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Sage Genesis posted: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? Speaking of which, as someone about to start running a 5e dnd game as a new-to-5e dm, I've heard there are some issues with 5e challenge ratings, any advice?
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Feb 21, 2019 03:46
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Yeah, iconic creatures like illithid have game breaking abilities and your can't rely on CRs for them.
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Feb 21, 2019 03:54
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hangedman1984 posted:Speaking of which, as someone about to start running a 5e dnd game as a new-to-5e dm, I've heard there are some issues with 5e challenge ratings, any advice? Yeah the CR has nothing to do with how powerful or dangerous they are basically. Are you running a module or running your own campaign ?
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Feb 21, 2019 03:54
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kingcom posted:Yeah the CR has nothing to do with how powerful or dangerous they are basically. Are you running a module or running your own campaign ? My own campaign
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Feb 21, 2019 04:05
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hangedman1984 posted:Speaking of which, as someone about to start running a 5e dnd game as a new-to-5e dm, I've heard there are some issues with 5e challenge ratings, any advice? First, understand that the challenge rating system is basically garbage. It provides only the vaguest possible hint about the power of a creature but nothing in terms of solid information. They have a system for calculating how dangerous monsters are but their own monsters are, invariably, designed in such a way as to favor offense over defense. So you get monsters whose attack power is meant for level 5 characters and their defenses are for level 2 characters, and then the system goes "Meh, we'll average it to 3. Sounds about right." Except that's how you get swingy encounters. Because a level 3 character cannot withstand that kind of punishment for long. Quick example: a centaur can charge a target and do, on average, 30 points of damage. On average. No critical hits, no special outliers, just straight up 30 damage is what's expected. It's also a level 2 creature. How many level 2 characters can take 30 damage? Hell, some level 2 characters can go from full to instant death if that happened to them. Sure, it needs to hit twice, but with a +6 attack bonus that ain't too hard. That's where the swingy part comes in. Second, understand that some monsters are plain bullshit. I made a thread about this on RPGnet a few years ago: Code Red Monsters. Basically, these things can break the rules and suddenly kill people a lot faster than you thought they would. Feel free to use them, but be aware of what you're doing. Remember how I said the challenge rating system is garbage? Here's another example. In the DMG there are rules for creating or modifying monsters. So let's take a basic critter like, I dunno, an ogre. Right? Now let's say you give this magical ogre-offshoot the ability to go ethereal, to teleport at will, invisibility at will, a charming gaze attack, and the ability to grant others of its kind bonus dice to each and every attack roll and saving throw they make. All of those. What do you think that does for their challenge rating? If you had to guess? The answer is: it stays the same. That's right, according to the DMG, such abilities are worthless when it comes to determining challenge rating! That should tell you exactly how accurate challenge ratings are. (DMG p. 280-281. Don't just take my word for it.) So what do you do? Stick to the basics. Avoid the Code Red Monsters, just orcs and goblins is fine for now. Before you throw in a monster because it sounds cool, take a moment to look at its stat block and see what it actually does. How much damage does it do? Does that sound like an unreasonable amount? Does it have weird poo poo that your party can't handle? Is it some sort of flying archer and your PCs are all Melee McPuncherton types? Well then sorry, doesn't matter how cool it is, don't use it just yet. All that said, awareness of the issues is all you really need. I myself loathe 5e and yet I still play it with my friends, because it's fun to play with my friends. And we know the safe path through the minefield so we can avoid the big problems. Aim to have fun, be a fan of your players, and if the system ever fucks you over don't be afraid to just retcon it. Sage Genesis fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 04:08
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The biggest thing to be aware of is enemy abilities that change the action economy. Things that paralyze, fear, stun, sleep. As soon as you take a player out of the combat it becomes that much harder to win, especially at low levels when the players have less tools to deal with it.
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Feb 21, 2019 04:18
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More important than any given encounter's CR is what the turn economy looks like. All things being equal - which is to say, random - the side with the most turns tends to win, unless you're looking at a severe power gap. Each creature's turn is a chance to do damage, harass or recuperate, or pop off a nasty ability, and some creatures take multiple turns, or at least have multiple attacks. There are quite a few powerful enemies in D&D who're absolute chumps if you jump them on a cigarette break, and a lot of lower-tier creatures who're dynamite in packs. Look at how many turns you can expect your players to take, and plan accordingly. Likewise, do the players have the ability to deny turns? Do their enemies? It matters. That said, even this should only be taken as the baseline, not the rule. Resistances and abilities are always a wildcard. The Intellect Devourer is probably the poster child for this: only 12 AC and 21 HP, but it resists nonmagical damage and can turn a character into a vegetable with one attack.
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Feb 21, 2019 04:19
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99 CENTS AMIGO posted:More character buildchat! You're level 3. Near-death experiences are part and parcel of low-level D&D. While a Fighter dip isn't bad, I'd consider waiting till you hit level 5 to see how the rest of the party evolves; Uncanny Dodge is an excellent defensive ability for you personally, and hopefully the casters in the party should be getting a little better at learning how not to die and casting the spells that are actually useful.
