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You can continue to wear armor but you'll be one level behind on learning spells as a wizard. I dunno if this is as backbreaking as it was in 3e but as far as I know that's it.
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Oct 3, 2018 21:58
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RC Cola posted:Friends I'm a level 1 rogue gnome that just hit level 2 and am debating multiclassing into wizard full time. Can I still wear light armor? Is there any real downside to a wizard with 1 level of rogue? Your ability to wear armor is limited only by your armor proficiency, if any. Sorcadins are fine to walk around casting spells in full plate, for example. The downside to being Rogue 1/Wizard 1 is not being level 2 in anything, which could matter depending on which class features are important to you. At Rogue 3, though, you get your pick of rogue archetypes, among which is Arcane Trickster. Because of the way multiclass spellcasting works, you could take 4 levels of Rogue and switch to wizard full-time, and only lose 2 levels of spell slot progression, since Arcane Trickster is a half-caster.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:01
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joining a dragon heist game and playing a bard, I gotta think of an interesting character concept but I'm stumped. ideas?
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Oct 3, 2018 22:22
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Tetracube posted:joining a dragon heist game and playing a bard, I gotta think of an interesting character concept but I'm stumped. ideas? You can make anything go viral
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Oct 3, 2018 22:32
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Spikes32 posted:You can make anything go viral I'll make a character who only speaks in memes. everyone at the table will love it he also rolls to seduce everything
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Oct 3, 2018 22:35
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With regards to rogue/wizard by the way, why do you want to be a level 1 rogue and then a wizard full time? Would you rather just be a wizard? Are you only doing it because you started a rogue and changed your mind because honestly just tell your DM "Hey I wanna be a wizard instead." If you want to be a wizard with some roguish leanings maybe just take the criminal background or something and get some skill proficiencies in stealth or that sorta thing. Or just be a rogue/wizard, no one's gonna slap the character sheet out of your hand, you do you.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:37
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Tetracube posted:joining a dragon heist game and playing a bard, I gotta think of an interesting character concept but I'm stumped. ideas? 
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Oct 3, 2018 22:38
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Tetracube posted:joining a dragon heist game and playing a bard, I gotta think of an interesting character concept but I'm stumped. ideas? I've been kicking around an idea in my head of a lore bard that's a hardened army captain. Bardic inspiration is barking orders at your allies, and Cutting Words is intimidating your enemies and ordering them to die. Expertise in Athletics means you can make good on your threats to choke the life out of people, too.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:40
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lightrook posted:Your ability to wear armor is limited only by your armor proficiency, if any. Sorcadins are fine to walk around casting spells in full plate, for example.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:41
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I flat out don't remember: aren't there some bonus actions that aren't actions at all? May be misremembering
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Oct 3, 2018 22:45
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Splicer posted:Nope, its 1/3 caster. You only get 1/3 of your level, rounded down. Oof, you're right, forgot how bad Arcane Tricksters have it. In that case, jumping ship for wizard and staying with it is fine.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:46
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Tetracube posted:joining a dragon heist game and playing a bard, I gotta think of an interesting character concept but I'm stumped. ideas? Yuan-ti pureblood, criminal (spy) or charlatan, trying to start a cult to Dendar the Night Serpent. Convert rubes, collect tithes, sacrifice things. Use the adventurers to increase your power and notoriety. Eventually join Lords Alliance and twist the future of water deep to your ends.
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Oct 3, 2018 22:53
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koreban posted:
I feel like there's something here with like, a snake people control the government type conspiracy theory. except I am the snake people? I can't quite put it together, but I'm not sure I just want to be an outright evil cultist maybe I can get the DM to let me transform into a yuan-ti malison if I do a ritual for it, that'd be sick
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Oct 3, 2018 23:06
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Tetracube posted:maybe I can get the DM to let me transform into a yuan-ti malison if I do a ritual for it, that'd be sick One of the Yuan Ti personality choices is “I want to consume a yuan-ti more powerful than myself” and that’s just the best thing ever.
