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Druids already get Moonbeam and radiant is a better damage type, so the only comparative advantage is that it's DEX save instead of CON. I'd rather summon a bear with that spell slot, or prep utility.
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Feb 8, 2019 09:54
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Conspiratiorist posted:Druids already get Moonbeam and radiant is a better damage type, so the only comparative advantage is that it's DEX save instead of CON. Well that and Call Lightning can hit over a larger area and does more damage when it's stormy. It also lasts longer. (10 Minutes vs 1 Minute.) So there is a chance you can use again in another fight without using another slot.
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Feb 8, 2019 10:20
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I'm looking for some kind of deity to add a little background heft to a character who's generally unsentimental and who looks at their oath as taking on the burden of doing what must be done. Less "muah ha ha I will make everyone bow to me" and more "Arthas did nothing wrong." What about Tempus? He's LN if memory serves and is the god of Battle. You get LG followers of Tempus who are all about defending those who can't defend themselves so people can't object on the grounds of "Tempus is bad I won't adventure with you", but you can easily play a LN paladin of Tempus as being all about "victory at all costs". You can spin it as being the most humane way to fight in the long run, people who lose any hope of opposing your will are people who will never need to die by your hand, you're stripping their dignity to spare their lives. Grab a few quotes from WWI and civil war commanders and adapt them to the setting: Winston Churchill posted:No compromise on the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong -- that is the Declaration of July 4th, 1918. William Sherman posted:War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is the sooner it's over. John Fisher posted:The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility. Lord Kitchener posted:We must make war as we must, not as we would like.
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Feb 8, 2019 12:07
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Does anyone else feel that the concentration mechanic is somewhat basic and an uninteresting way of power restriction? I was discussing this whilst pouring over different spell lists and comparing them. I find that that the general "class spells" such as Hex and Spirit Guardians tend to take up your concentration 99% of the time which leaves all these other interesting spells by the wayside. Something like spells being worth "Concentration points" where a minor spell might take up a single point whilst stronger spells take up 2 or 3 points out of say a limit of 3. Obviously you would have to rebalance everything so you wouldnt be OP but I just feel like too many spells fall out of use as there's a couple of "just far too good not use" spells that exist.
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Feb 8, 2019 13:41
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That's a problem with the spell list, not the concentration mechanic itself.
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Feb 8, 2019 13:47
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"Concentration points" might be too fine-grained a mechanic, but I think there's merit to the idea that some "class thematic" spells can get exemptions to the Concentration mechanic.
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Feb 8, 2019 13:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:"Concentration points" might be too fine-grained a mechanic, but I think there's merit to the idea that some "class thematic" spells can get exemptions to the Concentration mechanic. I'm not sure it would really be that complicated. DnD is already pretty "simplified" as it is, adding some level of complexity really shouldn't be that difficult. Conspiratiorist posted:That's a problem with the spell list, not the concentration mechanic itself. That feels like a very narrow view of it. By not being restricted to a "this or nothing" restriction I feel like you could potentially create some much more interesting and useful spells, or even have combination spells that interact differently with each other.
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Feb 8, 2019 15:28
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Danger Diabolik posted:Has anyone here had any experience with rotating DMs? It seems like a campaign that is just a series of one shots would be ideal for this sort of thing. I’d love to hear someone give input on this if possible, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a couple years now.
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Feb 8, 2019 17:44
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DalaranJ posted:I’d love to hear someone give input on this if possible, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a couple years now. I've been playing rotating DM collaborative campaign with a couple of friends for a few months. There is some tonal whiplash whenever we go from somebodys high fantasy Forgotten Realms-ripoffs to a videogamey dungeon crawls with weird mechanics to "yes, this town is called Litcoin, thank you for asking", but we're all having great fun. If you're not doing one shots for each session, one of the main issues with rotating DMs is notesharing. I usually take short notes with very little context, some do the whole "Yahuna Dwarfslayer (Chaotic evil female goliath cleric from Shadowwind): etc etc etc" and others can barely remember the name of their own characters. I created a mystery with a trickster fey who was hiding amongst commoners, but by the time we found him, every player had DM'd once, read my notes on this guy and knew exactly who the fey was. DMs-turned-player also have to accept that the orc city they spent 3 hours building and all its named npcs and cities, can get obliterated by dragon and turned into a smouldering kobold lair or whatever by the next DM. We're all doing a lot of "Yes, and..." to make multi-session cities work, and we usually try to wrap up our dungeons in 1 longer session. It's very fun if you don't take it too serious, and I'd love to try one shots some time. I wouldn't recommend playing a rotating DM collaborative story with assholes, because it's going to end up with everybody nuking each others imaginary places out of spite. It really amplifies the best and the worst in all players. Our next DM wants to create a homebrew legendary hydra-like monster with several heads. We each have to name a head and its special ability, and I'm going with "Big Krangle" and "Casts stinking cloud every time it eats a minion". His next session has been postponed by a week every weekend for almost a month now.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:38
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Conspiratiorist posted:Well, Land Druids are just kind of "eh", but you do have a few good options in your spell list: This is extremely helpful, thanks! I know Land Druid isn't the "best" kind of druid, but hey this is my first real character, and it fits the setting/background better (if you know MTG lore, Simic casters generally morph other creatures/the environment, not themselves).