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Feb 21, 2019 05:07
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Right, so - the campaign is homebrew 5E set in a HUGE city-state. There are 6 of us, and I definitely know it's tough to balance once you get past 5 people, nevermind the fact that there's not even a book or module to adjust from (I've started DMing my first campaign in the extensive gap time between sessions, and having pre-built encounters from the books to modify has been a godsend). He does a fantastic job with characters and the setting, and the actual dungeons are really cool and atmospheric. I think a lot of the trouble comes from there only having been like 5 or 6 sessions in the last ten months, and so we're all excited and enjoy the setting, but enough of us were new to the game when we started that there's barely been time to HAVE a learning curve. My wife volunteered to be the party Wizard without realizing all the extra poo poo Wizards have to keep track of, and I've only really gotten better at stuff due to my suddenly really enjoying D&D and getting a bunch of the books and reading everything I could. The party is a Barbarian, Rogue, Bard, Celestial Warlock, Paladin, and Wizard. -The Paladin has missed 3/6 sessions due to work, including the first session, which means our true tank just isn't there a lot (the first session we just didn't have him, the second missed session the DM controlled him but forgot about him a ton, and by the third missed session we kinda realized we'd have to do double-duty if we wanted to live). -The Bard is very RP-heavy and provides a ton of the humor for the campaign but, considering it's also the first time this person's playing a Bard, they're not great at positioning/remembering they have movement and are constantly getting knocked out (and they're usually specifically targeted because their crossbow and Vicious Mockery have done pretty consistent damage). -The Warlock just rolled like poo poo consistently until the last session, but was also the first to get a magic item to compensate for their poo poo-rolling. -The Wizard is my wife, who kinda always defaults to using Lightning Lasso, even when it's not going to help. She understands being a Wizard a bit better now, though. -The Barbarian is good at Barbarian-ing, but as the default tank half the time, he isn't able to do as much damage when he's trying to get people out of jams. -I'm the Rogue and it took me a session or two to even understand the difference between attack/damage roll, but I caught up fast. I just get hit a lot. Okay, so the early combats We started out being hired to clear sewers under the city-state. Our first combat was against 3 goblins and two giant spiders. This is where I got knocked into death throws, the Warlock missed everything, and the Wizard wasn't really sure what to do, but we eventually won after probably taking too much damage. Again, we didn't have our Paladin. In our next session, the Paladin was there (in-story, he "Caught up with us") and we had a quasi-boss fight against a goblin wizard, a strong goblin, and like 3 giant spiders. We did pretty well, and we found out that some dark rituals have been turning kidnapped old people and kids into spiders. We had a third and fourth session of entirely social interaction, although when we pursued a lead of kidnapped people into the slums district, our Bard rolled a 1 on the random encounter table and an orc corpse was thrown out of a tower and landed grundel-first on the Bard's head. In session 5 at the start, we staked out this orphanage and split the party so that four of us went to get food for the orphans and two stayed - the Barbarian and Paladin. The DM had me roll on the random event table, and then roll a D8. I fudged my roll of 7 to a 4, and it's a good thing that I did, because we ran into 4 human supremacist thugs who were super tough, knocked out the Bard, the Warlock rolled like poo poo, and by this point I'm good enough at combat that I'm able to maneuver well and kill 3 of them. We only kept the Bard from being killed during death throws because a goblin kid I adopted (because he helped me give the worst orphan bully a wedgie) came running down the alley and shot magic fireballs. The Party gets knocked out We went back to the orphanage, took a long rest, and then my Thieves Guild lead gives me terrible news: a polymorphed spider (who we found out was the husband of a very nice wizard named Herman who we saved from being polymorphed) that I sent to my guild contacts was "too hot" of a commodity and they sold it to a den of Kenku thieves who were fascinated by the spell. So, naturally (with reservations from the Bard and Warlock) we go to this really cool Clocktower dungeon in the slums where the Kenku live and fight our way to the top after me and the Bard sneak in and let everyone in. We're level 2 at this point. One fight is with a bunch of Kenku, about 8-10. The Bard puts a bunch of them to sleep, but the DM is feeding us subtle hints that "maybe we don't have to fight" and "negotiation is always an option" so we leave two of the sleeping ones alive while taking one hostage to guide us up. We keep climbing the tower and have to fight a Gargoyle. It takes forever, because most of us aren't ranged-capable, the Bard who is doesn't have magic weapons, the Warlock's still rolling like poo poo, and my wife's trying to Lightning Lasso him as per usual. We beat it, and eventually get up the top floor, although not without the stairs getting more slippery and our Tiefling Paladin failing a DEX check and falling on our bard, doing damage to both. We get to the top, and there's this Kenku negotiating with a portly fella. The polymorphed spider is in a cage. I've rolled a 19 +6 in Stealth, so I creep around the edge of the room. The Kenku seems to see me the whole time (granted, at this time I didn't realize that Stealth isn't straight "they can't detect you," which I learned from this encounter), and when I get to the cage and get the spider out, she Misty Steps (didn't know what it was at the time) at me and does some sort of Frost spell. I take the damage fine and the rest of the party clambers in. She does some sort of acid spell at the Barbarian and starts targeting him and generally wrecking his poo poo, I sneak out with the spider, and eventually everyone else realizes they can run. So they do, and this Kenku uses magic flight to pursue us down the tower from the outside and throw lightning at us while the three living Kenku goons also try to kill us. I'm dashing with the spider in my arms so I'm getting the hell out of the tower, but the other five are half-running and half-fighting. Three of them get wrecked by this AoE tentacle spell, and the other two give up with only a little health left and get knocked