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Oct 3, 2018 23:17
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Member of a middling jazz band struggling to pay off debts to one of the seedier factions, you feel that your musical genius should have earned you a better place in the world and that you are under appreciated, and you are bitter against society because of it
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Oct 3, 2018 23:19
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the yuan-ti are definitely a sex cult. when you live in a lovely pyramid and have no emotions boning is all you havekoreban posted:One of the Yuan Ti personality choices is “I want to consume a yuan-ti more powerful than myself” and that’s just the best thing ever. holy poo poo that's something I can work with, prove myself to the other yuan-ti so I can get promoted and get a sickass snake bod
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Oct 3, 2018 23:24
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Gharbad the Weak posted:I flat out don't remember: aren't there some bonus actions that aren't actions at all? May be misremembering None of them are. Capital A-Action's the term used for your main thing, like attacking or casting most spells. Despite the name, a Bonus Action isn't an Action, or a Bonus since you get one a turn.
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Oct 3, 2018 23:38
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Tetracube posted:I feel like there's something here with like, a snake people control the government type conspiracy theory. except I am the snake people? I can't quite put it together, but I'm not sure I just want to be an outright evil cultist Take the Noble background, really lean on the Noble Privilege feature.
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Oct 3, 2018 23:42
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lightrook posted:Oof, you're right, forgot how bad Arcane Tricksters have it. In that case, jumping ship for wizard and staying with it is fine. I mean we are doing waterdeep and our current party is a warlock, sorcerer, bard, cleric, ranger, and barbarian. So really I guess casting-wise we should be covered. I guess is 20 rogue into arcane trickster that much worse than rogue1/wizard19? And I guess taking rogue to level 2 at least is good for cunning action, but then I lose out on the level 19 asi from wizard. Its a hard choice and I like my character concept of a scholar who was forced into the mafia and eventually got out and joined the city watch using his thief skills for good. The next part would be if he went back to learning magic full time(wizard multiclass), or if he decided to only learn on the side(arcane trickster).
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Oct 4, 2018 00:06
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RC Cola posted:I mean we are doing waterdeep and our current party is a warlock, sorcerer, bard, cleric, ranger, and barbarian. So really I guess casting-wise we should be covered. Arcane Trickster will never flat out compare to the lock or sorcerer for spellcasting ability, but they're not a bad subclass at all. You get a bunch of survivablity options and CC that let you keep rogue-ing when things start to go wrong. Get found out, sleep them, sneak attack them with Booming Blade while they're passed out, disengage as a bonus, walk away, and they take extra damage if they chase or run away.
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Oct 4, 2018 00:21
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If you go Arcane Trickster, make a big deal about how your mage hand is invisible. Because wizards can't get that one over on you without spending 3 levels in rogue.
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Oct 4, 2018 00:25
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Section Z posted:If you go Arcane Trickster, make a big deal about how your mage hand is invisible. Because wizards can't get that one over on you without spending 3 levels in rogue. This also makes it optimal for wet willies.
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Oct 4, 2018 00:25
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Relentless posted:This also makes it optimal for wet willies. You also get to enjoy the great paradox that a GM can't keep you from disarming traps from 30 feet away, without also keeping you safely 30 feet away from disarming the trap in person. At least, not without it being really obvious they are out to get you. "The lock has a 5 foot wide antimagic field around it? Yeah, I think I'm good over here." Section Z fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Oct 4, 2018 |
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Oct 4, 2018 00:28
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If you go rogue 2 before switching you gain a lot of mobility with Cunning Action. This would make point blank AoEs or other tactics much more feasible.
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Oct 4, 2018 00:38
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Tetracube posted:I feel like there's something here with like, a snake people control the government type conspiracy theory. except I am the snake people? I can't quite put it together, but I'm not sure I just want to be an outright evil cultist Given you are playing a Waterdeep game House Sulthlue is a snake god worshipping evil house with a bunch of yuan-ti/yuan-ti blooded people in it. So that might fit to your wheelhouse without actually being a full evil cultist, you're just part of a house playing the big political conspiracy game along with the rest, just a bit more cutthroat about it.
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Oct 4, 2018 00:52
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koreban posted:Some people here hate him, but Matt Colville’s Running the Game series on YouTube is one of the best resources for babbys first DM game. I'll give it a watch, thanks for the link!
