|
Conspiratiorist posted:What's your backstory reason for being a Fighter? As in, are there any 1st level Fighter mechanical features that would have any impact on the roleplay? Because a single level isn't going to make you meaningfully better at fighting than a Cleric, and Life already gets proficiency in Heavy Armor which is the big Fighter thing. Martial weapons and protection fighting style. And just a soldier background isn't enough imo for my character to have been a high enough rank to feel responsible for the deaths of others.
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 11:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 13:12 |
|
|
Are you even going to use martial weapons, actually? As lightrook mentioned, you can just wield a spear until it becomes entirely irrelevant when you hit character level 5. Also, if you do go Fighter anyway, I strongly urge taking Defense Fighting Style; Protection is really bad.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 11:53
|
|
|
Nasgate posted:Martial weapons and protection fighting style. And just a soldier background isn't enough imo for my character to have been a high enough rank to feel responsible for the deaths of others. Shouldn't your character be more able to feel responsible for the deaths of others as someone who can directly save their lives? I don't think a single level in fighter has a roleplay benefit for anyone. It's not really enough to lean into the "I'm a hardened battle badass" if you dip one level. Class levels don't confer the ability to lead soldiers and fight in battles.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 12:16
|
|
|
Conspiratiorist posted:Are you even going to use martial weapons, actually? As lightrook mentioned, you can just wield a spear until it becomes entirely irrelevant when you hit character level 5. Warhammer is a pretty good weapon, so yes. I understand Protection isn't great, but it fits the character better. I'm more worried about the other characters surviving than 1 AC for me. Zarick posted:Shouldn't your character be more able to feel responsible for the deaths of others as someone who can directly save their lives? It benefits me and the way I perceive my character. His first level was the path he was originally on.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 13:30
|
|
|
Today I start a campaign for four students at the school I teach at. None of them have ever played DnD before. All four are awesome kids so this should be a blast. All four were in Ancient History so they will be using the campaign setting I made for another group. It’s kind of an ancient Europe mishmashed with fantasy races. The group will be investigating the disappearance of wagons from a small coastal town. The connection is they all had priests along for the ride for various reasons. Will post a trip report later.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 14:21
|
|
|
Nasgate posted:Warhammer is a pretty good weapon, so yes. Understandable, but you don’t have to represent every aspect of your charcters back ground mechanicly on your charcter sheet. Also I’m sure a fantasy military would be welcoming of and have roles for any class. Also why not paladin? It’s basicly a fighter/cleric and your background seems a good fit for the oath of vengeance “I’ll avenge my dead squad!!”.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 14:53
|
|
|
I mean if you wanna take a level in fighter more power to you but yeah as others have said, you really don't need to. Not all soldiers are capital F Fighters, just like not all thieves are Rogues or priests Clerics. As a cleric you already have proficiency with weapons and armor even without going into War domain or something, and that's more than enough to justify a background in soldiery. It's your character, you do you.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 15:00
|
|
|
Speaking of "not all thieves are rogues", what are some characters who have "rogue" written on their character sheet but aren't criminals of any kind? In the past I've done an Indiana Jones type of professor and a military scout who got really angry if you called him a thief. What other character types fit the rogue abilities without actually being a thief?
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 15:05
|
|
|
I had a swashbuckler who was just a guy who was way too into pirate operas. He was like his world's version of a guy with a mall katana.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 16:06
|
|
|
inthesto posted:Speaking of "not all thieves are rogues", what are some characters who have "rogue" written on their character sheet but aren't criminals of any kind?
