpy players. e: I also tend to have a higher level of system mastery than the other players, so just generally to avoid being a cock, I think it's better to be a semi-interesting build that does interesting things like polearm Fighter or Fighter/Warlock (although probably not - the cleric and bard should have most of the charisma side of things covered) than just being a full-caster and showing everyone up once the campaign passes beyond level 4. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Mar 16, 2015 |
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Mar 16, 2015 01:14
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bewilderment posted:That said, I think since there's only one full caster in the group Bards and Clerics are both full casters. Fighters are way underpowered compared to other classes like Monk, Barbarian, Pally, Warlock, and Valor Bard. In the other thread you mentioned wanting to steer clear of "I attack" or "I blast it" style gameplay; fighter is firmly the former, even with Battle Master maneuvers. It's important to note that OAs are once per round, so the Polearm OA thing isn't quite the interesting battlefield-control build you might think it is.
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Mar 16, 2015 01:47
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Yeah, if you really want to be a battlefield control melee character then barbarians seem to be the new sexiness. You can just use a one hander with the Sentinel feat plus grappling constantly to keep control of a small number of enemies, not as effective as a caster could but still really well
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Mar 16, 2015 03:02
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This thread has successfully convinced me to go Fighter 1/Warlock x until I die. I'll see how it goes! I'll still go polearm mastery even despite greatsword being mathematically 'better' in terms of raw DPS, because as it is we'll be loaded up on frontline fighters so I might as well be something a little more unique.
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Mar 16, 2015 03:17
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Dick Burglar posted:"old grognards" TG has been a circle of 4E wagons for almost 7 years now.
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Mar 16, 2015 03:25
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Any good tips or stories using the Wiz2 spell phantasmal force? It has been sitting on my prepared spell list for awhile and I just used it last night for the first time.... on a golem (construct). So of course that fizzled and I was left feeling like a jackass. In my defense, we we had already been playing for over 4 hours and was getting kind of tired. It was the last fight of the of the session, so I had no more lvl 2 slots to try on someone else. I was playing in Adv. League doing Tyranny in Phlan. Was with my HotDQ group, but ran the aforementioned TiP instead because our DM couldn't make it. First real time playing D&D, so I've kept away from the more illusionary/creative spells (suggestion, friends, minor illusion, etc.) The two times I've ever used minor illusion was to summon a 5' tall glowing fiendish cat to scare off some rats in the very 1st session of HotDQ, and to . I'm a Lvl 6 Abj. specialist btw. If I'm fighting a troll and cast phant. force him and he fails the save. Can I say a swarm of magical chains dripping in acid rip through the ground beneath him and engulf him. Is he restrained and taking the d6 psychic damage until he makes the INT save/or my Conc. is broken? I'm 99% sure he'd still regenerate, but anything to keep him immobilized would be nice.
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Mar 27, 2015 02:39
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Got killed in my 5th edition game last night, so was looking at making a sorcerer bard, end goal something like 14/6 or 12/8 My reading of the sorcerer rules is I can pick up spells of levels for which I get slots (am I wrong?) so does it make sense to go something like: Bard, Sorcerer, Sorcerer, Bard, Sorcerer then alternate picking up Bard at even levels and sorcerer at odd levels. I'd hold the (5th and) 6th level of bard back for the magic secrets feature. Probably Wild Magic sorcerer + lore bard. Is that a correct reading of the rules, and is that a sensible leveling plan? Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Mar 27, 2015 |
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Mar 27, 2015 04:21
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Got killed in my 5th edition game last night, so was looking at making a sorcerer bard, end goal something like 14/6 or 12/8 More specifically, when you learn a new Sorcerer spell (by gaining a Sorcerer level) that spell can be of any level for which you have slots, which is going to be multiclass full caster slots in your case. I don't see any problem with your leveling plan but I don't really see any advantage to it, either, unless you're going for specific class features, so go nuts
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Mar 27, 2015 08:00
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You might want to reread the multiclassing section there.quote:Spells Known and Prepared. You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class. So if you were, say, a Bard 4/Sorcerer 6, then leveled up and took a level in Sorcerer (becoming a Bard 4/Sorcerer 7), while you'd have access to 6th level spells, the max level of your new sorcerer spell is 4th, since Sorcerer 7 only gets you 4th level spells.
