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Conspiratiorist posted:Forge is probably the best for just smashing things in melee through LMoP (levels 1-5). Tempest is better at being both melee and exploding things, though. Tempest is great for melee and exploding dudes. Thunderwave to fling dudes away and cause mass damage and shatter to crush people and drop ceilings. Your channel divinity let's you deal max damage on lightning and thunder damage. Wrath of the Storm lets you punish people who do hit you (and you cam use your channel divinity to max damage on it). I played a lizardman tempest cleric and it was awesome and memorable.
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Jan 27, 2019 17:36
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Tempest is not the best domain, but it's not far off, and it's definitely the most fun.
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Jan 27, 2019 18:35
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Elfgames posted:i mean if you just put your soul into a jar and bury it then there's not much to stop the gm from going "oh mr badguy found your soul and is now holding it in his arms" like it's not great gming but that's a huge temptation for any gm to resist Mr. Badguy doesn't frighten me near so much as "An active and rambunctious little boy has found a shiny bauble buried in the middle of nowhere...."
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Jan 27, 2019 18:37
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Elfgames posted:i mean if you just put your soul into a jar and bury it then there's not much to stop the gm from going "oh mr badguy found your soul and is now holding it in his arms" like it's not great gming but that's a huge temptation for any gm to resist This is why I would be terrified to leave my phylactery completely unattended.
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Jan 27, 2019 18:47
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mango sentinel posted:Tempest is not the best domain, but it's not far off, and it's definitely the most fun. Except when your DM has every creature in a dungeon come at you all at once any time someone uses a thunder ability...
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Jan 27, 2019 19:14
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GoGoGadget posted:Except when your DM has every creature in a dungeon come at you all at once any time someone uses a thunder ability... This sounds legitimately fun if you have the right abilities.
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Jan 27, 2019 19:21
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GoGoGadget posted:Except when your DM has every creature in a dungeon come at you all at once any time someone uses a thunder ability... If it's going to happen for certain, and the DM is really that predictable, this would be a good time to invest in traps.
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Jan 27, 2019 19:32
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So Fireball. What it is good for? Little background: I'm playing Wizard on a Curse of Strahd campaign, with others playing Warlock, Fighter, Monk and Paladin. Our GM is notorious of having strong opinions about things and one of those is that Fireball is clearly no.1 3rd level spell and every wizard should pick it. Partially because he was so insistent about it, and partly because I don't care about damage spells, I picked animate dead and counterspell. He didn't find that funny. On 6th level I picked slow and Life Transference. He straight up had our ally van Richter give me Fireball and lightning bolt scrolls. So is the Fireball worth it to use memory slot? My other damage spells are cantrips and I mostly use grease, web or hold person monsters in combat. Oh and create zombies after.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:05
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adhuin posted:So Fireball. What it is good for? 
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Jan 27, 2019 20:09
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adhuin posted:So Fireball. What it is good for? Fireball is v good aoe damage for that spell level but if you’re more interested in playing a control wizard then it’s fine to skip. My sorlock and light cleric both have funny fireball stories because they were meant to be blasters but it’s not the mandatory slam pick he’s making it out to be.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:19
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We all know he has lot of stupid opinions.(Like preferring original Battlestar Galactica over the 'new') Yeah, I think I'll keep the slot for more control. Rest of our party does lot of single-target damage and I usually delay portion of the encounter for turn or two. Issaries fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 20:19
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Agreed. Fireball hasn't been good since second edition when you needed a fluid dynamics degree to cast it indoors
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Jan 27, 2019 20:20
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Has anyone here ever played around with resin casting for minis? If do what is your process and what materials do you use? I'm making some Moloch inspired goons right now but the stuff I'm using (monster clay and oomoo 30 from smoothon) are pretty pricy. I also have some amazing remelt, but it is too hot when you pour it to work with monster clay.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:23
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adhuin posted:So Fireball. What it is good for? Fireball is significantly ahead of the damage curve for when you get it and supremely useful if you're fighting large groups in open areas, and is one of the best low-mid level damage types. That said, Third Level is stacked with great spells and Wizards are way more useful as controllers than damage dealers. You have a lot of damage in that party but not a great way to deal with large outside of potentially the Warlock. I'd have taken Hypnotic Pattern over Life Transference.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:27