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 16:16
|
|
|
Arcane Trickster as a Wizard U washout.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 17:29
|
|
|
Razorwired posted:Arcane Trickster as a Wizard U washout. That is a great idea for a character Herbie Pothead, Hogwarts Dropout
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 21:01
|
|
|
inthesto posted:Speaking of "not all thieves are rogues", what are some characters who have "rogue" written on their character sheet but aren't criminals of any kind? Some role types, some background ideas, some kinda both: White hat / security consultant. Spy / Assassin / Intelligence agent (likely to be a criminal in the country you're working in though, I guess). Someone from a performing background who didn't want to be a bard. Especially a physical performer such as an acrobat or pole dancer. Courier / secure courier. Someone with a military background other than "armoured melee infantry", eg archer, skirmisher, observer, messenger. Guard / cop. Especially a detective type. Militiaman with a day job working with mechanisms or as a rigger. Promotor / bouncer / doorbitch. Firefighter. Secretary in the old old sense of secret keeper / person-as-database. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Feb 18, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 21:22
|
|
|
inthesto posted:Speaking of "not all thieves are rogues", what are some characters who have "rogue" written on their character sheet but aren't criminals of any kind? Bounty hunters, lawyers, judges, clerks, artisans, merchants, investigators, inventors, investors. Performers, picklers, partisans, plumbers, police, physicians, post workers, prop makers, property managers, prison wardens, publishers, painters, pastry cooks, etc. drat near anything that relies on skill and not finger waggling or brute strength. In theory Rogues are the most flexible for background. You could be anything or anyone. In practice they are the most restrictive, with all of them being street urchins. Xae fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Feb 18, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 22:09
|
|
|
inthesto posted:Speaking of "not all thieves are rogues", what are some characters who have "rogue" written on their character sheet but aren't criminals of any kind? "White hat" security consultant. Parkour messenger who delivers letters in a fast and efficient manner.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 22:53
|
|
|
Bodyguard in the sense of "personal security expert" rather than the sense of jumping in front of arrows yelling noooooooooooooooooo in slow motion. Sapper or siege engineer. Underground construction/exploration expert - as in mine rescue specialist or professional spelunker. Repo man. Roadie. (comedy option: entire party are road crew for a band of hapless "heroic" knights). Carnie. E: Western/cowboy movie protagonists often map pretty closely to D&D rogue, even when they're ostensibly lawmen. E2: Not "thief" but maybe criminal depending on who wins: Revolutionary, resistance fighter, saboteur, agitator. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Feb 18, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2019 23:45
|
|
|
lightrook posted:Action Surge for two spells a turn is nice, yeah, although at early levels you're still pretty limited by spells per day to get huge value from doublecasting. It's good for a second swing of Spiritual Weapon, though, and you can set up Bless or Spirit Guardians and still get a hit in. If you're starting in fighter like I'm assuming, then your choice of domain actually opens up a lot, since heavy armor and martial weapon proficiency are all redundant for you. You could even do something cheeky like take Arcane domain to pick up Blade cantrips, since you're already set on weapon/armor proficiency; Potent Spellcasting is about equal to Divine Strike and maybe better if your DM rules that it applies to both the primary and secondary damage. Action Surge grants an additional action. Casting and attacking with a Spiritual Weapon takes a bonus action. An action cannot be used as a bonus action, so Action Surge can't give you an additional Spiritual Weapon attack. Glagha posted:I mean if you wanna take a level in fighter more power to you but yeah as others have said, you really don't need to. Not all soldiers are capital F Fighters, just like not all thieves are Rogues or priests Clerics. As a cleric you already have proficiency with weapons and armor even without going into War domain or something, and that's more than enough to justify a background in soldiery. It's your character, you do you. The OP was asking about taking an additional level in fighter, and already has that starting level in fighter in addition to at least one cleric level, so I'm not sure why multiple people are responding to the question by advising that he not do what he already did. Obviously a second level isn't needful; he's asking whether the delay in gaining higher level spells and clerical abilities is worth the benefits, and the answer to that is a clear maybe. Having 1 level of fighter and then switching to cleric is fine. Given that Action Surge is more useful later on, it makes sense to wait and see for now and wait until 3rd or 4th level spells come online before making a decision. Give something a chance to happen in RP that will tip the decision one way or the other.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 00:12
|
|
|
Just keep in mind that, even with Action Surge. You are restricted on what you can cast. Say you already got your Spiritual Weapon/Guardians blender going on, what it'll do is let you cast one normal spell, and then a cantrip.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 03:37
|
|
|
Arthil posted:Just keep in mind that, even with Action Surge. You are restricted on what you can cast. Say you already got your Spiritual Weapon/Guardians blender going on, what it'll do is let you cast one normal spell, and then a cantrip. You sure. I thought that was only the restriction with bonus action spells.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 06:30
|
|
|
My first adventurers league game was really fun, but the second one was pretty bad. Came into a drop in (thinking I was set up with people from last session). Had to play with a sorely underprepared DM, two guys in their late teens(good players), one guy I won't elaborate on and an actual kid. Now this kid had the most fun around the table and I expected obnoxious requests and shouting, but holy hell he kept on the whole game. Luckily he listened to us when we politely said "I want to hear X finish first" and so forth from time to time, but it was so draining and the plot went nowhere because he invented new NPCs and asked for new rules all the time. It was just over the top silly, all the time and taking up all the space and I was having such a hard time keeping interest in the game. Now I am just trying to imagine how it is to have such a problem player who is an actual adult and you wonder how the hell they can be this annoying and how you are going to have to explain it to them. At least he was an actual kid.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 07:58
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:You sure. I thought that was only the restriction with bonus action spells. Just looked into it. Huh, it might be in the rules for spellcasting and I just hadn't read it but that is surprising. Seems you could double spell... so long as you don't use your BA to CAST a spell.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 08:12
|
|
|
It's honestly a very dumb rule that only exists for the sake of preventing Sorcerers from casting Fireball twice on their turn (unless they multiclass into Fighter).