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Feb 8, 2019 20:24
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Psychedelicatessen posted:
An enemy that eats its own people is great, get everyone else on board. Have a big fight where you have to focus down minions before it eats them all and unleashes hell
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Feb 8, 2019 20:52
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ILL Machina posted:Toll the Living? Material Component: 10d10 silver pieces
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Feb 8, 2019 23:25
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Gharbad the Weak posted:An enemy that eats its own people is great, get everyone else on board. Have a big fight where you have to focus down minions before it eats them all and unleashes hell I needed a slightly more interesting gimmick for my campaign's final boss, and this is perfect. Thank you 
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Feb 8, 2019 23:44
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ILL Machina posted:Toll the Living? What about “Tax the Living”? EDIT: 
TheSoundNinja fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 9, 2019 01:40
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Blooming Brilliant posted:I needed a slightly more interesting gimmick for my campaign's final boss, and this is perfect. Thank you I'm very cool
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Feb 9, 2019 03:46
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:This is extremely helpful, thanks! I know Land Druid isn't the "best" kind of druid, but hey this is my first real character, and it fits the setting/background better (if you know MTG lore, Simic casters generally morph other creatures/the environment, not themselves). If you're using Ravnica look at the Spore Druid. It is kind of a Land Druid++ as long as you like the theme. You don't use Wild Shape much in combat as a Land Druid. Spore druid lets you turn those wild shape charges into temporary HP and buffs you can apply before the fight. The only real loss is Nature's Recovery.
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Feb 9, 2019 04:39
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So I'm playing in a Tomb Of Annihilation game and we're just shy of actually getting through all the dumb bullshit weak stuff to get into the tomb. It's been a bit. I am, however, playing an ancients paladin. And I feel like I suck, that they're no good. I felt kind of similar with a Druid in a Ravenloft game, though I did get a lot of mileage out of Moonbeam. Paladin of the ancients, my turns consist of huddling next to someone to hopefully remember to trigger my unrelated shield-protector feat, maybe get in a bless before the battle and then just hit something twice for okay damage and switch to the next turn, forever. I admittedly don't smite as often as I ought to, but I feel having the bless on hand is more important and I only get a paltry amount of spell slots. Am I missing something here, or do paladins just kinda... exist? Admittedly I am not really feeling 5e's classes on the whole, but still.
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Feb 9, 2019 04:55
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Gamerofthegame posted:So I'm playing in a Tomb Of Annihilation game and we're just shy of actually getting through all the dumb bullshit weak stuff to get into the tomb. Paladin is just shy of the best class in the game (and most certainly the best martial class) but it has to contend with the 5e's ivory tower design like all others. First, what are your race and stats? A bad stat distribution can really screw over a paladin, since they have 3 primary attributes. Second, you picked a garbage fighting style. Protection is the worst, it's thoroughly trash past like level 3. Just bad. Third, you also picked an Oath that, while strong overall, has a very niche Channel Divinity option so they rarely if ever use it. That's part of what's making you feel constrained, too. And fourth, if you picked Protection you're going Sword & Board without any damage bonusing whatsoever, and as Ancients without any offensive Channel Divinity to shore you up, and if you add a mediocre attribute spread to the mix then your DPR is going to be just trash. And it so happens that a martial's primary role is being good at dealing HP damage so, yeah, you will suck. Since it's really hurting your enjoyment, I'd ask the DM for a rebuild. Polearm Master is an excellent pick for increasing your damage and broadening your gameplay options in combat, maybe change Oaths too to Devotion or Vengeance, let's look at your race/array because for example Variant Humans make for the best martials with the bonus level 1 feat. ED: Also what's your party? Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 9, 2019 05:13
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My stats are inline and that much is fine, my damage is more so on account of having two attacks which haven't really powered up at all. A pretty lootless run, all told. I'll consider switching out weapon styles, given I forget to use the protection thing so often. (And fights tend to be mob-happy or really brief, anyway.) The lack luster divinity isn't helping, particularly when it's a measly ten feet. Could have gotten a lot of mileage out of it if it was 30, but alas. More so, my issues were that running around I feel like my options consist of A.) Bless B.) Hit enemy with weapon, occasionally super hit. Now, granted, our other party members (at current a cleric, warlock and archer-fighter) also are fairly one note, so maybe I'm just stifling the system a bit. gonna play a full arcane caster next time i swear just walk in with explosion templates of options sheesh
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Feb 9, 2019 06:49
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A Polearm Master gets 3~4 attacks per round (more chances to crit smite, which is the best use of spell slots), pays attention to positioning, at Vengeance 7 gets to reposition on reactions, Sentinel and those reactions stick enemies in place, also you have a horse are you using your horse? You should be the damage dealer in that party comp, on top of being the tankiest. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 9, 2019 07:14
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Also ancients has that sweet sweet magic resistance aura. It's in fact quite good and paladins are quite good.