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Mar 27, 2015 08:06
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Red Metal posted:You might want to reread the multiclassing section there. Yeah, I thought about this - but the sorcerer class uses different language about what level spells you are eligible to have. I'm not sure if it's intentional or just stupidity though.
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Apr 1, 2015 00:49
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Every class uses the same language. The section Red Metal quoted is from the section about multiclassing, which overrides everything. Multiclassing as a spellcaster trades away access to higher-level spells for more spell variety.
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Apr 4, 2015 05:40
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The DM in my current game has subtly hinted that our group will reach level 6 in the next session. As a Lore Bard, I get a nifty feature called "Magical secrets". I can pick any 2 Cantrips or Level 1-3 spells and add it to my spell book without it counting against my known spells. The problem is that there are so many spells to choose between and I could really use some help with narrowing it down a bit. The party consists of a Wild Mage sorcerer, Champion Fighter, Elemental Monk and me as the Lore Bard. What spells should I consider as the sole healer/support? 
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Apr 9, 2015 00:24
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Lamquin posted:The DM in my current game has subtly hinted that our group will reach level 6 in the next session. Crusader's Mantle, Aura of Vitality, Counterspell (if your game has a lof of caster enemies), Haste, or Revivify are all great choices. If you feel like you're not contributing to combat enough, Eldritch Blast is pretty worth it; Vicious Mockery starts to go downhill once enemies have more than one attack.
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Apr 9, 2015 00:29
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I have never played DnD, but have always wanted to. I read through the players basic guide, did an interest check with some friends, and picked up the starter set. I'll probably end up starting as the DM, knowing my friends. Will the starter kit baby me through it, or is there some extra reading or tips I should know to help me not make it suck? I read the starter kit takes you to level 5, and I think the basic takes you to level 20. What do you do after that point? Does the player/DM handbook tell you how to level forever, or do you just kind of make it up?
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Apr 9, 2015 20:09
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mrbass21 posted:I read the starter kit takes you to level 5, and I think the basic takes you to level 20. What do you do after that point? Does the player/DM handbook tell you how to level forever, or do you just kind of make it up? By level 20, someone will be king of something, or possibly on the verge of being a new God. It will also not be unusual for it to take a year to get that far. And that's if nobody wants to have a heroic death, or gets killed from mechanics. Typically, if everyone's amenable, you call the campaign done at that point, the characters become fixtures in the world you made, and you start over, let someone else DM (possibly in a new setting or game system), or make new characters in the same world so you can experience your old character as an NPC character that helps drive the story.
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Apr 9, 2015 21:04
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Red Hood posted:Crusader's Mantle, Aura of Vitality, Counterspell (if your game has a lof of caster enemies), Haste, or Revivify are all great choices. Thanks, I'm going to be in a very similar boat eventually. mrbass21 posted:I have never played DnD, but have always wanted to. I read through the players basic guide, did an interest check with some friends, and picked up the starter set. I can't speak to what's in the starter set, but game caps out at level 20. You could keep going from there, but by then you'll hopefully either be far, far more familiar with the rules so that it's not a problem, or your campaign's story will hopefully wrap up. Getting to level 20 should take a while. My last game of 4e took a little over 2 years and we went from level 5 to 16. One thing to keep in mind is that, unlike an MMO, there is no "end game content", no level grinding, and no real point in rushing things through. It's a story based game. You could very well run the game where you do nothing but fight mobs of increasingly large but generic baddies and get loot/gain levels every session, but D&D isn't really built for that. You can run the pre-built campaigns or modules, or you can make up your own and do what you want. My 4e campaign was filled with pirates and cannons and slaves and extra dimensional baddies, and my character was a kobold monk pirate captain who never really wanted the job in the first place. We didn't bother with tracking XP, aside from the DM saying that we gained a level every now and then when something cool happened. The game ended because the story reached a natural conclusion, and now we just started a new 5e game. As the DM, it's up to you how long you want the game to run for (ideally, I've had other campaigns just fizzle for other reasons). My advice would be to run the starter, see how it goes and if there's interest from there, then just go nuts. Get a firm handle on the rules and then break them whenever it pleases you.