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 08:20
|
|
|
Conspiratiorist posted:It's honestly a very dumb rule that only exists for the sake of preventing Sorcerers from casting Fireball twice on their turn (unless they multiclass into Fighter). Yeah, my Saturday DM has actually outright told our sorcerer that they will allow them to cast full spells via metamagic. Cause the way they see it, they're just running through their resources even harder. Though the sorcerer leans towards double casting Magic Missile, surprisingly effective.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 09:08
|
|
|
Arthil posted:Yeah, my Saturday DM has actually outright told our sorcerer that they will allow them to cast full spells via metamagic. Cause the way they see it, they're just running through their resources even harder. Magic Missile is a surprisingly effective spell period.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 09:15
|
|
|
Quickened Metamagic is less SP available for Twinned; I think I only ever used it a handful of times throughout the entirety of CoS.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 09:43
|
|
|
Conspiratiorist posted:Quickened Metamagic is less SP available for Twinned; I think I only ever used it a handful of times throughout the entirety of CoS. Yeah, it's definitely bursty but we'll see if they realize the benefits of twinned haste.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 10:04
|
|
|
Edit: Nevermind, I am wrong!
doctor 7 fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 19, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 18:32
|
|
|
My school group went very well. All four players really enjoyed it. The group is: Dragonborn Life Cleric Half Elf Beast Ranger (revised) Dwarf Thief Rogue Teifling Bard of Swords Another teacher is going to join with a human battle master fighter. Starting off in a small port town, they are hired by the headman there to investigate the disappearance of wagons to and from town. The group wandered around the town a bit and tried different kinds of RP interaction. They left town and because of the ranger were able to track some goblins back to a small camp. Their first combat went well, though they are prone to really talking every little detail out. It’s something I am going to have to work on in the future, imparting a sense of urgency without rushing them too much. They saved a priest there who was traveling along with a wagon of goods. They came across an ambush site and tracked a missing shipment of ore to an old abandoned might. Through some smart investigations they tracked a bugbear to the office. After a brutal combat they discovered a half eaten dwarf priest. The group has started to wonder if the priests are the target and not necessarily the wagons. So far the players seem to be hesitant to cast spells. Obviously they don’t have a lot but they are really afraid to let loose with them when appropriate. The bard also wants to be neutral evil in a group of chaotic good characters. They still are dragging their feet on getting ideals, bonds, etc. I want to get some plot hooks dealing with backgrounds but I’m not getting much there yet. Overall it went really well and they had fun. Has anyone here ever ran a school group as well?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 22:49
|
|
|
Nash posted:
I find lots of new players tend to be very conservative with spells and items. The Bard sounds like he may cause some issues, if this starts affecting enjoyment for anyone it's best to talk to them. Anyway always good to see fun and hope to see future reports.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 22:54
|
|
|
Nash posted:Overall it went really well and they had fun. Has anyone here ever ran a school group as well? Not a school group specifically, but I've run plenty of D&D and D&D-ish TTRPGs for younger and/or vulnerable people, and the stuff I'll talk about carries over. If you have any more specific questions I'm happy to answer them., but here's some stuff about what you brought up: Sense of urgency in combat / talking out every detail: Out of the game / before the session, stress roleplay to them. Combat rounds are 6 seconds long, and though we get to talk about what to do while learning the rules, we should be reacting quickly like our characters would. In game, use volume and tone of your own voice to build up excitement and then at the right moment, turn to the player whos turn it is and drop "What do you do?" on them and then shut the gently caress up. You're a teacher right? You already know how to put someone on the spot! Pretend you're picking a kid who hasn't been paying attention in class and getting them to answer a question, and do the same thing but in a more friendly way. Hoarding resources: Stress that this is not a computer RPG and you're neither a programmed robot nor trying to screw them over. Resources are there to be used and if they get way out of their depth, you're not going to go "hahaha" and kill them all just because. "We're on the same side here - the game's supposed to be fun for everyone. Your abilities are there to be used, don't be afraid to use them." You need to follow up on this by not putting them in a position where they're out of spells and items and they're hosed because of it. You're a teacher, they're students, there's a certain dynamic there that says to them "You need to find the right answers, which I have". You'll probably have to work a bit to break them out of that or they're primarily going to be looking