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Feb 9, 2019 20:05
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Nutsngum posted:Does anyone else feel that the concentration mechanic is somewhat basic and an uninteresting way of power restriction? It's a fantastic mechanic to switch things from the old school "he cast a spell on you and you are now dead/petrified/paralyzed/screwed over unless maybe another PC has a multi-round remedy spell" to "he cast a spell on you and now we all need to deal damage to him until he fails his concentration check and you're free again." Allowing concentration on multiple spells at once introduces decisions like whether you make concentration checks for each spell one at a time or whether it's an all-or-nothing check, so I can see why they opted to limit things. Cleric concentration spells don't crowd out their utility options or many of their attack options, they just force you to choose between debuffs and buffs. Warlock concentration spells are a bit more of an issue, but many of your non-Hex options would be OP for certain specific builds if you could stack them with Hex. Try experimenting with relatively simple rules at first and see how things go. Instead of points, I suggest a flat rule of some sort that doesn't introduce too many additional numbers to track. Example 1: You can maintain concentration on one spell that affects you or an ally, and one additional spell. (That allows a buff like Shield of Faith or Expeditious Retreat in addition to a debuff, or a small amount of stacking buffs. With four casters in the group, stacking eight buff spells might be a bit of a problem, so you could say one buff max and one debuff/wall/summons/etc.) Example 2: You can maintain concentration on one extra spell so long as the additional spell's level is two or more levels below your maximum spell level. (If you have L3 spells you can run a L1 spell plus another spell; with L9 spells you could run a L7 and L9 concentration spell at once.) If you wanted less complexity, run it by "tiers," so you can have an extra L1 in tier 2 (character level 5-10), an extra L2 in tier 3 (character levels 11-16) or an extra L3 in tier 4 (17+). My suspicion is that you'll see two "best" spells running concentration instead of the "marginal" spells. But defining "minor spells" to make things work is tricky, too. Is Heroism minor? Protection from Energy? Enhance Ability? What about conjuration spells? Illusions? Utility divinations like Fine the Path or Clairvoyance? Letting the Warlock run Hex and Spider Climb is fine, by what about Hex and Crown of Madness? Hex and Ray of Enfeeblement? Hex and Eyebite? If you're determined to have some lesser spells used more frequently, simply say they don't take up the concentration "slot" but that they can still be terminated early if the caster fails a concentration check. No need to run points for that.
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Feb 9, 2019 21:17
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Nutsngum posted:Does anyone else feel that the concentration mechanic is somewhat basic and an uninteresting way of power restriction?
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Feb 9, 2019 23:12
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Yeah, I'm not super familiar with 5e yet, but it looks like the concentration mechanic change is mostly good, but they went somewhat overboard in what they made require concentration and were rather arbitrary in it too, such as with Spiritual Weapon being amazing yet not requiring concentration while some more mediocre stuff does. (And meanwhile Mordenkain's Sword does require it despite being the same spell as Spiritual Weapon but without upcasting potential and doing far less damage than Spiritual Weapon upcast the same amount.) The issue, to me at least, is their confusing and inconsistent standards for what spells can and can't be maintained alongside other spells, not that some spells are mutually exclusive at all.
Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Feb 10, 2019 |
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Feb 10, 2019 00:01
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Yeah, as I said, the issue is the spell list - it's not that you should be able to concentrate on multiple spells at once (which only complicates combat by encouraging initializing it outside of initiative among other things), but that concentration options should be more competitive with each other.