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adhuin posted:We all know he has lot of stupid opinions.(Like preferring original Battlestar Galactica over the 'new') Clearly, you are required to cast Fireball at the earliest possible moment of effectiveness. Off the scroll. Make it so your GM has to keep giving you Fireball scrolls if he wants you to cast it. As for the race with the phylactery, I think I'd do the following: 1. Make the race need neither food nor water. 2. To survive, the phylactery needs to be fed souls. Now, most adventuring groups kill things, so that's not necessarily a problem except during downtime. You'd need to work out just how much feeding the phylactery needs; clearly, if you get rejuvenated by it, it is going to be hungry. You have to carry your phylactery around not because you must be close to it to survive, but because stashing it without being able to feed it is a big problem. You might have it automatically absorb the souls of the dying in a certain radius, which makes it a potential hazard to a PC who is rolling death saves, as three failed saves means getting stuck in the phylactery. (By the time the PCs have ready access to raise dead, you could offer ways to get the souls back out again.) In short, I suggest doing something to make the phylactery a potential problem for the rest of the party, something that they have to address in some way, even if it's just Persuasion checks during downtime to reassure the locals that their buddy just really likes killing his own chickens for dinner. Maybe the requirements go up with level, and at L11 the phylactery needs sentient souls, but on a less-frequent schedule. Running around with a proto-lich ought to be a potential issue in the same way that having a tiefling can be an issue in some campaign worlds.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:29
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Just lol if you don't neatly place the Lightning Bolt scroll on the ground and then cast the Fireball scroll on it.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:34
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adhuin posted:We all know he has lot of stupid opinions.(Like preferring original Battlestar Galactica over the 'new') Are you an evocation wizard? Slow is legit a great spell for non-boss fights. Haste is a good pick vs anything with legendary saves. Animate dead has all kinds of utility so that was solid too. Counterspell is basically mandatory. Life Transference is the only questionable pick there.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:51
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Can a 5e Wizard even make a bad spellbook? It seems like you'd run out of trap options before yiu had to resort to spell scribing.
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Jan 27, 2019 21:02
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ritorix posted:Are you an evocation wizard? I'm war wizard from xanathar's for the initiatiative boost. Planning on taking the +5 init feat on 8th level for total of +11 init. There's plenty of bad options in xanathar's splat book, like Life transference.  I took it mostly as a thematic piece for an old wizard searching for the secret of eternal life.
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Jan 27, 2019 21:14
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adhuin posted:So Fireball. What it is good for? Fireball is very good. We used it to diplomatically solve Vallaki in my CoS game; big, reliable AoE damage is an excellent tool to have in a party's utility belt, so if nobody else has a similar option then The Wizard is doing themselves a disservice by not taking it. The example above was, however, about the only time we used it throughout the entire CoS run, since playing a Sorcerer I had Twinned Haste as a damage option for anything smaller than a big mob fight. Optimal spell choices are ultimately all about what works best with the party's composition, you know? And 3rd level is stacked with good spells: Fireball, Haste, Hypnotic Pattern, Dispel Magic, Counterspell, Fly, Tiny Hut. All excellent in their own way. You already got scrolls for Fireball/Lightning Bolt, so just save those scrolls for when they're needed, and pick other good stuff. Life Transference is garbage and Animate Dead is cancer. Get rid of them. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 22:50
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To clarify the idea that animate dead is "cancer" pretty much any summoning style spell is extremely overpowered and will make fighty guys feel superfluous. The ideal use of your spell slots isn't to fireball it's to manage 8 or so skeletons and have them all attack as a bonus action for the rest of your career. But as a wizard you need to follow the gentleman's agreement to not ruin the game.
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Jan 27, 2019 23:19
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As you go up in levels it's not even the power (which remains considerable), but the time budget issue. Full casters already trend towards longer turns due to their breadth of combat options, and using Animate Dead means that on top of that the table now needs to contend with the Wizard + DM coordinating and managing the actions/rolls/initiative/HP etc of 2n additional skeletons or even worse, zombies. There are ways to make it work, but unless having an skeleton entourage is a central element of your character concept, it's just not worth the hassle. That said, if you're content with trolling your DM then YMMV.
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Jan 28, 2019 00:02
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I get that wizards have no sense of right and wrong but animate dead seems like it should be evil-aligned only.
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Jan 28, 2019 00:03
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I play a high elf wizard that comes from a post-scarcity society that is built on strong logical beliefs, he uses animate dead because bones are bones are bones, they're just calcium and the person's spirit isn't there anymore, so may as well use them.
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Jan 28, 2019 00:06
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I would have expected a post-scarcity society to have even less reason to use animate dead than a society that evolved with extremely-limited resources that couldn't let a single thing go to waste.