for the correct solution instead of playing the game. Alignment: If you absolutely positively have to have alignment and one kid wants to be eeeeviiiiiiiil, you need to have a conversation with everyone about what that's going to look like and how it's going to work. It's very probable that a young person picking eeeeeeviiiiiiiiiil is doing so because a) aesthetic or b) they believe that "good" will restrict their possible actions. The former can often be solved with "movie batman", and the latter with a frank discussion about what exactly they're expecting to be restricted from doing which will probably end up being a discussion about depictions of torture which is very definitely something you need to have at some point anyway. Instead of alignment, I get them to pick one or two well known characters (eg Batman, Robin Hood, John Wick, Ripley from Aliens, Marvel movie Thor, etc) that their PC will "be like" and go from there. Backgrounds and bonds: Ask them questions during play! Kids inherently get the idea that they can be making stuff up as they go, until they're told not to. Encourage this by asking questions at plot points. Make sure that they know they're allowed to make up why they know each other, or where they served in the army, or what their pirate ship was called when it comes up rather than having to write a small essay before the game that contains all that poo poo. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Feb 19, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2019 23:39
|
|
|
inthesto posted:Speaking of "not all thieves are rogues", what are some characters who have "rogue" written on their character sheet but aren't criminals of any kind? The classic dungeoneering rogue doesn't need to be a thief. They're treasure hunters, and adventuring is a respectable-ish profession.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2019 08:18
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:The classic dungeoneering rogue doesn't need to be a thief. They're treasure hunters, and adventuring is a respectable-ish profession.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2019 08:40
|
|
|
Toplowtech posted:"Adventuring is a respectable-ish profession!" he suddenly said, causing the whole tavern to start snickering. In my fantasy setting adventuring is a respected profession in the largest empire (which happens to be dwarven). It's a great way to get the troublemakers to go make trouble outside of imperial borders. If they succeed then they help pacify the frontier and bring back wealth. If they fail then its one less malcontent who didn't fit into the machinery of semi-automated adequate gender-queer subterranean socialism.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2019 14:03
|
|
|
Why dont people play as the greatest thieves of all? The stealer of hearts... by ripping them from the chests of their enemies.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2019 14:22
|
|
|
Looking at doing a Celestial Warlock which seems like it can do ok as a supplementary healer and attacker, but is there any particular gear or feats that would bump up the healing a little bit? There's also an invocation that gives max value for any healing received, and I was hoping to take advantage of that in some way. Something like sacrificing personal life force to heal allies, but without diving to catch swords with my face to take damage in their place. Anything like that?
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2019 17:06
|
|
|
Spectral Werewolf posted:Looking at doing a Celestial Warlock which seems like it can do ok as a supplementary healer and attacker, but is there any particular gear or feats that would bump up the healing a little bit? There's also an invocation that gives max value for any healing received, and I was hoping to take advantage of that in some way. Something like sacrificing personal life force to heal allies, but without diving to catch swords with my face to take damage in their place. Anything like that? Your Healing Light ability from Celestial will be your 60ft range heal. Gift of the Ever Living is a Pact of the Chain invocation, so you’ll have to pick that and will end up with a familiar, which is great because you can cast touch spells through your familiar (like Cure Wounds), at range. The max HP recovery die is only for you only, not your target *however* in 5e healing will never keep up with incoming damage, so it’s best practice to heal minimally when people drop and use Hit Dice, Song of Rest, Healer feated healing kits, prayer of healing, etc. on short rests to recover mid-day, otherwise long rests to fully recover HP between adventuring days.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2019 17:21
|
|
|
