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Covok posted:Also, in regards to Next, what is the best way NOT to kill 1st level characters? Fewer enemies. Your PCs are still hammering out how to work together and slap some sense into the party's fantasy Libertarian ("why should I wait for the fight to be over before looting the bodies?"), so they're not going to be responding like a well-oiled machine. It only takes 300 xp to hit level 2, which is 12 25 xp enemies (1/8 CR?). That means you don't have many to allocate to a single fight.
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Nov 14, 2015 10:39
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Covok posted:Also, in regards to Next, what is the best way NOT to kill 1st level characters? Massive environmental bonuses against higher CR enemies that get your party out of level 1 as soon as possible, task them with a job from the local magistrate to track and kill a problematic animal that's moved too close to town, arm the party with a pile of hunting traps and have their nature/survival tests bring them to a heavily moved through animal trail. Once the group is on site let them pick where to put the traps/roll to hide them and then have a dangerous bear or some wolves roll through the traps where the group can pick'em off at range, making things too easy is kinda a weak move so you can have poachers roll up on the scene and harass the group throw in a social challenge for more xp to convince the poachers to gently caress off, split the profits on the pelts, or if your group is a bunch of murder hobos they can just murder the poachers who use bandit statistics. Reward players who rolled high survival/nature/stealth checks by having poachers blunder into the leftover hunting traps. Bonus xp/gold from the magistrate if the group captures the poachers alive for due punishment by the community. Realistically the sweet spot I've seen in 5e is about 3 simple combats at level 1 and then level to 2nd regardless of xp gain, it's just not interesting enough for people who've played before, it's certainly ok for getting new folks acquainted with the mechanics but anyone with experience is basically gonna want to start at or rush to level 3. A 4 person party having to slog through 48 bandits to get their first level is kinda painful. Homebrewise the most common survivability increase I see is letting your players add their con score to their starting hp, not getting one shot in the first round of combat by an errant shortbow crit is really nice.
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Nov 14, 2015 11:54
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Adding the Con score, in addition to the modifier? That sounds pretty good actually. A tough Fighter would have about 25-30hp, while a Wizard starts with about 20?
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Nov 14, 2015 12:02
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mastershakeman posted:So don't fight goblins at the edge of a cliff. DM: Okay, I made this awesome set-piece encounter! I drew this cool map, there are fire jets and a cliff and I'm using this old ork battlewagon mini I found from when I used to play Gorkamorka. Players: Gee, that doesn't sound safe. Let's see if we can lure them into fighting on a featureless plane instead. So yeah, D&D has changed. It's been the 21st century for FIFTEEN YEARS. If you want to try to participate in discussions of current gaming culture, you should make an attempt to get current. Otherwise you're just going into a discussion of Iran talking about the Ayatollah and the Shah. Knowing about the Ayatollah and the Shah is useful for understanding Iran today, but not if you've neglected to learn anything about its development post-2000.
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Nov 14, 2015 15:55
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A Darker Porpoise posted:Massive environmental bonuses against higher CR enemies that get your party out of level 1 as soon as possible, task them with a job from the local magistrate to track and kill a problematic animal that's moved too close to town, arm the party with a pile of hunting traps and have their nature/survival tests bring them to a heavily moved through animal trail. This is all really good advice. My personal take on it is the investigative plot: a crime, even a petty one, has just taken place, and the players have to uncover it. This lets them get comfortable with the basic skill check mechanic and the idea that RPGs are a bit more "freeform" as they go from Sierra adventure-esque scene to scene. One to two combats, with the first being a very easy tutorial (usually catching some accomplices to segue into an interrogation montage) and the other being a showdown with the perp, which is still quite easy because they're just criminals. And then you take them to level 2. Skellybones posted:Adding the Con score, in addition to the modifier? That sounds pretty good actually. A tough Fighter would have about 25-30hp, while a Wizard starts with about 20? Yup. 14 CON Fighter would have 10 base HD + 2 CON modifier + 14 bonus from CON score for a total of 26. Jimbozig posted:So yeah, D&D has changed. It's been the 21st century for FIFTEEN YEARS. If you want to try to participate in discussions of current gaming culture, you should make an attempt to get current. Otherwise you're just going into a discussion of Iran talking about the Ayatollah and the Shah. Knowing about the Ayatollah and the Shah is useful for understanding Iran today, but not if you've neglected to learn anything about its development post-2000. *scribbles ideas furiously* It's true what they say that scenario seeds can come from just about anywhere.