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Feb 10, 2019 00:08
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Re:concentration, I've been watching some D&D streams lately and one thing I saw that was really cool was in the final battle of High Rollers: Dead Reckoning, the party faced off against a Thayan Wizard who had psychic links with three slaves who he could transfer the concentration to, allowing him to have potentially up to four concentration spells running all at once unless the party were willing to kill the slaves. I thought this was a really neat way to do a final boss battle with an evil wizard, since it really sold the idea that this guy was using some seriously evil poo poo to break the laws of magic and doing stuff that no wizard should be able to do no matter how powerful in a way that just being higher level or having a bunch of legendary actions doesn't. When the villain transferred his spell to his thrall, it gave a real feeling of "oh gently caress, this guy can break the laws of reality", which is exactly the feeling you'd want an evil wizard to give off.
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Feb 10, 2019 02:08
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One of the players at my table last night mentioned hearing some murmurs about Barbarian/Druid multiclassing, to get Rage benefits in beast form. Has this strat kinda done the rounds in this thread already, or no? First thing I asked was whether bite/claw attacks count as "melee weapon attacks" and it turns out they do, as per the PHB stat blocks. 2nd topic: how bad of a time is a party going to have with a Monk, a Barbarian, a Ranger, and a Wizard? We recruited a couple more players, so I'm hoping for at least some kind of full-time healer, and maybe a Sorcerer/Warlock to be added to the mix, but we're apparently keeping that secret until our characters all actually meet up. Edit: Bonus round Am I in the minority in thinking that "short rest"-structured classes sort of... don't rate? I've tried playing both a Warlock and an Arcane Archer, as well as having played (for the better part of a year) with a Warlock in one of my parties, and I find the "2-per-rest" limits in particular to be suffocating. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Feb 10, 2019 |
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Feb 10, 2019 19:03
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P.d0t posted:We recruited a couple more players, so I'm hoping for at least some kind of full-time healer, and maybe a Sorcerer/Warlock to be added to the mix, but we're apparently keeping that secret until our characters all actually meet up. For the most part, healing in combat is a net-negative for the party, since healing (at low levels) tends to be so low and unpredictable that in almost every case trying to kill the thing that's going to be hurting you is better than healing. So don't worry about it, imo. Not to mention that Clerics and Paladins aren't even really "healers" in the sense that they tend to be in MMOs
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Feb 10, 2019 19:18
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P.d0t posted:One of the players at my table last night mentioned hearing some murmurs about Barbarian/Druid multiclassing, to get Rage benefits in beast form. Cat/Bearbarian is so-so but it works. It's mostly about shoring up the Moon Druid weakness of their frontline prowess plateauing at 6 with Cave Bear and staying fixed there until Elemental forms at 10. They can use Reckless Attack, get Rage bonus damage, resistances as appropriate, Unarmed Defense in some cases, and if they go 5 levels in Barbarian then Extra Attack (to the benefit of creatures without Multiattack). RE Healing, Rangers get Healing Spirit from XGtE at level 5 and that's the best healing spell in the game if you need to patch yourself up between fights. Having Healing Word for in-combat Bonus Action pick me ups would be nice but not strictly mandatory, ditto Lesser Restoration or Revivify for emergencies - just really nice things to have. Ultimately, your sustain is determined by the DM: depending on the rules at play it can be trivial to travel around with a healthy assortment of healing potions (either bought or self-made), and I also had a game where the DM just gave us an attunement amulet that allowed one to cast pseudo-Healing Word a couple times a day. Also, maybe this isn't what you meant with it but for sake of clarity, "full-time healers" are total garbage in D&D - it's a boring, reactive, ineffective role people shouldn't strive to play. Take a look at Life Cleric: Heavy Armor + Shield proficiency, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Bonus Action ranged heal that doesn't take an action... does this look like a heal slut to you? These guys are face wreckers.
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Feb 10, 2019 19:37
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Conspiratiorist posted:Also, maybe this isn't what you meant with it but for sake of clarity, "full-time healers" are total garbage in D&D - it's a boring, reactive, ineffective role people shouldn't strive to play. Take a look at Life Cleric: Heavy Armor + Shield proficiency, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Bonus Action ranged heal that doesn't take an action... does this look like a heal slut to you? These guys are face wreckers. Speaking as the guy who typically plays the "full-time healer" really what it amounts to is "guy who casts Healing Word once someone hits 0 HP in combat." -- which is to say that ideally "healing people" isn't something you should be doing more than once or twice in an encounter, and you should be able to spend your turns doing other things (or healing + [other]) pretty much all the time. It also narrows your class selection to Cleric/Druid/Bard/Divine Soul Sorcerer. You can build your campaign around not having utility like that at your disposal, but you can also use a hammer to pound in screws, so to speak. (The notion some people have that out-of-combat healing should involve anything other than Hit Dice or maybe consumables is always weird to me.)
