kingcom posted:

Alright so thats why going for a full pet gives you bigger options for what your pet is doing. You free action call them do things that combine with you depending on type. Such as:

-Apply status effect (immobilising, poisoned,prone etc)
-Add damage to your successful hit
-Lower target AC/give advantage on attack
-Give disadvantage on target attack
-Force Concentration saves to maintain spells
-Force movement/overrun
-Reduce number of attacks

Or you protect your allies
-Increase friendly AC
-Grant bonus reactions to ally
-Grant bonus damage/status effect on reaction attacks


Theres a whole world of design space here.

mango sentinel posted:

So just reflavor Battlemaster

Arivia posted:

Considering that the most common thing I hear of with 5e familiars is people milking imps for their poison, those are an incredible mess of failure.

Arivia posted:

Also Matt Coville looks like a wookie or a gnome or something. GIANT FRINGE OF HAIR

kingcom posted:

You're right a battlemaster martial class is the equivalent of someones pet.

Section Z posted:

gradenko_2000 posted:

These Gadsden flags are getting more and more esoteric

Section Z posted:

Though yeah, one of my pals who GMs first reaction to asking for birdsnake was 'oh cool you can sell the poison and still flyby spam'

AlphaDog posted:

As far as I can tell this has always been a part of D&D. Somehow.

You can give the group a fortified manor house and surrounds as a base, and some of (maybe all) the players will manage to hyperfocus on the fact that you mentioned it's got a small orchard and talk excitedly about giving up their epic quest to save the world because OH MY FUCKIN GOD YOU GUYS WE COULD MAKE MONEY SELLING THE APPLES.

Glagha posted:

You sound like a lot of fun.

That being said pets should work like they do in Gloomhaven where they act before you in your turn and are completely deterministic. I have no idea how deterministic behavior would work in D&D but whatever. Keep em simple.

kazr posted:

How can I completely break a game with Skeleton Based Economy necromancy wizard? Give me the castiest spells you got

Elysiume posted:

I think a GWM paladin might be the most nova burst damage. You said you have access to all content, does that mean you're playing with feats?

kaffo posted:

Yeah we are playing with feats, got any suggestions?

Also sorry for being out the loop, but GWM?

Elysiume posted:

Great weapon master, lets you take a bonus action extra attack when you down an enemy, and more importantly lets you take -5 to hit in exchange for +10 to damage.

RyuHimora posted:

Do Mearls and Crawford actually know what they're doing? "The design of the game is fine... So long as you don't play the game as designed." Huh? Why are there about 10 separate issues with 5e to which the answer from the actual developers is to houserule it and stop bothering them? I am seriously suspect of the abilities of these people. I don't understand how they are in charge.

e: Say all you want that they know people are going to houserule anyway, but shouldn't they at least be designing the game for Adventurer's League? I seem to remember reading somewhere that only 5 classes are actually viable there?

kaffo posted:

My Asimar cleric just died in my friend's 5th Ed game and he's offered me the option of
a. Reviving her with a cost
b. New character with equivalent xp and equipment to the rest of the party

The problem so far as been the party comp. It's a long story but we ended up with a barbarian, 2 bards and my cleric, so we never had much in the way of dps...

TLDR
So any goon recommendations for the most dumb/awesome damage output build I can make?
Doesn't matter if its ranged, melee, caster or martial, I'll play it.
I've got access to all the content out so far and even could wing custom content if it's fair.

Thanks friends

Splicer posted:

A third bard.

kaffo posted:

The other two actually play instruments, so unless I bring a kazoo I won't fit in

sebmojo posted:

So what's the tldr on why 5e is bad?

quote:

The saving throw system is a loving sham.

Each ability score is its own saving throw, and classes are generally "proficient" at two of them. Except the vast majority of spells target either the Dexterity save, the Constitution save, or the Wisdom save, which means if you the Fighter are proficient in Strength and Constitution, or you the Bard are proficient in Dexterity and Charisma, then the Strength and Charisma saves are largely useless because you never get to use them!