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Nov 14, 2015 18:07
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Regarding low level parties, it can also be a good idea to take a good look at the stats of the monsters you're planning to use. For example, Kobolds are listed as CR 1/8, but they have 12 AC, 5 HP, +4 attack bonus, ~4 DPR, Pack Tactics, and Sunlight Sensitivity. According to the DMG, 12 AC and 5 HP puts them at CR 0 Defensively. Pack Tactics is worth +1 attack bonus (which is arguably low), and Sunlight Sensitivity is listed as not adjusting CR (because they'll probably fight you in the dark), so 4 DPR and +5 effective attack bonus puts them as CR 1/2 offensively. Averaging these CRs out, they're CR 1/4 total according to the DMG's own guidelines, so you should be using half as many Kobolds in any fight than their listed CR would actually indicate. They'll still probably insta-gib a party member if they all attack the same target, though.
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Nov 14, 2015 19:03
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Vanguard Warden posted:Regarding low level parties, it can also be a good idea to take a good look at the stats of the monsters you're planning to use. To say nothing of Intellect Devourers.
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Nov 14, 2015 19:21
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Jimbozig posted:DM: Okay, I made this awesome set-piece encounter! I drew this cool map, there are fire jets and a cliff and I'm using this old ork battlewagon mini I found from when I used to play Gorkamorka. You heard it here first, current gaming culture has advanced to where only 5e and newer can be considered. All that 4e stuff is just as outdated as the 1999 text I quoted from the return to keep on borderlands module.
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Nov 14, 2015 21:05
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Thinking about the HP/HD grind some more. What do people think of this house-rule proposal:quote:When a character takes a Short Rest and has no more Hit Dice remaining, they may elect to take 1 level of Exhaustion to recover one-quarter of their Hit Dice worth of HP immediately. The idea here would be to make running out of HD be less of a hard limit, and more of a point where you have to decide if you want to press your luck, taking disadvantage on ability checks or not. Since it recovers a portion of hit dice, it'll benefit Martial classes more than casters because they'll get more 'hits' back by using it. With the variant rule using the Constitution check, it becomes a real buff to Martial classes which have CON Save proficiency, and tend to have naturally higher CON bonuses as well. The variant about letting it happen multiple times per rest is just because I'm not sure if being able to take 2-3 levels of exhaustion to get back to max HP would break balance somewhere.
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Nov 14, 2015 22:23
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Don't know if it interests anyone, but the Mike Schley map of the Sword Coast (10k by 6k res) that previously cost 10-15 dollars was released for free
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Nov 14, 2015 22:39
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Bassetking posted:Intellect Devourers.
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Nov 14, 2015 23:00
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mastershakeman posted:You heard it here first, current gaming culture has advanced to where only 5e and newer can be considered. All that 4e stuff is just as outdated as the 1999 text I quoted from the return to keep on borderlands module. Why're you so disingenuous all the time? chaos rhames posted:The simulation/game/narrative thing doesn't really make any sense and never really had any consistent meaning between people. We all know that, but its easier to use these labels for very, very broad analysis of TTRPGs. When I remember, I do try to include my definition to avoid confusion.
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Nov 14, 2015 23:49
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GrizzlyCow posted:Why're you so disingenuous all the time? Because most of this thread pretends that d&d began in 2000 and only discusses 3rd edition and onwards, as if the genre wasn't 25 years old at that point. I think the over the top fetishism of 4e (which is in fact an excellent game but delivers much different gameplay than the others) annoys me in a thread devoted to 5e. At least some guys reference red box a lot and I really like reading those posts and ideas.