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Oct 4, 2018 01:32
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Magil Zeal posted:It's no problem, originally I was kinda ambivalent to the idea of giving maneuvers to every martial class but I believe I am warming to the idea. I did notice for Tier 1 Maneuvers you have some reserved for certain fighting styles but didn't include one for every fighting style, I'd look into that if it were me to make sure I had at least one exclusive to each style. Ideally I think I'd like a little more variety and exclusivity between maneuvers, i.e. you could have some maneuvers involving spell slots and the like for paladins/eldritch knights, though that's a lot of work. Just some brainstorming and want to reaffirm I believe the concept is solid and you can do a lot with this. In slightly more specific comments, I saw Mojo and I was curious as to how you use it, does it require an action? Bonus action? Is Perpetual Leverage a passive effect or is the first paragraph only intended to apply to the next few lines? Thanks, those are all great pointers! It's definitely a case of pulling material from here and there, fast to build but makes more of a patchwork with some overlap... and it can do with more systemic consideration. Fighting styles really should be a no brainer, oops... and yes there should be more available for gish characters to exploit, I've avoided giving much consideration to casters at all in this, so far. Re Mojo that's an oversight - it's an action. Re Perpetual Leverage it should be the latter, not a passive effect. The ability to grapple larger sized creatures only applies when you spend a superiority die to initiate or contest a grapple escape. Once you spend the die, the effect continues until that grapple is broken or released. If you attempt to grapple larger creatures without spending the sup. die on perpetual leverage, it fails. The fluff there on PL does suggest it may be a passive effect, I'll change the first line to "While performing this grappling maneuver" instead of "While grappling".
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Oct 4, 2018 02:16
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Fruity20 posted:i have another noob question: is there a reason wizards use most spells once? or in game terms, using up a spell slot? According to Gary Gygax's own writing in the January 1980 volume of Dragon Magazine, when he was first designing D&D, he had a choice between two options for spell-casting: either use a spell-point (or "manna") type system where spell-casters have a certain amount of spell-points, and spells have a spell-point cost, and they spend the points to cast the spells appropriately, or the "Vancian" system that we ended up with. Gygax decided against the spell-point system because not only did he think it would have been more complicated to track point amounts versus costs, but he also thought it would have made spell-casters too versatile, and by extension too powerful, to give them that amount of freedom in casting spells. You can very quickly see this effect if you ever do use a spell-point type rules variant: not only would a Wizard be able to cast multiples of their highest level spells as soon as they unlock that spell level, but then they'd also be able to mix-and-match low level spells. The Vancian model, in contrast, was intended to be far more limiting, since a spell-caster would have to assign specific spells to specific slots, meaning that they'd have to plan their "day" ahead of time, and they could get caught out with being unable to cast a spell for lack of a slot, even if they "know" the spell in their spellbook. Besides being a design consideration, this was also supposed to be easier to manage and learn - a player simply draws a slot: [_____], writes down [Ｍａｇｉｃ Ｍｉｓｓｉｌｅ] on it to assign a spell to that slot, and then either crosses it out or erases the words once they've cast that spell. So a spell-caster wasn't really limited to casting a spell once, it's just that under this model, if you really wanted to cast Magic Missiles twice in a day, you'd have to commit two slots specifically to do it. And this particular design was supposed to create levels of differentiation between the various classes. For example, in later editions: * a Cleric would always be able to "convert" a slot into a Cure X Wounds spell, no matter what was already armed in it * a Druid would always be able to "convert" a slot into a Summon X Monster spell, no matter what was already armed in it * a Sorcerer would have fewer spell slots, and only have a set and specific set of Spells Known, but their spell slots were mutable across all spells For 5e to change all spellcasting to the mutable spell-slot model actually loses a lot of flavor, and while it's simplified in some ways, it's also more complex in others, specifically in the analysis-paralysis department of a player's in-the-moment spellcasting choices. It also creates this situation where a Wizard is "combat effective" for far longer than they otherwise might be, since now they can keep devoting spell slots to combat spells as the need arises, as opposed to earlier instances where as soon as you ran the Magic-User out of Fireball slots, they couldn't help the party kill orcs anymore - the erosion of this model is to the detriment of the Fighter's (or other martial class's) niche, since it now takes much longer to get to their "time to shine".