out. Session 6 is me trying to find them, them having a jailbreak from this Kenku witch's necromancy dungeon, us meeting up and fighting a Kenku necromancer and huge Flesh Golem to clear a path to the exit, and finding out where they've buried our Barbarian alive and rescuing him without dealing with the rest of the dungeon. So we're all alive, and very wary now. The DM after the near-TPK was very "wow, I never thought you guys would even find this dungeon," but he basically railroaded us into going there and threw a crazy powerful witch at us. His brother is in the party, and in the month-and-a-half between sessions, I did a bunch of strategizing with him about what I could do, including turning around and using stealth to get the witch and being told that even after the damage that was done to her, that would be a bad idea and, with the spider in her hands, she'd outright kill us all. This is after being told there were health potions in crates that had ambushing Kenku behind them, but we missed searching them. Then, in the next session, he started me outside the tower without the ability to go back in. The rescue session was cool and panicked and all, but I still took a ton of damage and bonus poison damage from zombie Kenku in a dark tunnel (I don't have darkvision) and it just further instilled in all of us that we need to play very warily, hence why I'm considering the Fighter dip. Writing this out, I'm realizing that we really tend to poo poo the bed without our tank, but can't really control for his presence. I'm a lot better at combat now, and my becoming a DM and actually reading all the spells has helped my wife with the mechanics of it all, but I'm really leaning towards survivability being my main concern right now. I mean, we're all invested as hell in this campaign now, but I feel like we got our one "get out of death" card already. edit: also forgot to mention the jailbreak fights that my Rogue wasn’t in. They didn’t really know how to cope with a pressure plate/dart-shooting-statue hallway trap and it took them getting hit several times to think of just getting low, and the Bard got knocked out in a 10 skeleton/ 1 Kenku wizard novice fight, but they were really clever in handling the big Necromancer/Flesh Golem fight that we reunited halfway through, especially the Bard, and my Rogue basically absorbed all of the Necromancer’s spellslots. 99 CENTS AMIGO fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 05:28
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Low level combat is just really swingy, and the optimal strategy is to either outright neutralize the opposition (ie Sleep), or focus all resources on dealing damage to eliminate it as fast as possible. That said, you could certainly run into issues later if the Barbarian is the only frontline character - Barbarians are tough, but not so tough as to draw in all the damage for a 6 man party and also expect to make use of their Reckless Attack feature, plus there's only so much "interference" a single body can run. Having at least one other melee character (ie the Paladinm, or you) helps immensely by splitting the Gentlemen's Agreement damage across two people Echoing my earlier post, the Fighter dip isn't a bad idea, but you could also wait a little bit to see how the other characters develop. Maybe the Paladin will start showing up more often; the Warlock gets a lot more reliable damage dealing at level 5 with two Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Hex attack rolls and learns that their Bonus Action healing is for picking people up during combat and not to heal between fights, your wife learns that she should use a Light Crossbow and then switch to Fire Bolt as her basic attack, and for spells should fire Magic Missile or Scorching Ray for damage (or figure out the good control options), and you could inquire on whether the Barbarian wants to go Wolf Totem or Bear Totem or become an irrelevant punching bag for the rest of the campaign.
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Feb 21, 2019 06:02
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Yeah, it’s good to read that the experience isn’t necessarily atypical, and a lot of what you just mentioned actually is starting to happen: the Barbarian took Bear Totem, the Warlock does know how to play their character well but just rolled terribly, the Paladin got a 9-5, and my wife took Scorching Ray and is...mostly using Lightning Lasso less. She did take a bunch of RP cantrips, though. I think Toll the Dead is her only other damage cantrip.
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Feb 21, 2019 06:14
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Hey, I'm playing a Cleric (Light, specifically) in my current campaign and I'm just like... Is there any actual reason to stay in this class after level 8 or like maybe 10 tops? The high level spell list for Cleric is really barren and 10-17 is like a big field of nothing. Why IS the Cleric class so weird anyways? They get a bunch of good low level stuff but basically nothing later on. Other casting classes have similar issues but at least they have like, existing high level spell lists.
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Feb 21, 2019 06:24
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99 CENTS AMIGO posted:Yeah, it’s good to read that the experience isn’t necessarily atypical, and a lot of what you just mentioned actually is starting to happen: the Barbarian took Bear Totem, the Warlock does know how to play their character well but just rolled terribly, the Paladin got a 9-5, and my wife took Scorching Ray and is...mostly using Lightning Lasso less. She did take a bunch of RP cantrips, though. I think Toll the Dead is her only other damage cantrip. Good, good. Oh, and Toll the Dead is really good - actually better than Fire Bolt, but I often forget Wizards can take it. And that's fine really re cantrips, you only need 1 reliable basic attack, the rest can be utility. Infinity Gaia posted:Hey, I'm playing a Cleric (Light, specifically) in my current campaign and I'm just like... Is there any actual reason to stay in this class after level 8 or like maybe 10 tops? The high level spell list for Cleric is really barren and 10-17 is like a big field of nothing. Why IS the Cleric class so weird anyways? They get a bunch of good low level stuff but basically nothing later on. Other casting classes have similar issues but at least they have like, existing high level spell lists. Cleric peaks at 10 with Divine Intervention, yeah. Some domains get good features at the very end (Arcana gets a whole bunch of high-level Wizard spells ie Wish), but for the most part there's little to note on their features and list. I'd say get to 12 for Planar Ally and the ASI, and then multiclass into whatever you qualify.