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Apr 9, 2015 21:25
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mrbass21 posted:I have never played DnD, but have always wanted to. I read through the players basic guide, did an interest check with some friends, and picked up the starter set. Best advice I can give is always ignore the rules when something would be fun, and be permissive with your players. Do you have RPG experience in other games? I feel like going in blind to D&D NEXT can be a bit rough. Are you going to run the published adventure, or are you going to make things up yourself? Oh and also advice since these threads seem to be full of crazy fuckers: avoid weird and terrible poo poo like rape, murdering babies, using children as spell components, and the sale of the harvested dicks of slain enemies. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Apr 10, 2015 |
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Apr 10, 2015 00:33
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Laphroaig posted:Best advice I can give is always ignore the rules when something would be fun, and be permissive with your players. Do you have RPG experience in other games? I feel like going in blind to D&D NEXT can be a bit rough. Really, WoW is about as immersive as I've been into RPGs. Which is why I assumed people would want to keep their character forever. I plan on doing published only for a while so I can get a feel for what's fun and what's not. How much sustained battle time vs down time to explore. What monsters, with what abilities, at what level, and how many make for a fun or challenging encounter. If I went in blind I'd be afraid I'd prepare an entire campaign and either make the battles trivial or one-shot beatings. I'm big into story and I'd love to create parts of an adventure or even an entire campaign, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Especially since I still have all the rules to learn, how to be a good DM with a published adventure and think on my toes, and create my own organization system to figure out before I even think about trying it.
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Apr 10, 2015 01:15
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The nice thing about DnD not being WoW is that you've got some basic decisions to make with your players about how you want to handle the idea of challenge and the lifetime of your campaign - The old school way of playing DnD involved a lot of insanely punishing stuff, and some of it has come back. This not Goldshire where you could be a quadraplegic and still hit level 2 by the time you leave. With some bad luck or bad decisions, a brand new character could die. Even later, it's not uncommon for enemies to do various types of permanent (death-transcending) damage to a character. It really depends on what you want to expose people to. Unfortunately, DnD modules aren't really overtly obvious about how difficult they might be, but they usually offer some advice about how you can hedge things one way or the other for the players. Making a balanced encounter isn't too bad, but because of the way the rules work, even a balanced encounter can go south for either you or the player pretty quickly. It's pretty normal for DMs to start making monsters do weird stuff just to get around killing their party (or rolling over without a fight). - What's death mean? There's people who play in a way where resurrection is uncommon or pointless. If a character happens to die, you let the chips fall, and have them hop back in with a new character at the same level as the rest of the party--they don't have to 'level' a guy. You can just let them bring it in. They write a backstory, you run an adventure where the new character is introduced, and play continues on. Other groups treat resurrection closer to how you see it working in World of Warcraft, where you have the means to stand someone up a basically unlimited number of times--their body is never permanently 'lost' or destroyed. It's an option to give people a chance to change things up. Part of the fun of DnD is new characters, because you get to make a lot of choices. In MMOs, half the reason you're attached to a char is just the work you've put in, but as DM you can let them preserve that work by giving them the chance to make new characters at an appropriate level. It's not cheating! In fact, it's a great way to keep people involved and having fun telling a story together if they can change their 'role' occasionally. - You bring up the difference between combat/life balance and that's really all up to you. Killing monsters is not the only way for someone to gain experience or wealth. You're in charge of that, and you get to say when someone gets something. You also get to say when they *don't*, which comes up in cases like, when someone is clever and drops a rock on a group of orcs or something. Good for them--they crushed a bunch of orcs, but it's not a video game. They don't have to get Xp for each orc just because. So you'll need to figure out whether you like a situation where you're stingy with xp only giving it for individual actions, or evenly split xp from a fight between people--or give out the full fight worth of xp to each player... Or give out a flat rate regardless of combat as long as they came to the game. You can give out magic items for buying pizza for everybody if you want. It's your show. You might like your first run to be a Loot pinata, where everybody gets a car, and then switch it up next time to a wasteland campaign where nobody can afford anything and is just trying to survive: the Ogreon trail approach. So have fun with the modules, but don't worry about messing around with things. Ignore anyone telling you to be careful! It's your deal! Have fun with it! Be outrageous.