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Oct 4, 2018 03:01
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gradenko_2000 posted:According to Gary Gygax's own writing in the January 1980 volume of Dragon Magazine, when he was first designing D&D, he had a choice between two options for spell-casting: either use a spell-point (or "manna") type system where spell-casters have a certain amount of spell-points, and spells have a spell-point cost, and they spend the points to cast the spells appropriately, or the "Vancian" system that we ended up with. Are casters as supreme in 5e as they were in 3.5? Doesn't feel like it in my limited experience of 6ish sessions playing an illusionist. The concentration mechanic seems an effective constraint which previous editions didn't have (4th had 'devote a minor action to maintaining', not sure about 3.5). Using slots also means you can 'power up' spells, at the expense of missing out on the fancy high level spells which is a nice tradeoff that wasn't possible with earlier versions.
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Oct 4, 2018 03:13
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So I'm having a problem with my campaign: my party is one session away from level 8, and I know what I want to do for their last session before level 10, but that leaves me with a gap of four sessions or so before I get there, and... I got nothing. They're traveling to a city to try to restore a deposed monarch, so I have two things in mind: 1) A short overland adventure that I can tie into the overarching plot (cult-y Far Realm poo poo). 2) A jaunt into the Feywild to help the warlock's patron (the Queen of Air and Darkness has proposed a temporary full truce with the Seelie court because the Unseelie court is too busy fighting off the Far Realm themselves). Are there any premade modules that would cover either of these above? Even a good 4e module that I could steal the points from and sub in monsters for?
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Oct 4, 2018 03:13
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kingcom posted:Given you are playing a Waterdeep game House Sulthlue is a snake god worshipping evil house with a bunch of yuan-ti/yuan-ti blooded people in it. So that might fit to your wheelhouse without actually being a full evil cultist, you're just part of a house playing the big political conspiracy game along with the rest, just a bit more cutthroat about it. I can't find anything about that house online
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Oct 4, 2018 03:36
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tzirean posted:So I'm having a problem with my campaign: my party is one session away from level 8, and I know what I want to do for their last session before level 10, but that leaves me with a gap of four sessions or so before I get there, and... I got nothing. any character stories you can use for some questing? maybe just toss them into a different plane for a while or something
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Oct 4, 2018 03:38
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dreadmojo posted:Are casters as supreme in 5e as they were in 3.5? Doesn't feel like it in my limited experience of 6ish sessions playing an illusionist. The concentration mechanic seems an effective constraint which previous editions didn't have (4th had 'devote a minor action to maintaining', not sure about 3.5). Using slots also means you can 'power up' spells, at the expense of missing out on the fancy high level spells which is a nice tradeoff that wasn't possible with earlier versions. Casters are still more powerful than martials, both in a direct combat sense and in a "narrative agency" sense. The Concentration mechanic has reined in their power to the extent that they can't stack a zillion buffs on themselves anymore, but it hasn't really done anything about shutting down or killing monsters with save-or-suck/save-or-die spells, so it's really more the difference between using a Lambo to race a moped versus using a Prius to do the same. The higher-slots-to-powerup-spells has a few good implementations, but in most cases it's really either just the scaling that was already present in the 3.5 version (since 5e no longer counts "caster levels"), or it's used to consolidate a bunch of different spells into a single spell, such as Cure Wounds now just being a single spell of itself. In some ways, this has even made those spells worse: Cure Critical Wounds in 3.5 is a 4th-level spell that heals 4d8 HP, +1 per caster level, max +20 Cure Wounds in 5e, when cast with a 4th-level spell slot, heals 4d8 HP, + spellcasting modifier, which will practically max-out at +5
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Oct 4, 2018 03:42
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dreadmojo posted:Are casters as supreme in 5e as they were in 3.5? Doesn't feel like it in my limited experience of 6ish sessions playing an illusionist. The concentration mechanic seems an effective constraint which previous editions didn't have (4th had 'devote a minor action to maintaining', not sure about 3.5). Using slots also means you can 'power up' spells, at the expense of missing out on the fancy high level spells which is a nice tradeoff that wasn't possible with earlier versions. they aren't as crazy as 3.5 but most of the issues carry over. Concentration stops you from going crazy with buffs so a cleric isn't a better fighter than the fighter, but there's still the issue of spells being better than skills and the reliable access to burst damage and status effects.