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Feb 21, 2019 06:49
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Effortpost incoming: For newer DMs, one thing that can seriously help to balance lower level encounters in light of the expected power curve of player character adventurers (assuming you're playing with moderately competent players and standard array power levels - not-min/maxers who will still breeze through this poo poo) you should familiarize yourself with Giffyglyph's Monster Maker. Based on a PDF by the same name, this resource can help you quickly create challenge appropriate creatures using genericized stat blocs for the usual CR/experience level per encounters you are building for. I highly recommend that you read the free PDF but if you're in a hurry and want to figure this poo poo out on the fly, there's nothing wrong with that. Let's start with the main screen:  This is the default info that you'll get when you go to the page. Most of the time you'll create you own monsters, but we'll use the template ones here to illustrate a few things first.  This is the basic CR1 stat block for the Glyphling Defender. It's a level 1 creature and next to the XP value you'll see "Standard" meaning it's a regular old creature using regular old HP/Damage values. You may notice it has a class, Defender, and that comes with a Trait: (Defender) Don't Look Away. These are traits that aren't generally found in the PHB or MM, but will provide some level-tuned bonuses for your creatures that can spice up an encounter or give you as the DM some options for more dynamic combat other than "[monster] swings, and hits. Does damage. Player Swings and hits. Does damage." Also, most of the damage is set to fixed amounts. You generally won't roll for damage with these. You can choose to use or ignore this as you prefer. Most of the time these reflect median values, so this Glyphling Defender is probably rolling D3 damage if you feel like doing that.    When you go to create creatures, these are the primary windows you'll be working with. The first one is basic fill-in-the-blank chuff you can edit as you feel. *Be Real Warned* the Type pull-down menu is super important to be aware of. There are 4 options in that Window and they can make poo poo real weird if you change it or aren't aware of what you're doing. Standard creatures have basic stat blocks and HP for a generalized monster at the CR/Experience you're working with. Minion creatures are super weak with very low HP and are meant to be chaff to soak up player action economy or to allow players to use AoE abilities or spells and feel real good about catching 5 or 6 things in their Fireball that are all instantly annihilated. Elite are very strong creatues with 2x HP values and are generally meant to be your "Boss with minion" sort of encounter. A few rounds of obliterating chaff until the party gets to focus down the sack of HP and feel good about killing something with twice the HP of anyone in the party. These usually have 1 Paragon Action (read: Legendary Actions - like from the DMG). Solo are just what the label says. A solo creature, with an additional box to tune for how many player characters you expect to fight against. These clock in with 3-4x HP and have lots of Paragon Actions Standard Creature  Elite Creature  Solo Creature The big thing to play with to differentiate your creatures will be the Traits menu. You should spend a lot of time with this section and it's well worth printing out the traits list from the PDF as a handy reference for when you want to pull something interesting for a creature to do out of your rear end on the fly.  You won't be restricted to a particular (Role) type of skill if you select one for your monsters, but there are a bunch of thematically appropriate traits for each role, as well as a selection of generic ones to select from. I recommend giving Standard creatures 1 trait. Elites 2-3. Solos 3-5. These are the juice. Just be sure not to overuse the extra damage ones, or place it only on Striker type creatures. It may seem like these are overtly easy creatures, but they're very surprisingly mathematically "balanced" for whatever 5e counts as balance in their encounter system framework. It shouldn't take long for you to get a good feel for your players and the sort of challenges that they can handle. I recommend making 1 or 2 minion type creatures that you can sprinkle in to an encounter in case you feel like your players are mulching through too quickly, but beware flooding the combat with too many actions on the monster's side as well. It's a bit of a balancing act, but it's a whole lot better than trying to parse the Monster Manual and make sense of building encounters using the printed system.
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Feb 21, 2019 07:02
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Conspiratiorist posted:Good, good. Oh, and Toll the Dead is really good - actually better than Fire Bolt, but I often forget Wizards can take it. And that's fine really re cantrips, you only need 1 reliable basic attack, the rest can be utility. I have a 13 in INT (I had gotten 14 DEX and 14 CON so that 13 was just kinda floating, went into INT for the hell of it), thinking of going Wizard and just picking up a bunch of stat-independent spells + going Evocation to help with my fireball usage. Maybe War for additional defensiveness? I know Divination is a common option but there's already a Divination Wizard in the party and I don't wanna double up.
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Feb 21, 2019 07:47
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koreban posted:Effortpost incoming: I know we can't bring up other editions, but uhhhh This is good though, and what it's taking from had great encounter design.
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Feb 21, 2019 08:00
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Tooting my own horn here, but my Improved Monster Stats table is intended to make encounter creation piss-easy, and is further validated by how closely the stats on it matches that thing that koreban posted. Or, if you want to build encounters by picking out monsters in the Monster Manual, use this.