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Apr 10, 2015 01:44
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:Be outrageous. Be truly, truly, truly outrageous. 
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Apr 10, 2015 01:48
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Getting to level 20 is generally going to take a while. Think months if not years, even with a group that plays very regularly. To put it in the context of WoW, Tabletop RPG-ing allows you to actually make a significant impact on the world you're playing in. You might not have to kill Onyxia the same way everyone does*, you might not even want to kill Onyxia in the first place, and may end up having to face the fallout of Onyxia's death on the sociopolitical climate of Stormwind instead of just "yay she's dead, now move on to the next boss", at least if you want to get involved in politics. Hand in hand with this is that nothing the players do should ever be boring. Even if they're in Goldshire, they shouldn't be "grinding on wolves" to get to the next level: something's always troubling the village, and it's up to the players to track it down and solve it, whether it's Kobolds that are infesting the mine, Bandits that have kidnapped the mayor, unrest among the peasants, or even a murder mystery involving the parish priest and the local alchemist. As they level up, the thing that is always being trouble will expand from the local village to the general region to the whole kingdom to possibly the whole world, but the same principle still applies that the players are always doing something important. The same extends to combat: if the players like interesting tactical puzzles and challenging engagements, they don't need to wait until level 10, 15 or 20 to get it. Whether they're fighting extra-dimensional beasts or the criminal mastermind du jour, it should be possible** to create a "raid boss" type fight that keeps everyone on their toes and feels "epic". * I had a game group that faced a Lightning-spewing Bronze Dragon that I had introduced as early as level 3 to serve as a sort of overarching villain. What they ended up doing was recruiting battalions of the Kingdom's soldiers, forging a lightning rod with the help of a mad scientist, and infiltrating the dragon's lair to face her in the most fortuitous terrain possible. They ended up killing her by level 5 simply by accumulating so many advantages rather than the usual "I'm strong enough to personally tank the damage and personally take her HP down to 0" trope. ** I'm talking about RPGs in general. One of D&D Next's flaws is that there's a paucity of hit points and interesting character abilities at the first 3 levels, which sort of makes it difficult to play up complicated or clever combats at that stage.
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Apr 10, 2015 03:30
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Red Hood posted:Crusader's Mantle, Aura of Vitality, Counterspell (if your game has a lof of caster enemies), Haste, or Revivify are all great choices. I did not consider that Paladins get their level 3 spells at a later level. Both Crusader's Mantle and Aura of Vitality made me do strange sounds when I checked them out, the Aura more so (20d6 healing! 20d6  ).I'll probably go with the Cantrip Eldrich Blast for more damage when necessary and the Aura of Vitality for the absurd amount of healing. Thanks a ton for pointing them out! 
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Apr 10, 2015 13:38
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Lamquin posted:I did not consider that Paladins get their level 3 spells at a later level. Both Crusader's Mantle and Aura of Vitality made me do strange sounds when I checked them out, the Aura more so (20d6 healing! 20d6 2d6 for the aura, and only on one ally you choose per round. At least it's a bonus action, but it costs an action to cast. Crusader's Mantle - give everyone 1d4 radiant within 30' seems mediocre for a 3rd level spell at best. And costs an action. I like blinding smite (bonus action, 3d8 and blinded on failed Con ST) and revivify (should someone be unlucky enough to die, bring them back up with 1 HP). Or just use the 3rd level spell slot to deal out an extra 5d8 radiant on a successful melee attack. To Thread: Hey all! Just stumbled on this thread - been playing 4e for a couple of years, and just switched to 5e in Jan. Converted my lvl 18 Warden to a lvl 12 Nature Paladin, so I have a couple of sessions getting the feel for how the Paladin functions. Feels like a lot of smiting with some fun effects (turn Fiends, laying of hands, divine sense) to keep them interesting.