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Feb 10, 2019 20:49
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P.d0t posted:(The notion some people have that out-of-combat healing should involve anything other than Hit Dice or maybe consumables is always weird to me.) Hit Dice take an hour and can low roll. Healing Spirit tops everyone off in 1 minute.
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Feb 10, 2019 21:04
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P.d0t posted:Am I in the minority in thinking that "short rest"-structured classes sort of... don't rate? I've tried playing both a Warlock and an Arcane Archer, as well as having played (for the better part of a year) with a Warlock in one of my parties, and I find the "2-per-rest" limits in particular to be suffocating. One big issue is that short rests take 1 hour. If short rests are actually short (like 5 minutes), or if they're milestone (2 fights = automatic short rest), they function better.
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Feb 10, 2019 21:54
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Xae posted:If you're using Ravnica look at the Spore Druid. Spore Druid is only available to the Golgari, and we're already into the campaign enough for me to not want to switch guilds. If we were starting today that's what I'd have done.
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Feb 10, 2019 21:58
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5e diversified support options a good bit with XGE subclasses. Dream druids and celestial warlocks both work out pretty well - their bonus action heals aren't really spells, so you can do a normal spell the same round as the heal. That's a step above anyone using healing word. Having played a life cleric for around 15 levels, there were times when I wanted to bring someone up (healing word) and also deal with an enemy (banishment, etc). Both those XGE subclasses embraced the 5e style of healing. Bring them up from 0 to 1, that's good enough, it's all about the action economy. My favorite kind of healer from other games is Wow's discipline priest - heal allies by damaging enemies, something D&D has never really attempted that I can think of. ritorix fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Feb 10, 2019 |
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Feb 10, 2019 22:01
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ritorix posted:My favorite kind of healer from other games is Wow's discipline priest - heal allies by damaging enemies, something D&D has never really attempted that I can think of. That's shadow, not disc. Disc is shields. It's also borderline impossible to balance.
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Feb 10, 2019 22:21
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The bigger issue has to do with the way D&D combat is designed. Damage in MMOs tends to be steady and consistent, but damage in D&D tends to be irregular and spiky, since enemies can only attack and deal damage once per initiative order. If you imagine a very simple ability like "once per turn, if you dealt radiant or necrotic damage, heal any nearby ally for a small flat value," you'll have a hard time getting much value from it, in terms of getting over hits-to-kill thresholds. At low levels, anybody without heavy armor might get completely chunked out by an unlucky hit, and healing them for 1 or 2 hp isn't going to increase the number of Orc Warrior Ax-hits they survive. For small, regular healing to be worthwhile in D&D, the game needs to have small, regular damage as well, and I'm not really sure how to remedy it without up and leaving for another game system. I'd like to see rules that suggest a vaguely bell-shaped expected damage table, for example, but I don't see how that'd be possible without overhauling all the math.
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Feb 10, 2019 22:39
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mango sentinel posted:It's cool and good. Casters don't need a) to be more powerful, b) to be more complicated, and c) more time and attention from designers
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Feb 10, 2019 22:56
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Toshimo posted:That's shadow, not disc. Disc is shields. It's also borderline impossible to balance. Depends. At times Disc was heavily damage > healing with a side of shields, other times it's been mostly shields, or even just direct healing with a bit of damage.
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Feb 10, 2019 23:17
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Toshimo posted:Hit Dice take an hour and can low roll. Healing Spirit tops everyone off in 1 minute. Healing Spirit is definitely one of the best ways to heal up between fights, but it does come with its own disadvantages, particularly at lower levels. It uses up a spell slot each casting, and often it will only be healing for 3-4d6 at low levels. It also doesn't restore any resources other than HP (which is also pretty important at higher levels). It's definitely a great resource to have available, but I would still generally view Hit Dice as my primary method of "out of combat" healing with Healing Spirit subbing in if there isn't time for a Short Rest.
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Feb 10, 2019 23:40
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Defeatist Elitist posted:Healing Spirit is definitely one of the best ways to heal up between fights, but it does come with its own disadvantages, particularly at lower levels. It uses up a spell slot each casting, and often it will only be healing for 3-4d6 at low levels. It also doesn't restore any resources other than HP (which is also pretty important at higher levels). 3-4d6 healing for one slot is better than most healing at that level, and that's like worst case scenario.
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Feb 11, 2019 00:41
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