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Feb 21, 2019 08:06
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99 CENTS AMIGO posted:More character buildchat! Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 08:42
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Cassa posted:I know we can't bring up other editions, but uhhhh They made 5e better by putting more 4e in it.
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Feb 21, 2019 09:06
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ritorix posted:
Just want to touch on this, is there anything preventing a healer from just holding their action until the enemy turn passes, in this case?
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Feb 21, 2019 09:28
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Cassa posted:I know we can't bring up other editions, but uhhhh We’ve been warned against edition warring so I didn’t bring it up, but I get where you’re going with that and I agree. gradenko_2000 posted:Tooting my own horn here, but my Improved Monster Stats table is intended to make encounter creation piss-easy, and is further validated by how closely the stats on it matches that thing that koreban posted. I like your blog posts and everything that went into them. They’re still bookmarked at the top of my D&D list, but this web app is just dead nuts easier and intuitive and doesn’t require much reading to get to a playable statblock, which is why I made the post for the two new DMs who had similar questions at the top of the page. koreban fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 09:35
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Trojan Kaiju posted:Just want to touch on this, is there anything preventing a healer from just holding their action until the enemy turn passes, in this case? Yeah, you can move next to an ally, Ready to cast Cure Wounds (or any other HP recovery action, like Life's Channel Divinity, but not Bonus Action spells), and set the triggering condition to be "after the enemy turn." I've never actually seen a Cleric do this, but people are bad at the game.
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Feb 21, 2019 09:52
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So I have the chance to rework a character, and I've a particular concept in mind for it. Think Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York. Now from what I recall in the movie, one of the main things was just a total lack of any armor whatsoever. Coat, vest and all that. While Barbarian might be an easy route to go with, I was actually thinking Monk, at least for a certain number of levels. I'd be Level 5 currently, but would want to go to Level 6 at least as I'm leaning towards Drunken Master. Variant Human obviously, still thinking on the free feat there. Below are the general features that seem most useful for the concept: Unarmored Defense - The obvious one, allowing for a high AC between DEX and WIS and making a low STR not feel quite as bad since you aren't hauling around the extra weight. Martial Arts - 1d6 damage for unarmed strikes for the level I'll be at, plus making all simple melee weapons have the same dice. Helps keep with the theme of a cleaver/handaxe. DEX for the attacks, and of course the freebie BA attack of the same dice damage. Ki - Less important overall to me, but being able to do a fourth attack. Dodge, BA Dash/Disengage is nice. Unarmored Movement - Always good to have more move speed. Drunken Technique - Free disengage when using Flurry of Blows is nice when things get hairy. Deflect Missiles - Always fun, if the DM remembers to shoot at you. Slow Fall - Less falling damage is great, especially if you pull some grappling shenanigans. Extra Attack - An obvious one Stunning Strike - Most definitely useful, and would be where plenty of Ki would go at least early on. Tipsy Sway - Recovering from being knocked/going prone easier. And being able to use a reaction to force a miss to hit(no roll) another nearby target. I'm just wondering whether to go full on Monk, or multi-class at some point or another. This is for my local thing where, getting to somewhat high levels is not actually super uncommon. My first thought was a Rogue of some kind, and maybe an inevitable 11 Rogue/9 Monk split. The type of Rogue is the one I'm unsure about though. Swashbuckler is great but this guy isn't built for CHA, though being able to sneak attack easier and the best part of the Mobile feat would be handy.
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Feb 21, 2019 10:00
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Conspiratiorist posted:Yeah, you can move next to an ally, Ready to cast Cure Wounds (or any other HP recovery action, like Life's Channel Divinity, but not Bonus Action spells), and set the triggering condition to be "after the enemy turn." People don't do this because there's a pretty good chance you waste a spell slot and a turn this way.
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Feb 21, 2019 10:02
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Toshimo posted:People don't do this because there's a pretty good chance you waste a spell slot and a turn this way. If the enemy permakills or moves your target ally? E: Damnit nope you meant if you get hit and fail your concentration save, right? Or if you're hit and killed. Or moved. Or maybe grappled? Yeah, there's a few way it could go wrong. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 10:11
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Toshimo posted:People don't do this because there's a pretty good chance you waste a spell slot and a turn this way. Nah, the heal goes off either way, the issue would be concentration (non-factor when using an item or ability). I'd have definitely liked to see it in situations like where you've got a tanky damage-dealing frontline guy down to 10 HP, and other party members otherwise just sat on their turns, like a Bard using Vicious Mockery on the enemy with 4 attacks, or the str10 wis12 Cleric trying to jab it with their spear. I'm not bitter.
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Feb 21, 2019 10:15
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Aha. Just as I thought.99 CENTS AMIGO posted:Our first combat was against 3 goblins and two giant spiders. This is where I got knocked into death throws, the Warlock missed everything, and the Wizard wasn't really sure what to do, but we eventually won after probably taking too much damage. Again, we didn't have our Paladin. I will assume the giant spiders were actually giant wolf spiders, which are the weaker version of giant spiders. So this is assuming the mildest form of this encounter there can be. By the encounter construction rules, you're supposed to compare the effective xp value of a group to the party to gauge how dangerous it is. It's not a perfect system but it does provide a general indication. This encounter is rated Deadly for a party of five 1st level PCs. Which means a strong chance of defeat and some casualties. It's unreasonable to throw a Deadly encounter as the very first fight against a bunch of rookie players who have no idea what they're doing. The four Thugs you described later (I'm assuming at level 2) are rated Hard, which means some characters will be knocked out and there's a slim chance of a casualty. I strongly suspect that your DM is not following the encounter guidelines correctly and accidentally is making things way too hard for you.