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Apr 10, 2015 18:08
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I think he means 20D6 over the course of the length of the spell, so 10 rounds. Assuming you don't break concentration, cast something else that requires concentration, and don't want to use the bonus action for anything else like Bardic Inspiration. Crusader's Mantle may only be 1D4, but when applied to the party, per round, and assuming you're using it on something that's vulnerable to radiant, it could add up to quite a bit. I'm not sure how it compares to other straight damage spells, though. Also, remember that a Bard could be getting these spells as early as level 6, whereas a Paladin gets them at level 9. That can make a difference too.
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Apr 10, 2015 18:22
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Squifferific posted:I think he means 20D6 over the course of the length of the spell, so 10 rounds. Assuming you don't break concentration, cast something else that requires concentration, and don't want to use the bonus action for anything else like Bardic Inspiration. That follows for the aura. I was more arguing that I'm not sure that, as a paladin, healing 7 HP/round starting at lvl 9 is that great, when monsters will probably be dealing far more damage to the party/round. To my knowledge (and a quick google), monsters are no longer vulnerable to radiant (except Vampire? I don't have the MM in front of me). It was mostly replaced with Turn Undead/Destroy Undead. Radiant will keep a zombie down if it tries to use Undead Fortitude. Assuming a party of 5, your aura will increase average damage by a total of 10 (if everyone is doing weapon attacks), or blinding smite for an average of 13.5 and inflicting blindness. Again, all from a Paladin perspective, a class that has to balance a support role with tanking and damage dealing. I could see more utility for a Bard if the Bard is predominantly support, as well as getting access at an earlier level where the damage and healing numbers will have more impact.
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Apr 10, 2015 19:11
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I think its also silly to care about out-of-combat healing capacity (20d6 total over the minute duration) when there is literally nothing to spend gold on other than potions of healing. Like the only healing you need is a bonus action spell to get people up from negatives/0 to positive HP. Healing in-combat should otherwise really only be done with the Heal spell. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Apr 12, 2015 |
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Apr 12, 2015 16:31
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Laphroaig posted:I think its also silly to care about out-of-combat healing capacity (20d6 total over the minute duration) when there is literally nothing to spend gold on other than potions of healing. Depending on the campaign, you might be getting dicked on gold and potion drops. In those situations, the option of everyone standing around basking in a cloud of health after a fight to save time/HD doesn't look so bad. It also counts as the bonus action heal to get people up that you mention, although it does cost a standard action to start it up.
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Apr 12, 2015 16:45
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isndl posted:Depending on the campaign, you might be getting dicked on gold and potion drops. In those situations, the option of everyone standing around basking in a cloud of health after a fight to save time/HD doesn't look so bad. It also counts as the bonus action heal to get people up that you mention, although it does cost a standard action to start it up. if you are getting dicked on gold and potion drops then why are you spending spell slots to heal people instead of taking long rests or something. like, as a piece of advice to newbies, healing is really broken in D&D 5E except as something you do in an emergency to get someone back up. if your DM is not giving you gold/letting you buy potions of healing, just take long rests so he can live out his gritty fantasy vietnam pastiche, don't try to fight it by using your spell slots to heal. because the end path of that road is the DM throws some encounters at you, and you burn your spells dealing with it, and then people go into the fight at half HP, and the giant rolls a crit with its club and now you have a TPK. Healing spells are not for healing people to full HP outside of combat - you can use them for this, but its a bad idea when you could be using those spells to do useful things instead. This is kind of hard to explain other than "really just trust me, don't get your DM in the habit of presuming you use this resource each day in this specific way", because it scales really poorly vs. monster damage (so its going to vary wildly depending on how encounters are built), its random (you roll dice for the healing, so you have no clue if your spell slots represent "enough" healing or not), and the variance is HUGE. 20d6, after all, is between 20 and 120, probably somewhere around 70. At level 8, my Wizard has 60 HP. I think you can see the problem here; how many Wizards are you going to be able to heal? How many 3rd level spell slots become dedicated for healing? How does the DM balance this out over the course of the day to test your resources? Its really crappy and it doesn't work in practice, so the best method is to let people heal via potions or a modified hit-dice system. Then you can throw encounters at the players with a higher variance and know that, on average, one encounter isn't going to have a chance to really throw off the session and force the players back to town to rest because the DM had lucky dice. Unless you want VERISIMILITUDE of course in which case may St. Pelor have mercy upon your soul, your game is well and truly hosed in so many ways its not worth counting. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Apr 12, 2015 |