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Nov 15, 2015 01:30
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fool_of_sound posted:Uh, as a GM I bend/liberally interpret the rules all the time to let players do more interesting things, even in relatively open systems like FATE. You're missing a major part of P&P games if you aren't letting stroytelling and RP inform the game at least as much as the mechanics. Concur. We've had at least 2 sessions now where no one touched their dice. All RP and everyone was fine with it. (helps the group is all actors, so the RPs are pretty good.)
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Nov 15, 2015 05:25
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RP focused sessions are great in my group. Not all the time, but really good to have every so often. Sometimes they hit when we didn't even expect it. We just had one recently when we were SUPPOSED to confront the big bad after his dungeon but instead of doing our usual 'I'm gonna shoot his balls while he monologues' we kinda just let him go on (hilariously confusing our GM for a sec as he kept waiting for the ball shooting to come). This lead to my character getting all 'wait he's a tiefling I'm a tiefling and he's kinda got some valid complaints here' and the whole party kinda debating with him and ourselves over what we should do. Probably my favorite bits were when we just kinda went on gripes we had with eachother and he just stood there too far in the 'maybe they'll be on my side' plan to attack us so we just had a dude watching us argue after delving through his big rear end lovely dungeon like the worst family dinner ever. If you/your GM isn't making liberal use of the ability to change and shape the story kinda what's the point of having a GM? That slot exists because there's supposed to be a back and forth. If not we'd just be buying very expensive CYOA books.
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Nov 15, 2015 06:53
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mastershakeman posted:Because most of this thread pretends that d&d began in 2000 and only discusses 3rd edition and onwards, as if the genre wasn't 25 years old at that point. I think the over the top fetishism of 4e (which is in fact an excellent game but delivers much different gameplay than the others) annoys me in a thread devoted to 5e. At least some guys reference red box a lot and I really like reading those posts and ideas. That did not answer the question. Why be disingenuous all the time? Why just come in here and throw up straw men in literally every post you make? "Some people like a thing too much, so I'll be an rear end in a top hat to everyone" is not an answer, it's an excuse.
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Nov 15, 2015 07:04
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My friends and I are starting a new campaign on Monday, and they've thrown party balance to the wind (which is fine). They're all fairly new to the game, and we're all new to 5th. This has left me wondering how best to balance the party out so we don't get totally rocked out. So far, we have a barbarian, a melee warlock, a monk, bard (of undecided focus), and a paladin. Will this party be gimped if I don't pick up a cleric (or other healer type) of some form?
Defiant Sally fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 09:48
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Check the bard spell list, they get access to most healing spells (and 6/8 "pick a spell from any class" picks).
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Nov 15, 2015 10:43
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Hello Sailor posted:Check the bard spell list, they get access to most healing spells (and 6/8 "pick a spell from any class" picks). And if he goes Valor bard it will still be okay? The final party member is a paladin. I was originally planning sorcerer or wizard, though I'm not terribly opposed to being a cleric.
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Nov 15, 2015 10:58
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Paladin gets a decent chunk of healing ability, so that party probably manages OK.
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Nov 15, 2015 11:55
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Defiant Sally posted:And if he goes Valor it will still be okay? The final party member is a paladin. I was originally planning sorcerer or wizard, though I'm not terribly opposed to being a cleric. I'd missed the mention of the paladin. Play what you want, it should be fine. Someone in the group should probably take proficiency in thieves' tools, but there's a couple of backgrounds that give that.
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Nov 15, 2015 13:24
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If the DM is paying attention it shouldn't be a problem.
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Nov 15, 2015 14:15
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Yea you have two dudes who do decent healing, as long as the GM gets that there's not a real 'healer' in the party but rather a couple 'dudes who can heal'. You can play what you want.