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Feb 21, 2019 13:15
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How many viable spells are there for a theoretical Wizard that has an 8 or 10 Intelligence? I'm pretty sure someone on this board played something similar but I don't remember who. I'm not familiar with a lot of the newer spells; I would basically have to only take things that don't require To Hit or Saving rolls.
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Feb 21, 2019 13:53
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Admiral Joeslop posted:How many viable spells are there for a theoretical Wizard that has an 8 or 10 Intelligence? I'm pretty sure someone on this board played something similar but I don't remember who. You’ll be perfectly competent at prestidigitation and can RP a wizard janitor.
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Feb 21, 2019 14:00
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Admiral Joeslop posted:How many viable spells are there for a theoretical Wizard that has an 8 or 10 Intelligence? I'm pretty sure someone on this board played something similar but I don't remember who.  More seriously if you want spells that don't require To hit or Saving Throw someone made a list for his 5 int dwarf wizard: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KpDyRSVkP-FNx9oSMscRHsZkDzIWQkWlqHq2B45nzCg/edit#gid=0
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Feb 21, 2019 14:06
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Toplowtech posted:
This is great! I don't know what level we'll be but definitely higher than level 1, so I'm considering a level of Fighter. Plate mail, a shield, and a melee weapon for melee spells. We tend not to worry about having a hand free for casting but I'll ask the GM when we do session 0.
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Feb 21, 2019 14:20
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Admiral Joeslop posted:How many viable spells are there for a theoretical Wizard that has an 8 or 10 Intelligence? I'm pretty sure someone on this board played something similar but I don't remember who. Level 1: Magic Missile for damage, Sleep always good early. Mage Armor, Shield and Absorb Elements are defense, Protection from Evil and Good is a decent level 1 buff. Fog Cloud and Silent Image are situational. Level 2: Enlarge/Reduce, Invisibility, Knock, Magic Weapon, Misty Step. All nice things to have available. Level 3: Haste, Dispel Magic, Counterspell, Fly. Arcane caster staples. And naturally, write down all rituals you can get your dumb hands on. Of particular importance are Find Familiar, Detect Magic, Identify, Alarm, Tenser's Floating Disk, and Tiny Hut. Cantrips are whatever looks nifty. Prestidigitation, Mold Earth and Mage Hand are the most useful, I find. As an aside, personally, I'd rather play a low CHA Sorcerer with Ritual Caster than a low INT Wizard - Sorc can still Twin buffs and gently caress around with Subtle Metamagic, and is not taking a penalty to the number of spells prepared from low ability score. Admiral Joeslop posted:This is great! I don't know what level we'll be but definitely higher than level 1, so I'm considering a level of Fighter. Plate mail, a shield, and a melee weapon for melee spells. RAW you can't multiclass in or out of Wizard without at least 13 INT. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 14:21
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Conspiratiorist posted:RAW you can't multiclass in or out of Wizard without at least 13 INT. vvvvvv It happens, what's the wizard INT requirement again, 13? Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 14:35
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I forgot about the MC rules  Edit: Mountain Dwarf with Heavily Armored gets me halfway there and solves the free hand problem by not having a shield. Just get me a big two hander for flavor. Edit edit: I was wrong, one of the two campaigns starting soon is level 1 
Admiral Joeslop fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 14:40
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gradenko_2000 posted:Tooting my own horn here, but my Improved Monster Stats table is intended to make encounter creation piss-easy, and is further validated by how closely the stats on it matches that thing that koreban posted. The PDF for giffyglyph actually explicitly credits your site for the stats it's using.