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Apr 12, 2015 17:09
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Laphroaig posted:if you are getting dicked on gold and potion drops then why are you spending spell slots to heal people instead of taking long rests or something. You're spending spell slots because you already spent it during the fight to start it up and you might as well use it to its full extent? It's not even a bad spell for picking people up in combat, since odds are they're going to go down again with only the 2d6 HP they received and you can repeat the healing for free across multiple turns. I'm not advocating it as a replacement to hit dice or potion healing, I'm saying it works as a supplement if those two fall short. Sometimes you won't have time for a short rest, let alone a long rest (especially if you're using hour long short rests). Not because the DM is being a dick, but because the plot demands it or the encounters are structured in a way to require this. This was true even in 4e, where the healing mechanics were much more rigorously defined and short rests only took five minutes. You edited in a bunch of stuff about variance while I wrote that and yeah, I agree it sucks. Not every DM is going to rework the system to account for its failings though, whether that means changing the healing mechanics or showering the players in gold and potions.
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Apr 12, 2015 17:34
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isndl posted:You're spending spell slots because you already spent it during the fight to start it up and you might as well use it to its full extent? It's not even a bad spell for picking people up in combat, since odds are they're going to go down again with only the 2d6 HP they received and you can repeat the healing for free across multiple turns. I'm not advocating it as a replacement to hit dice or potion healing, I'm saying it works as a supplement if those two fall short. Its a standard action to use it, and its concentration and your bonus action. So the opportunity cost is that its a 3rd level spell that precludes you from casting other concentration spells, and you have to somewhat consider it in that context. Look at two other concentration spells that do stuff in combat and are applicable here. Bless - add 1d4 to hit. Level 1, 3 targets, a 3rd level bless would hit 5 targets. In this game of bounded accuracy, boosting to-hit via bless is very huge (unless the stuff you are fighting has like 11 AC, in which case who cares). Haste - extra action, some buffs. Primarily, gives another attack as its main offensive ability. Neither consume your bonus action - which as a bard you might actually want to use to throw out inspiration during a fight. At first, the spell does look really good - but it does come with an action cost and an opportunity cost. You are not doing stuff in combat which could make the combat end faster - you are just throwing out 2d6 per round. Let me explain in another way: Lets say Monster X hits for 27 damage. That represents 3.8 rounds of you maintaining the spell, to heal that damage away. This game system is biased against offensive action to remove a threat - if Bless had let one or two more attacks hit, the chances are the fight would have been over faster, meaning the monster has less chances of getting hits in. Healing is reactive, you have to understand - you use the spell, and you standard action, AFTER your ally has been hit. By the time PCs are dropping, you need to be using your standard actions to end the fight ASAP, by taking the remaining enemies out - you cannot out-heal their damage output. Especially since, when hit, you have a high chance of losing the spell, and this a Lore not Valor bard, so no medium armor and shields (unless you dipped a single level into cleric for heavy armor. btw this is a good idea, gives you bless and the bonus action healing word thing). It just never makes sense to heal in combat since you want to be removing the threats taht deal more damage than you can possibly heal away. If you can't rest enough to drink potions/spend hit dice, then you can't rest enough to sit there casting spells. You are also robbing from peter to pay paul - by spending spell slots on healing, you are not spending them on making the next fight easier/end faster. In fact, by spending them healing you reduce the options available to solve problems via combat to hoping the maths of your party's effective HP (total HP X chance to be hit from the monsters) is greater than the monster effective HP (total chance for you to hit them X their HP). Without abilities (spells, special actions like fighters) it does become a simple dice rolling game where a bad streak can make you lose. Spells are generally exceptionally good at throwing the odds in your favor via buffs and debuffs. Healing is the crudest way to do this. Most players instinctively pick up on this in gameplay.