It's like they really wanted to keep using Reflex (Dexterity) saves, Fortitude (Constitution) saves and Will (Wisdom) saves, but couldn't because they needed to be different, and then having already committed to tying it to the ability scores, they must have thought, gently caress it, let's include the other three as well! So you've got a Fighter that has good saving throws in Fortitude/Constitution and, quelle surprise, bad saving throws in Reflex/Dexterity and Will/Wisdom saves! Just like in 3e! But you have three other numbers that you have to keep track of anyway!

__________

The combat mechanics are a step backwards.

We're back to a gentleman's agreement between the DM and the Player to please not have all the Orcs run past the Fighter after he's used his one Opportunity Attack. They've only just recently begun making a dent in this with the Unearthed Arcana articles, but taking the Knight archetype (if your DM allows it) means you get to miss out on the interactivity of a Battlemaster's Superiority Dice anyway.

__________

And speaking of the Battlemaster, how hosed-up is it that the Champion, whose one and only job it is is to swing at dudes and kill them, still cannot output more damage than a Battlemaster unless the DM is egregiously violating the number of encounters between Short Rests?

__________

The healing mechanics are a step backwards.

Clerics are back to spending Standard Actions to play healbot, and the tight, logical interaction of Healing Surges with the intra-day encounter mechanics was just entirely taken out. Credit to 5e for a lack of solid crafting rules so that you don't have to worry about the players making Wands of Cure Light Wounds anymore, but even the Healing Hit Dice design makes just about zero sense: it's always the rough equivalent of your health, and gaining more levels only means you get finer control over when and how you get to spend it.

At level 1, you have 8 HP, and you have a single 1d8 Healing Hit Dice. At level 5, you have 8 + 4d8 HP, and 5d8 Healing Hit Dice. It doesn't give you more longevity, but it doesn't really get any better either - you just waste less of it as each Die starts representing a progressively smaller proportion of your health.

__________

Which brings me to my next point that Mike Mearls does not have a single innovative bone in his body. The Healing Hit Dice is a direct rip-off of Reserve Points from Iron Heroes, except worse, because these Healing Hit Dice in 5e are rolled, so a level 1 Bard with 8 HP can't choose to restore just the 4 HP now and the 4 HP later. And Iron Heroes's Reserve Points itself was lifted out of 3e's Unearthed Arcana.

__________

The simplification of the Vancian spell system so that slots are no longer tied to spells? Yet another copy-paste from Unearthed Arcana, page 153.

__________

They still haven't meaningfully iterated upon the feat system, where Lucky is competing with Sentinel is competing with Tavern Brawler is competing with loving Linguist.

__________

They're still running on a system of 5-foot squares and measurements, despite telling people that you can totally run the game gridless.

__________

The damage/health ratios are a complete step backwards, where you've got level 1 characters with 8-12 HP fighting goblins that still deal 1d6 damage on a hit.

__________

The naturalistic language makes a total mess of trying to run the game "RAW", because there's just so much of it that you either have to fill in yourself or else it doesn't make any sense. Unarmed Attacks had to go through at least two different sets of errata, and woe betide the player that thinks Bonus Action means "an Action, but another one as a bonus"

You've even got Jeremy Crawford posting in 2015 about how the order of actions doesn't matter between Shield Master's shove and the attack action, and then he turns right around and erratas him three years later. It's ridiculous that something so simple both couldn't be made explicitly clear in the text, and couldn't be settled the first time!

__________

And that's not even covering the entire swathes of the DMG that were just copy-pasted from earlier books, the equipment list that has you spending individual copper coins on pieces of loving chalk when you start with 100 GP, the Unearthed Arcana where they couldn't be bothered to fix a math mistake from over a decade ago, and all the "balance" issues like the book Ranger being a piece of poo poo, the Berserker Barbarian being a piece of poo poo, and the entire goddamned dynamic of casters still being strictly superior to martial classes.