Spectral Werewolf posted:Looking at doing a Celestial Warlock which seems like it can do ok as a supplementary healer and attacker, but is there any particular gear or feats that would bump up the healing a little bit? There's also an invocation that gives max value for any healing received, and I was hoping to take advantage of that in some way. Something like sacrificing personal life force to heal allies, but without diving to catch swords with my face to take damage in their place. Anything like that? Celestials have one trick going for them if you really need to pump out healing for some reason. Cure Wounds scales nicely with your warlock slot levels. You can remote touch heal with it via a familiar, then follow up with Healing Light dice in the same turn after you see results of the Cure. Or do this to yourself for max healing values. Why would you ever need to do that? It comes to initiative timing and action economy, the same reason it's usually ok to just heal someone to 1hp. But if you go before a monster, and the injured ally goes after the monster, it won't be enough to just bring them to 1hp. The boss could sneeze at them and they yo-yo right back down to 0 and still lose their turn; at least they wont die but it still sucks. Then it's back to your turn and you need to heal again. If you have an idea of how many HP they need to tank a hit, you can try to target above that with the heal combo above. Then hopefully the ally makes good use of that turn to get into better position, use CC or whatever. edit: if I were to pick one feat for a celestial that wont multiclass, it's Moderately Armored. You dont have access to Shield so getting real shields and better armor is great, and it gives a stat boost on top. Or take a level of life cleric for heavy armor and heal boosts. If you are playing AL and get to respec feats, take Inspiring Leader for the party-wide THP boost at low levels, then dump for a different feat later on. Inspiring leader becomes redundant at 10, if you ever plan to make it that far. ritorix fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Feb 21, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2019 00:03
|
|
|
Toplowtech posted:"Adventuring is a respectable-ish profession!" he suddenly said, causing the whole tavern to start snickering. Probably more respectable than what everyone else is doing for a living before they hit the club in Dungeons & Dragons 1) Hiring adventures to help your 2) Getting killed by adventurers while on guard duty, eventually
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2019 00:56
|
|
|
More character buildchat! I’m playing a just-turned level 3 Swashbuckler Rogue in a homebrew setting. It was my first-ever campaign when we started about 6 sessions ago, which kinda determined how I was playing, but I’ve since become a DM with a better understanding of the rules. Stats are: STR 8 DEX 16 CON 12 INT 14 WIS 10 CHA 14 Basically, I’ve been doing two-handed with shortswords, and doing probably the most consistent and highest damage out of everyone, but my party of 6 has been consistently getting our asses kicked in combat. I’ve been getting better at it since going to death saving throws in Session 1, but every adventuring day sees our Warlock roll like poo poo, our Bard is constantly going to death rolls, and we’re usually only playing with 5/6 party members (with the missing guy being our Paladin/Tank, who the DM has a habit of skipping in combat when the player isn’t there, which has been half of the sessions). We’re just constantly getting the poo poo kicked out of us even when we’re doing well, and two sessions ago saw a near-total party knockout that would’ve probably been the end of everyone if my character hadn’t escaped with the Macguffin. I’m not really doing a ton of damage with that offhand shortsword, and I’m considering dipping just one level into Fighter and swapping to shield/rapier with Defense as my fighting style to get rid of the “glass” part of “glass cannon” and lend a little more tankiness to the party. That’d be +3 AC right there, the level 20 Rogue feature stinks so I won’t be missing it (and I have Lucky already as a Variant Human), and it looks like Swashbuckler does a good job drawing and avoiding fire with Panache; on top of that, I can actually USE my Cunning Action instead the bonus action attack. So what I’m wondering is: A) Is it a good plan? I don’t care to min-max, but I’d like this party to be less squishy and I’m fine sacrificing a 1d6 that won’t trigger Sneak Attack anyway. B) When should I do the dip? I know people say taking your first ASI at level 4 is super important, but the +2 DEX would really just be getting me +1 AC as opposed to +3, and I roll pretty consistently well enough to feel like I won’t miss the other stuff for a level (plus I’m adding my CHA bonus to initiative now).
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2019 02:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 13:12 |
|
|
99 CENTS AMIGO posted:More character buildchat! Okay. First of all, you mention that you guys routinely get your poo poo kicked in? Are you absolutely sure that your DM is doing things correctly? Constructing encounters has a few devil-in-the-details to it, and I've seen lots of people accidentally make encounters far more deadly than they thought they were. Could you describe a few encounters you've recently been in, in terms of which enemies you faced and how many? It's true that increasing Dex would only give +1 AC... but it also gives +1 to attacks, +1 to damage, to Dex saving throws (quite common), initiative, and a few very good skill/tool uses. Frankly it's hard to overstate just how bullshit Dex is in 5e. Also don't forget that if your main hand misses, the off-hand attack can still trigger a SA if it does hit. So it doubles your chances to land a SA. (Or nearly so anyway, for the math purists.) This is good because the best status condition to apply to enemies is "dead". You can have all the AC in the world, but a dead enemy will always miss. If I were in your place, I wouldn't multiclass to Fighter and start using shields unless my character concept explicitly called for it. You're giving up more than you think. I'd instead double-check whether or not my DM is doing things right first.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2019 02:43
|
|