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Nov 15, 2015 15:24
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Defiant Sally posted:My friends and I are starting a new campaign on Monday, and they've thrown party balance to the wind (which is fine). They're all fairly new to the game, and we're all new to 5th. This has left me wondering how best to balance the party out so we don't get totally rocked out. So far, we have a barbarian, a melee warlock, a monk, bard (of undecided focus), and a paladin. Will this party be gimped if I don't pick up a cleric (or other healer type) of some form? Nah, you'll be fine. You'll just have to rest somewhat more often that normal. Paladin gets a reasonable amount of healing though. Melee warlock is a bit of a trap unfortunately. They're fine up until about level 5, at which point they start rapidly falling behind blast warlocks. IIRC there's a really easy houserule to fix them (basically giving them three attacks instead of two), but I don't remember the exact specifics of it.
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Nov 15, 2015 18:13
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Paladins get Lay on Hands so even if they don't take cure wounds they'll have some healing.
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Nov 15, 2015 18:25
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Melee warlocks really need some multi-class dips to get their value. Just 2 levels of paladin lets you smite with your spell slots, and gives you some lower-level spell slots to hex with. 3 levels of sorcerer gets you metamagic (that you can restock with your short-rest pact slots), which opens up fun combinations like Quickened Hold Monster followed by two attacks with advantage, auto-critical, and smite.
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Nov 15, 2015 18:55
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The most simple bladelock fix is to merge both of the boosting invocations into the pact, so that you automatically get an extra attack and charisma damage as you level up. Even still, you're sacrificing a lot of versatility and power for an option to swing a weapon to deal (at very best) similar damage to your eldritch blast at much shorter range. Oh, and you get to make one opportunity attack per round now, and you get to swingan the wapon.
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Nov 15, 2015 18:58
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Vanguard Warden posted:Melee warlocks really need some multi-class dips to get their value. I feel like Pact of the Blade was made specifically with multi-classing in mind. The fact that you gain proficiency with your pact weapon no matter what form it takes seems like it'd be useful for classes with limited weapon choices.
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Nov 15, 2015 20:01
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Thanks for the info dudes. The guy playing the blade lock is one of the newest to the game so I don't know how much power gaming he will be willing to do for dipping into other classes. Really there are only two of us who have any experience with D&D and most of mine is from 2nd. I'm still torn between sorceror and wizard. It's my first time playing a mage; anything super important I should know?
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Nov 16, 2015 00:20
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Sorcerers have more 'potent' spells (generally) from meta-magic, while wizards have more spells to choose from, more flexibility in their selection, rituals, and more spell slots per day because of arcane recovery. They also have an arguably more useful primary ability score for skill checks, and a bunch of cool traditions to choose between; Illusionists are better at shenanigans with illusions, necromancers get to have a free (well, cheap) squad of skeleton archers, and abjurers are invulnerable. Creating a spell-caster takes way more time than a martial character, so I'd recommend looking up reviews on the quality of spells. It's also handy to have the text of your spells handy, without having to flip through the book every turn. Vanguard Warden fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Nov 16, 2015 02:06
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I made the mistake of just straight classing bladelock with my current character. We started at level 5, and I was like, "Eh, whatever" and went full 5 warlock. I made him strength based, with polearm mastery. So I have a glaive/halberd that I summon, and I have 12 AC. The sad thing is, is that out of the dozen or so combats I've been in, I've received that smallest amount of damage due to poor dice rolls on account of the DM. Also, sadly between myself, a tempest cleric, a dragon sorceror, and a bear totem barbarian, I'm far and away the biggest damage dealer unless the sorceror blows his load. Which worries me because I'm not going to be doing much else damage-wise until I get the Charisma to damage invocation, and I don't want to tell the others how to play their characters to wring out the most from them, because we're still having fun regardless. I do wish I had one more spell slot to play around with. Being able to Mirror Image, Hex, and Armor of Agathys in the same combat would be pretty keen.