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Jan 28, 2019 00:16
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Mr. Prokosch posted:To clarify the idea that animate dead is "cancer" pretty much any summoning style spell is extremely overpowered and will make fighty guys feel superfluous. The ideal use of your spell slots isn't to fireball it's to manage 8 or so skeletons and have them all attack as a bonus action for the rest of your career. But as a wizard you need to follow the gentleman's agreement to not ruin the game. Doesn’t Animate Dead only summon a max of three undead when cast at a higher level? I think the real gently caress you is probably Conjure Minor Elementals cast at 8th level by a Conjurer. Twenty four mephitis with an extra 30HP so they don’t all go down to one AoE, plus you are immune to concentration checks on the spell.
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Jan 28, 2019 00:19
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BattleMaster posted:I get that wizards have no sense of right and wrong but animate dead seems like it should be evil-aligned only. See you all in a couple pages
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Jan 28, 2019 00:37
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BattleMaster posted:I get that wizards have no sense of right and wrong but animate dead seems like it should be evil-aligned only. Same but make it Charm and Mind Control spells.
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Jan 28, 2019 00:56
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Sitting here trying to figure out how to tell our DM she sucks. This is her first time DMing, and we're doing Curse of Strahd. I have to admit, she's naturally talented at storytelling. She does great voices, keeps NPC's various personalities in line, and generally does a good job keeping the story moving forward. But she can't run a combat. At all. Last session our group of sixth level PC's ran into Strahd, and our cleric immediately jumped him. Two PC's went in with him, while the party sorc and I, the rogue, decided that hightailing it would be better. The remaining three 6 level characters were beating the everloving poo poo out of Strahd by simply grappling him every round. All she had him do was make strength checks, no legendary actions, biting, nothing. I offered to run Strahd for her since she was having a hard time juggling his powers and I was out of combat anyway. He of course beat them in a couple of rounds and it didn't end up ruining the campaign. This week we fought 3 druids and like 30 beasts. She had them lined up in a tight ball as we crept towards a barn out of sight. The cleric and wizard launched simultaneous fireballs...and wasted 33 enemies in one round. She gave up for the evening because she had nothing else prepared. Me, the fighter, and the sorcerer never even saw a single round of combat. Unfortunately, I am afraid she might take it poorly if I just come out and say it sucked. This is a weekly thing that my wife enjoys catering and it is a good time for all. I don't want to make her quit DMing for good, because she really is a good DM. Don't know what to do here. 2 of the other players are ready to drop out. The Dregs fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 01:03
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kidkissinger posted:See you all in a couple pages I wasn't thinking about the possibility of a multi-page alignment argument when I posted that 
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Jan 28, 2019 01:03
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The Dregs posted:Sitting here trying to figure out how to tell our DM she sucks. Maybe you could volunteer to handle combat and she can run an NPC or your character or something? Or convince her to run something other than D&D that doesn't require as much fiddling? How much experience does she have as a player? Maybe help her run a few tactical combats so she can see the tricks she's missing?
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Jan 28, 2019 01:15
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The Dregs posted:Sitting here trying to figure out how to tell our DM she sucks. This sounds like a job for coDMing. Have a second person to help design combat encounters and either provide encounter quicksheets of reminder instructions or coach her while running combats.
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Jan 28, 2019 01:19
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Reveilled posted:Doesn’t Animate Dead only summon a max of three undead when cast at a higher level? The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends. This use of the spell reasserts your control over up to four creatures you have animated with this spell, rather than animating a new one. It'd take a few days for the initial set up, but a 5th level Wizard can maintain an entourage of 12 zombies/skeletons if that's what they want to be doing with their 2+1 3rd level spell slots. Doesn't cost any gold, either, beyond whatever mundane equipment you want to outfit them with.
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Jan 28, 2019 01:24
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BattleMaster posted:I get that wizards have no sense of right and wrong but animate dead seems like it should be evil-aligned only. OTOH I hate this idea because as long as you are just animating bones and corpses you're not doing anything significantly different than Animate Object. If you're making sentient undead that gets a little different.
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Jan 28, 2019 01:32
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I was thinking more like some cultures and religions may have serious issues with desecrating humanoid remains, and that the skeletons, zombies, and other similar things in the Monster Manuals are of evil alignments. But that may not be a job for an alignment restriction but bad reactions from NPCs who may not be so fond of players who walk into their town with a skeleton or zombie army.