__________

Now, to be the least bit fair, it's not really hard to "bolt on" whatever pieces of homebrewed design you want to in an attempt to fix these issues. Set the confusing naturalistic language in stone, per your interpretation, for your home game. Copy over the Tome of Battle Maneuvers and give them to the Fighter. Limit the Wizard to only learning spells from scrolls that you as the DM deign to let them have.

But if you're expected to play armchair designer, you can download a copy of Basic Fantasy for free and use that instead. Won't cost you a dime.

And if you're a newcomer to the genre, it's downright execrable to ask someone to play armchair designer by dead reckoning. How do they even know what the issues are that they need to fix, much less know how to fix them?

And that, for me, is the core of my problem with 5th edition. So much of it relies on people already being good players and DMs, but it doesn't set you up to be either of those, and it doesn't guide you on how to make those helpful and productive judgement calls, because so much of the books assume you're running on a decade-plus of accumulated RPG knowledge.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Zarick posted:

The index in the 5e PHB makes me swear profusely every time I have to use it. "Mounted combat: see combat, mounted". Why not just put the page number? I could understand not putting duplicate entries if you wanted to save page count, but if you're going to have the duplicate entry, why not just put the page number on both so you don't need an index for your index?

quote:

component, spell: See Casting a
spell: components.
See also material spell
component; somatic spell
component; verbal spell
component

quote:

spell components: See Casting a
spell: components.
See also material spell
component; somatic spell
component; verbal spell
component

kaffo posted:

My Asimar cleric just died in my friend's 5th Ed game and he's offered me the option of
a. Reviving her with a cost
b. New character with equivalent xp and equipment to the rest of the party

The problem so far as been the party comp. It's a long story but we ended up with a barbarian, 2 bards and my cleric, so we never had much in the way of dps...

TLDR
So any goon recommendations for the most dumb/awesome damage output build I can make?
Doesn't matter if its ranged, melee, caster or martial, I'll play it.
I've got access to all the content out so far and even could wing custom content if it's fair.

Thanks friends

SettingSun posted:

What's a use case for this style of index that is actually beneficial? All it seems to do here is waste time cross referencing itself.

SettingSun posted:

What's a use case for this style of index that is actually beneficial? All it seems to do here is waste time cross referencing itself.

Conspiratiorist posted:

Just keep in mind Wild Magic Sorcerer is a joke that's only funny if everyone is in on it.

Conspiratiorist posted:

How is a Barbarian and a Cleric not DPR?

I mean, yeah two Bards are kind of redundant if neither damage spec'd but between Toll the Dead, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and later Guardian of Faith, and all of that rocking heavy armor + shield, Clerics absolutely poo poo out damage. And that's without getting into the Domains that improve this.

But if you truly want to just go full gung-ho on damage...

Paladin is decent, a Polearm Master build for more attacks.
Sorcadin is even better at just pure burst damage (Paladin 2, then MC into Sorcerer for more slots == more smites striking with metamagic'd Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade).
Sorlock (Warlock 2/ Sorcerer x) likewise just bursts things down through the combo of Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Quickened Spell, but from range, though going Hexblade patron allows them to gish like a Sorcadin sans the smites.
McCree Fighter (Archery FS, Battlemaster, Hand Crossbow, Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert) is tied with Sorlock above as best reliable ranged DPR in the system.
Sharpshooter Wood Elf Rogue with Elven Accuracy - gets Hasted by a party member in order to reliably get two Sneak Attacks per turn by way of action economy shenanigans.
Elven Accuracy Bladesinger with Shadow Blade can do whatever it wants.

For your party comp I'd say either Paladin for a little more support with the Auras, or Sorlock so you have a strong ranged option as well as an off-tank so you don't leave your buddy hanging, or Bladesinger so you have damage/frontline/and arcane caster utility all rolled up into one.