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Nov 16, 2015 02:38
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TheWyrmDude posted:Which worries me because I'm not going to be doing much else damage-wise until I get the Charisma to damage invocation, You didn't pick that up immediately at level 2? I went Fighter1/Bladelock which works out pretty well into making it usable as a STR build. Being able to use heavy armor means DEX is no longer too much of a concern, and you get the free Constitution proficiency if you start fighter. The Fighting Style and the Second Wind are both decent for doing what you need to do. Bladelock is still the weakest option, but Fighter1 makes it a bit more viable and fun. If I was a DM I'd probably grant the Thirsting Blade invocation for free at level 5 if you take that Pact.
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Nov 16, 2015 03:23
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To clarify, I mean the Charisma to damage for my pact weapon. I have the one you're talking about for Eldritch Blast.
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Nov 16, 2015 03:28
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A fun thing you can do with bladelock is taking Devil's Sight and then casting Darkness on like, the blade of your weapon. Now everything you melee has disadvantage against you and you have advantage, unless you are fighting something with extra special senses. Sure, you can do this from range with standard Eldritch Blast, but that makes it way easier for enemies to just avoid your Darkness zone, and grants you no defensive advantage. Aside from being at range, I guess. Like some sort of wuss.
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Nov 16, 2015 04:35
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Ixjuvin posted:A fun thing you can do with bladelock is taking Devil's Sight and then casting Darkness on like, the blade of your weapon. Now everything you melee has disadvantage against you and you have advantage, unless you are fighting something with extra special senses. Sure, you can do this from range with standard Eldritch Blast, but that makes it way easier for enemies to just avoid your Darkness zone, and grants you no defensive advantage. Aside from being at range, I guess. Like some sort of wuss. This is a fun trick but the downside is that magical Darkness is pretty drat hard to see through, and so your allies can't support you very effectively. Useful if you can divide up your enemies well enough that it tactically makes sense for the warlock to split off one or two of them, though.
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Nov 16, 2015 04:42
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To any aspiring necromancers out there, I made a table so that a player can use percentile dice to determine the results of up to 20 attacks with a single roll. I hope somebody finds this useful: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OvM366iHOkzPRVe7wwtbssc8vqXptR0hv0CqZsnlmM0/edit?usp=sharing
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Nov 16, 2015 07:47
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I have a question for my fellow Out of the Abyss DMs regarding one of the minor NPCs and Gracklestugh. I can't seem to find much of anything on the Hemeth when the PCs get to Gracklestugh in chapter 4. In chapter 3, it said he's "willing to return the favor (see chapter 4)" if the PCs save him. I guess this is just left up to the DM to decide what that favor is? I'm running this for Adventurer's League, which is why I'm even worried about what the book says, if anything. And why I didn't make something up on the spot last session. Instead I stalled for time and managed to reach the end of the allotted time without having to commit so far. This gave me a chance to try to look it up.
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Nov 16, 2015 08:29
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A while ago I saw a really cool google template for creating 5e stuff that looks slightly better than a black and white google doc, so I figured, hey, why not, this should be fun, right? I ended up trying to import the 4e fighter into 5e. Healing Surges, AWED Powers, paragon paths, all that junk. It actually does less damage than a champion, but compensates through team synergy, durability, options, and things to do outside of combat. I think it turned out alright, but I'd like some fresh eyes on it. http://imgur.com/a/rxVk4
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Nov 16, 2015 13:50
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http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-november-2015 Sorry monk/rogues. The continuing clusterfuck about unarmed attacks means no unarmed sneak attacks.
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Nov 16, 2015 17:21
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mastershakeman posted:Because most of this thread pretends that d&d began in 2000 and only discusses 3rd edition and onwards, as if the genre wasn't 25 years old at that point. Yes, unfortunately AD&D and 2e were really bad loving games. (BECMI is decent but hard to run and lacked assets to help DMs in the 80s) 2e, in particular, was only saved because it had awesome settings like Dark Sun and piles and piles of rules to sift through and try before realizing it was ultimately garbage. Remember that Basic and Advanced D&D moved over a million copies in the 80s and most of those people did not stay with the hobby because garbage D&D poo poo (like PC-fuckover simulationist garbage that you keep quoting) drove them away.
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