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Feb 21, 2019 16:08
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Admiral Joeslop posted:How many viable spells are there for a theoretical Wizard that has an 8 or 10 Intelligence? I'm pretty sure someone on this board played something similar but I don't remember who. As others have indicated, the name of the game is utility, with a dash of control and a few buffs. But before we talk about that let's talk about SCHOOLS OF MAGIC Conjuration, Divination, and Transmutation are probably your best choices here, though Necromancy and Illusion have their niche. Bladesinger's viable, probably, if you've got the right stats, but that's an assumption. War Magic's eeeeeeeeh, and the rest aren't even worth mentioning in this context. I probably don't need to explain why Divination is useful, but Conjuration lets you create small useful objects on command (or "Large" useful objects if you're a halfling or a gnome; summon cover at will) and has a few solid benefits at later levels, and Transmutation allows for stuff like turning stone doors into wood (or, more realistically, iron locks into wooden locks) so your barbarian can smash them open, counterfeiting money, and silvering weapons. You also get a transmuter's stone. Illusion gives you an extra cantrip to play around with and makes one of the best cantrips in the game even better, but it's very DM-dependent. If you've got the kinda DM who immediately makes every NPC roll investigation (or who chooses to employ passive investigation) any time you create an illusion, it's pretty limited. Otherwise, it's good. Necromancy's a harder sell, but if you can make it to level 6 your skeletons will perform a bit better and you can raise them more efficiently. File this away in the back of your brain for later on. Alright, on to CANTRIPS You should already know the best cantrips are utility cantrips, and you pretty much never need more than one attack cantrip. Even at 10 INT, I still recommend taking a single attack cantrip. Gives you something to do on turns where you've got nothing else to do. Besides, who knows. You might get lucky (more so at higher levels) and everyone gets to share a laugh when your magician who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn manages to toast somebody. LEVEL 1 SPELLS You'll want rituals, of course. Alarm, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Tenser's Floating Disk, Unseen Servant; all good for dungeon-delving, exploration. Find Familiar's in a league of its own and shouldn't require any further explanation or justification. If you're a wizard of any stripe, you want a familiar. Identify's useful if you need to examine a magic item immediately or if your DM rules it necessary to determine a magic item's nature (contrary to the resting stipulation), but you can also do things the slow way. There's also Illusory Script but, honestly, its niche is narrow enough it'll probably never come up unless you're actively looking for an excuse to use it, and it's not a spell I imagine most DMs plan around you having or not having. What else. Sleep is a fairly safe option, I suppose. Color Spray, less safe (less good all-around). The important thing to remember here is a 10 INT wizard at first level can prepare exactly one non-ritual spell, so you'll need to consider opportunity cost. Mage Armor, for instance, is a pretty good spell, but if that's the only thing you can snapcast, and you already cast it on yourself in the morning, you're limited in what you can bring to the table. You still want it, but I'd say later. Of course you can take what you want if you're starting at a higher level. Magic Missile always hits, and is good for harassing enemy casters concentrating on spells. I'd recommend it more for that than for damage. Fog Cloud works without a roll, but requires strategy. Grease has a save, but also makes the target area difficult terrain regardless. That's pretty neat. Out of combat, Disguise Self and Silent Image speak for themselves, especially if you're running a game with a lot of intrigue. Absorb Elements, Expeditious Retreat, False Life, Feather Fall, Protection from Evil and Good, and Shield are all spells you could take, but probably shouldn't. Not at first level. I mean, don't take False Life regardless, but you get what I mean. Spells like these have their place, but not when they're jockeying for space. Absorb Elements is a little better if you're a Bladesinger, but you probably aren't. Has anyone ever used Jump or Longstrider? Honest question. LEVEL 2 SPELLS More rituals. Gentle Repose, Magic Mouth, Skywrite. The first is useful, the latter two are situational. Probably worth having just for the sake of expanding your toolkit, but don't expect to be busting these out much. Beyond rituals, there's Continual Flame, Darkvision, Detect Thoughts, Knock, Locate Object, Pyrotechnics, Rope Trick, See Invisibility, Spider Climb. I think you can suss out for yourself where and when each of these might be useful, depending on the campaign, as well as which ones are less useful. Remember: your capacity for memorizing spells is limited. Choose wisely. Levitate's so good I decided to list it separately so I could tell you a story. Back when I was playing my dude I'd use my downtime to brew/buy alchemist fire, fill a sack with as much as I could carry, then Levitate over encounters and air bomb the field. One time I emptied the entire care package over a boss. Fun times. You get a few more combat options here. Magic Weapon's a solid buff. Invisibility's great. Darkness is kinda redundant with Fog Cloud but you do you. Reduce (on enemies) is largely worthless but Enlarge (on allies) is less worthless. Cloud of Daggers offers damage without a save but requires a choke point to be worth it. Blur, Mirror Image, and Misty Step are all pretty good defensive spells, and you're (at least) third level now which means you get to memorize three whole spells (and cast six). If you've held off on defensive spells till now, treat yourself. You can do some neat stuff with Nystul's Magic Aura, but you won't. Arcane Lock exists. LEVEL 3 SPELLS Rituals. Everybody knows Leomund's Tiny Hut. Phantom Steed is cool. Water Breathing is situational. You will probably never use Feign Death, but who knows. Once I ran a campaign where one of my players got a bounty on his head and Feign Death might've allowed them to fake his death to get it called off. But they didn't because nobody remembers Feign Death. On the other hand, Animate Dead. Summon skeletons to do your bidding. This is a great spell for a low INT wizard, and an opportunity to tell another story. By this point my guy was independently wealthy thanks to his downtime job + all his ill-gotten gains from a life of adventure. Subsequently he raised four skeletons, dressed them up in armor with +1 short bows, had them stand clustered together, cast Unseen Servant in the middle, and had the servant hold a quiver of arrows with Flame Arrows cast on it, which all the skeletons were instructed to draw from. Cost effective? Maybe not. A fun surprise to pull on the DM when he asked us to storm a giant's lair? Yes. Counterspell and Dispel Magic are both good, even with 10 INT. Clairvoyance let's you spy on folks. Fly is Fly, Haste is Haste. Honestly most of the spells at this level have something to offer, regardless of stats. Not the ones that exclusively deal damage, but everything else. Some are more niche than others, but by this point (if you're still playing) you've got room to stretch. It's probably not worth my while to get too into the weeds here. You can memorize five spells now (six if you took an ability score increase), so you don't need to be as conservative with your spell selection. LEVEL 4 SPELLS My wizard retired around here and this post is already long so I'll keep things brief. Conjure Minor Elementals gives you a lot of friends to play with, whose abilities aren't dependent on yours. Smoke Mephits may be weak at this stage but you'd better believe eight of them all spitting cinder breath is gonna suck for somebody. Fabricate lets you build stuff. All kinds of stuff. There are some restrictions, and you'll still need materials, but the sky's the limit and nobody cares if you flunked out of wizard college. Polymorph can turn one of your friends into a Tyrannosaurus Rex even if you're an idiot.