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Oct 4, 2018 03:44
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Farg posted:Member of a middling jazz band struggling to pay off debts to one of the seedier factions, you feel that your musical genius should have earned you a better place in the world and that you are under appreciated, and you are bitter against society because of it Baron Zoria and the Circle of Horns.
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Oct 4, 2018 03:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:
 Ackshully, if you're talking about 3.5, Sorcerers had more spells per day, on top of total mutability of spell slots, and they were still considered a cut below wizards in terms of raw power, who had, resources permitting, total access to the entirety of their spell list as long as you could find a way to write everything into your spellbook. I think spellcasters are still supreme in 5e; concentration puts certain limits on how much you can do at any one time, but other changes were definitely in their favor. Like gradenko said, prepared casters don't exist anymore and you're no longer forced to painstakingly designate each and every spell for each and every slot, with limited flexibility to change things on the fly, so you're no longer earmarking spell slots for non-combat utility spells and potentially have your full store of spell slots for each combat encounter. On top of that, multiclassing is much less punishing for spell casters, since you're losing a lot less caster progression for branching out into other full- and half-caster classes, for example; you don't advance your highest level spell known, but you do advance your spells per day table, and upcasting lets you utilize your highest level slots even when you don't have the spells to fill them. Ritual casting pushes the gap even further, since some of your utility spells won't even cost a slot, and cantrips let you further pace yourself without having to idly twiddle your thumbs. For a practical example, Sorcadin is now just sorcerer and paladin, and doesn't require half a dozen mediocre feats to hop between four different prestige classes in order to avoid missing precious caster levels and BAB. And the martials lost a lot too, if we're comparing to 3.5. The one thing a barb/fighter arguably did better than most casters was being able to do lots and lots of damage, at any time, all the time, generally by power attacking. Like, nearly an order of magnitude more. Now everybody's damage numbers are bounded, so martials lost that advantage, and casters have an even easier time trouncing non-combat encounters without spending resources. Fake edit: and I'm slow to the punch. oof.
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Oct 4, 2018 03:52
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I think that's underestimating the effect a little, i can shut down a huge mob of low wisdom enemies with a hypnotic pattern, but that locks out a lot of my strongest spells and can break if i take damage. It's a clever, flavoursome nerf to save/suck spells and buffs while not affecting blasty spells. What are the op caster tactics? We're intending to invite strahd to a party and murder him soon so i could do with some nasty tricks. e: ^^ good points. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Oct 4, 2018 |
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Oct 4, 2018 03:59
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Tetracube posted:I can't find anything about that house online Think they are from 3e, this showed up on a search http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20050928a
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Oct 4, 2018 04:21
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Tetracube posted:any character stories you can use for some questing? That's what I'm going for, but I'm really bad at putting together encounters in an open, anything-goes kind of layout (like traveling or being in the Feywild) vs. a more linear dungeon-esque layout, where there might be multiple paths but there's an entrance, an end and a direction of travel.
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Oct 4, 2018 04:24
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dreadmojo posted:I think that's underestimating the effect a little, i can shut down a huge mob of low wisdom enemies with a hypnotic pattern, but that locks out a lot of my strongest spells and can break if i take damage. It's a clever, flavoursome nerf to save/suck spells and buffs while not affecting blasty spells. If you catch everyone of interest in a hypnotic pattern, you don't really need to cast more spells when you can let the rest of your party use their short rest and all-day resources to play whack-a-mole on each sucker to prevent any of them from doing anything of interest after breaking free. I think it's an improvement in game health that they've closed the gap between blasting and SoDs by buffing the former and nerfing the latter, because balancing the game is easier and more straightforward if everyone interacts on the same axis (i.e. dealing damage). Now if only they'd make martials a bit better at, well, anything and everything. As for Strahd, I think the usual trick is to use Wall of Force to put him in a magic hamster ball to cut off any and all exits. From there, you and your party can torch him with anything that doesn't require Line of Effect(? or is it sight?). But the nature of the setting also means that he has the power of DM fiat to plausibly call in more minions at any time, from any place, so I wouldn't get too comfortable. Because why would a supremely ancient, powerful, and intelligent being walk into potential danger without having some kind of backup plan for insurance?
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Oct 4, 2018 04:35
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