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Jan 28, 2019 01:49
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Mr. Prokosch posted:To clarify the idea that animate dead is "cancer" pretty much any summoning style spell is extremely overpowered and will make fighty guys feel superfluous. The ideal use of your spell slots isn't to fireball it's to manage 8 or so skeletons and have them all attack as a bonus action for the rest of your career. But as a wizard you need to follow the gentleman's agreement to not ruin the game. As with anything, there are counters. You can't walk into the tavern or the temple of Lathander with eight skeletons. If you park them outside of town some clever NPC cleric may come walking in an hour later telling everyone the story of the undead he just dusted. If you are doing dungeon-crawling where using such spells have no meaningful consequences (using Animate Dead frequently in Ravenloft can have meaningful consequences), then it's more of a problem, but area of effect spells will kill the animated undead pretty quickly, as will things like dragon breath. An unadjusted written adventure might run into real problems. The Dregs posted:Sitting here trying to figure out how to tell our DM she sucks. I agree with DalaranJ: a co-DM would be helpful, especially as it's unlikely she actually enjoys running combats. Most of the instances I've seen, the co-DM wasn't actually playing in the game, so that might be tricky to navigate, but working that out is probably better for everyone than ending the game entirely. The way to approach this is, obviously, not to tell her she sucks. You just wrote that she doesn't in your third and fourth sentences--though check that attitude with "I have to admit..." as you're basically saying she's very good at some aspects of the game and terrible at others, and you enjoy the game she's running so long as there's no combat happening. Lots of successful DMs are great at the encounter-running thing and bad at everything else; they just compensate for that weakness by running wall-to-wall dungeon crawls. I get the feeling you may value encounter-running skill over all the other stuff, and you want to sell this idea as "I am enjoying your game but I feel like you hate running encounters. I love running encounters. Can I help?" and not "I am good at running encounters and I have to admit you are good at doing other things that I don't care about as much. Let me run encounters before the game dies." Given that she's good with story and doesn't seen to much care about the fighting mechanics, she might be fine with you playing the enemies and running your PC fairly (ie. without knowledge of what he wouldn't already know), or have other ideas to keep you involved during the non-encounter portions of the game. (One option, which you might find frustrating, is to have her play your character during encounters; it doesn't sound like she's likely to abuse her superior knowledge of the adventure and it would give her a little more experience. Just make sure you don't try to manage what she does with your PC if you do that, and don't spare your own character.) CoS has a lot of encounters that can TPK, so you'll want to discuss how to handle that sort of thing with her in advance, if possible.
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Jan 28, 2019 02:15
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Narsham posted:As with anything, there are counters. You can't walk into the tavern or the temple of Lathander with eight skeletons. If you park them outside of town some clever NPC cleric may come walking in an hour later telling everyone the story of the undead he just dusted. If you are doing dungeon-crawling where using such spells have no meaningful consequences (using Animate Dead frequently in Ravenloft can have meaningful consequences), then it's more of a problem, but area of effect spells will kill the animated undead pretty quickly, as will things like dragon breath. I offered. She took me up with the Strahd fight. I offered again after the debacle last night and she just ignored me. I don't want to push. The "I have to admit" was just there to show that the beginning of my post where I said she sucks was hyperbolic. She doesn't have much experience with roleplaying games at all. Before she came to our group with her husband (the wizard), the only experiences she had with gaming were horrible. She ran into the creepy m'lady types a couple times and just gave it all up as bullshit. She decided to play with us because my wife and daughter play and it's very laid back. I guess I will send her an email or something in private and formally offer to run combats for her. That will make me guilty of DMPC'ing, but my character is pretty useless in a fight anyway. I just really don't want to be condescending because she actually is really good, especially for her first time.
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Jan 28, 2019 02:51
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Narsham posted:As with anything, there are counters. You can't walk into the tavern or the temple of Lathander with eight skeletons. If you park them outside of town some clever NPC cleric may come walking in an hour later telling everyone the story of the undead he just dusted. If you are doing dungeon-crawling where using such spells have no meaningful consequences (using Animate Dead frequently in Ravenloft can have meaningful consequences), then it's more of a problem, but area of effect spells will kill the animated undead pretty quickly, as will things like dragon breath. This is missing the forest for the trees; if a character ability/element is disruptive in combat, you don't resolve it by then forcing the party to also have to work around it outside of combat, nor is it good form to punish the player IC by arbitrarily taking away their toys after they spent meaningful effort setting them up. The correct way to resolve a problem of this nature is to discuss it with the group like adults.
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Jan 28, 2019 03:50
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I'm gonna be playing Tomb of Annihilation. Give me a character concept that'll fit the vibe where I can get in people's faces and gently caress them up but I'm not: A paladin A fighter A lore bard A moon druid unless there's some cool native creature I could be. Conspiratiorist posted:The correct way to resolve a problem of this nature is to discuss it with the group like adults. But mooooooooooooom!
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Jan 28, 2019 05:25
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:I'm gonna be playing Tomb of Annihilation. The one I keep seeing that fucks poo poo up is a Sun Soul Monk. Lots of radiant damage to mess with undead poo poo.
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Jan 28, 2019 06:17
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