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Apr 12, 2015 18:12
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Laphroaig posted:If you can't rest enough to drink potions/spend hit dice, then you can't rest enough to sit there casting spells. You are also robbing from peter to pay paul - by spending spell slots on healing, you are not spending them on making the next fight easier/end faster. In fact, by spending them healing you reduce the options available to solve problems via combat to hoping the maths of your party's effective HP (total HP X chance to be hit from the monsters) is greater than the monster effective HP (total chance for you to hit them X their HP). Without abilities (spells, special actions like fighters) it does become a simple dice rolling game where a bad streak can make you lose. Spells are generally exceptionally good at throwing the odds in your favor via buffs and debuffs. Healing is the crudest way to do this. Most players instinctively pick up on this in gameplay. All of which is true. At the same time, you can't throw all your eggs into one basket - you could build a party comprised entirely of Strikers in 4e, where the same 'damage first' philosophy applies, but that's only going to work until you run into an encounter that lasts longer than your team has health. Playing the action economy is a two way street; you want to deny the opponent actions (usually by killing them), but you also want to prevent lost actions because you're on the ground dying. Bless and Haste can be powerhouse spells, I'm not arguing against taking them. They are already quite popular as spell picks however, and there are quickly diminishing returns from having more than one person with those spells. Moreover, despite those spells and Aura of Vitality being Concentration spells, I don't believe considering them as mutually exclusive is necessarily the correct mindset. They are different tools for different jobs - in a hypothetical build where I had all three, I might open the fight with Haste on the Barbarian, but I'd drop it to cast Aura of Vitality if necessary. You get one extra attack on your turn with Haste active, and you have none of your multiple attacks if you're dying.
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Apr 12, 2015 18:39
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Do note that dipping Cleric 1 for the Life domain gets you heavy armor, shields, and 5 more healing per round on AoV, 50 more hp over the whole channel. 20-120 avg 70 becomes 70-170 avg 120. That helps with the variance. That 27 damage per round monster gets pretty much outhealed if it doesn't hit every round consecutively, or if you have a Heavy Armor Master, or a Rogue with Uncanny Dodge, or a raging barbarian. If you want to run a "buff the barbarian" strat, this spell owns, because they lose their Rage buff if they get KO'd, and their buff is really good at letting them fight through focus fire (resistance) and disadvantage granting status effects (advantage cancels it out). If you want another idea for a fun spell to take with Lore, take a look at Conjure Animals and the stats of the Constrictor Snake, Draft Horse, Elk, Flying Snake, Giant Poisonous Snake, maybe the plain Wolf. Imagine having 8 of those guys, mix and match if you want. 4 Warhorses ain't bad either against a low AC prone target. They suck against nonmagical resistant enemies though and a lot of things ignore poison damage. In that case, an 8 segment wall of meat spamming Shoves or Helps or readying dashes or disengages to bodyblock enemies is pretty funny.
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Apr 12, 2015 22:08
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Laphroaig posted:if you are getting dicked on gold and potion drops then why are you spending spell slots to heal people instead of taking long rests or something. So your solution to a DM that doesn't hand out healing potions and also sticks to time pressure is to say gently caress it, we'd rather suicide our characters?