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Feb 21, 2019 17:29
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That's very helpful; I'm actually looking at Sorcerer now due to the prepared spells problem with a low Int Wizard but they do share a lot of spells. I'm also considering Divine Soul, because Healing Word is nice, and Twinned Shield of Faith could be useful at times.
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Feb 21, 2019 17:42
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koreban posted:Effortpost incoming: This is incredible and so useful for my home-brewed world that I'm running. Now I'm down in a 62 page monster maker manual hole. I also realize I need to be better at describing things as a GM after reading all the green boxes in this PDF.
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Feb 21, 2019 18:29
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Surely Longstrider's main uses are for situations where you expect multiple encounters without a short rest (where the duration matters) and on very specific members of the party? Rogues can double or triple-count the movement bonus and probably aren't your first choice for Haste; Moon druids at lower levels benefit from the boosted speed in animal form; a ranged attacker in an open field can kite enemies pretty effectively with just the +10 speed. It's also a way to allow the 25 ft movement members of the party to keep up for an hour's adventuring, if for some reason it's urgent to be going faster. On CR, it's always been an unreliable indicator, and it is marginally more helpful than AD&D's "heck if we know" attitude to encounter balancing, which is topped only by its random encounter tables packed with entries that turn lethal quickly (1d100 orcs, anyone?). The suggestions from the design side of things are helpful, but here's a few more things to be aware of: 1. Monster damage versus PC hit points. This is part of what makes L1 so lethal: many monsters can one-shot your PCs. (Still better than AD&D where hit points were rolled at L1 and you needed an optional rule to survive into negative hp.) That Specter with 3d6 damage can not only one-shot L1 (and some L2) characters, it can permanently kill them at the same time. 2. Monster accuracy versus PC AC. If everyone in the PC group has AC 16 or better, that +2 to hit monster isn't connecting very often, so it's probably fine if two hits will drop a PC as long as it takes one attack per round. If most of the PCs have AC 12, that monster becomes more dangerous; if it gets engaged by the PC with AC 20, it will feel useless, so you need to be realistic about PC tactics and understand that if they're protecting the soft underbelly of the party, that's a game success and not a sign you need to get more lethal. 3. Monster accuracy versus damage. If a monster is either very accurate, or has a way to drastically improve its accuracy (like Pack Tactics), it either needs to be doing smaller amounts of damage or you need to have far fewer of them. Monsters with sneak attack and/or multiple attacks at low level that can gain advantage fairly easily are correspondingly more deadly. 4. It's been said, but action economy is key, especially in 5E where monsters tend to be deadlier in the expectation that they might get 3-4 rounds to act before being defeated. Two kobolds versus a L1 group are a speed bump. Eight kobolds are a threat, and against even a large group they can be a deadly threat, depending upon how you are playing them. And that's the final factor: how are you using your monsters? If those eight kobolds use good tactics against a large L1 group, they are getting 5-8 attacks on the first round (depending on how initiative goes), with pack tactics, almost certainly landing 2-5 hits for a total of 8-20 damage on average. Except against a raging barbarian, that's likely to drop any L1 character. A group without Healing Word is going to lose an action the following round if they get their teammate back up, and they lose an action if they don't. The kobolds can probably drop 2-4 PCs using good tactics, at least for a round. Deploy twelve kobolds and all but the largest groups are in big trouble. But then those equations get disrupted by specific spells. A L1 caster with Sleep can get 4 of those 8 kobolds on average, and the remainder have to decide whether to wake their associates or not, but that assumes the kobolds are clumped together and not scattered. At higher levels, one fireball will kill as many 1/8 CR kobolds as get caught in the AoE. That doesn't necessarily mean pitting a L5 party against 30 kobolds is going to make for an interesting fight. As you get a feel for the system, experiment by running modest encounters with complications of various sorts (4 PCs fighting 4 kobolds on a stone bridge that's starting to collapse) so that the challenge comes from something besides the monsters. Or better yet, design encounters in stages: the party runs across the two kobold guards who are in hiding, either passing by and missing that they're their or killing them. You can then build the encounter more slowly, and secretly delay or accelerate the next "wave" of foes based on how things are going. This is also a good way to run an encounter with a "boss" when you're concerned about him getting killed too easily: PCs can rarely kill an enemy who isn't actually present. If they save their big guns for the boss, they risk getting overwhelmed. The right balance for maximum fun is for the players to feel enough pressure that they aren't at full strength when facing the boss, but not so much pressure that they're tapped out on resources or abilities.
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Feb 21, 2019 20:40
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Bad Seafood posted:I ran a 10 INT necromancer awhile back and posted about him in the old thread. gently caress it, I'm rolling an orc wizard for my next one-shot. This almost sounds fun... once.
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Feb 21, 2019 20:45
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