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Apr 13, 2015 00:01
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slydingdoor posted:If you want another idea for a fun spell to take with Lore, take a look at Conjure Animals and the stats of the Constrictor Snake, Draft Horse, Elk, Flying Snake, Giant Poisonous Snake, maybe the plain Wolf. Imagine having 8 of those guys, mix and match if you want. 4 Warhorses ain't bad either against a low AC prone target. They suck against nonmagical resistant enemies though and a lot of things ignore poison damage. In that case, an 8 segment wall of meat spamming Shoves or Helps or readying dashes or disengages to bodyblock enemies is pretty funny. This is a great point. On paper, I felt the Ranger, and particularly the Beastmaster build, was extremely outclassed. But in the game where we started at lvl 12, I thought Beastmaster was great at loving poo poo up. First, she had a wolf companion (you can pick any CR 1/4 or less beast). At level 12, it gets 4 x lvl HP (48), and your proficiency bonus to AC, skills, attack and damage. That brought the wolf to AC 17, +7 Perception, +8 Stealth, +8 to hit and 2d4 + 6 damage. The wolf also has Pack Tactics (adv on attacks if ally 5' from target) and can knock target prone (Str check, DC 11). By level 12 you get 2 attacks, with one attack going to commanding the companion, who gets two attacks (Bestial Fury). You can also command companion to dash, dodge, disengage or help using a bonus action (Exceptional Training). From that build you have a wolf that can deal 22 dmg almost every round with advantage, and has a decent chance of knocking the target prone to give everyone else advantage, while still getting one attack as the Ranger. With disengage as a bonus action you can move it to hit two targets in one round, or have it dodge to try and draw some hits that should not connect. With Beast Sense (2nd lvl) you can use your wolf as spy with great stealth/perception. Also, as slydingdoor pointed out, Conjure Animals as a just-mess-with-the-enemy is great. Our Ranger in one combat summoned two direwolves (same basic attacks as wolf) that knocked over anything they attacked, and in another four Brown Bears that made a wall to cut off the zombies on one side of a pincer attack, while the party dealt with the other side. By the time the bears were down the party had wiped out the other side and were ready to finish off the bear-chewed zombies. Apart from the wolf, there are other beasts that make great companions when you consider the HP and stat boosts. Giant Crab would have AC 19, +7 to hit, 1d6 + 5, and grapple up to two enemies. Or Flying Snake would have AC 18, +10 to hit, 5 piercing + 3d4 poison damage, and can Flyby. Which is a long-winded post to say Ranger: Beastmaster isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Ranger: Hunter (another party member) at lvl 12, however, was as bad as I thought. There just aren't abilities/spells (that I could see) that really help pump up the damage. You can hit a lot of targets (Volley, Horde Breaker), but it's still basic weapon damage (she had a longbow, so 1d8 + 4). Hunter's Mark or Ensaring strike can give a marginal boost. Lightning Arrow is a great damage dealer, but otherwise it just feels like a lot of the Striker was sapped out of the Ranger in 5e (with Beastmaster seeming more a Controller).
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Apr 13, 2015 00:49
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slydingdoor posted:If you want another idea for a fun spell to take with Lore, take a look at Conjure Animals and the stats of the Constrictor Snake, Draft Horse, Elk, Flying Snake, Giant Poisonous Snake, maybe the plain Wolf. Imagine having 8 of those guys, mix and match if you want. 4 Warhorses ain't bad either against a low AC prone target. They suck against nonmagical resistant enemies though and a lot of things ignore poison damage. In that case, an 8 segment wall of meat spamming Shoves or Helps or readying dashes or disengages to bodyblock enemies is pretty funny. I played a one-off adventure at a con, and one guy summoned 8 wolves, and it was devastating. It looks like a bunch of simple CR 1/4 beasts, but every wolf has a chance to knock its opponent prone, and it significantly altered the battlefield.
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Apr 13, 2015 00:57
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Action economy dickery 
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Apr 13, 2015 02:31
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 05:26 |
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lifg posted:I played a one-off adventure at a con, and one guy summoned 8 wolves, and it was devastating. It looks like a bunch of simple CR 1/4 beasts, but every wolf has a chance to knock its opponent prone, and it significantly altered the battlefield. Wolves also have packtics which is a supremely powerful passive for low CR creatures.
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Apr 13, 2015 02:34
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