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Does anyone in here have a good suggestion for a campaign that focuses more on the social and exploration pillars, rather than combat? My group generally prefers just having one, maybe two big combats per session, but a lot of official modules are just loaded down with combat and trap encounters. Anything better for more of a narrative focus? Even unofficial stuff, long as it's good. And on that note: Are there any good guides around to creating your own adventures? I'm really bad at not making them incredibly linear, or lacking in detail.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:52
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Out of the official one Curse of Strahd is the closest thing to that. Levelling up is recommended to be based on milestones rather than experience and most of the loot carried by enemies is jewelry they are wearing or valuables they are carrying (and the shops only carry basic stuff so there isn't too much to spend it on) so there is incentive to avoid fights if possible except in the service of completing a quest, rescuing an NPC, or gaining access to one of the artifacts that can help defeat Strahd.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:10
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:On the other side of that coin, as a player, how do you deal with a DM who seems to have a "correct" solution in mind? I'm sorry, but it sounds like your DM really enjoys feeling clever, and will absolutely do so at their players' expense.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:12
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How literal is a) An angel swoops down and catches you b) A note is left in your pocket saying it was a dumb plan ?
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Feb 28, 2019 23:16
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:Does anyone in here have a good suggestion for a campaign that focuses more on the social and exploration pillars, rather than combat? My group generally prefers just having one, maybe two big combats per session, but a lot of official modules are just loaded down with combat and trap encounters. Anything better for more of a narrative focus? Even unofficial stuff, long as it's good. I've been playing the Eberron adventure league campaign and so far there's not a ton of combat and plenty of room for RP/non combat problem solving.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:25
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Despite my issues with Dragon Heist it does have cool RP and urban exploration options and is much lighter on combat than most modules.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:23
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They just dropped the new Artificer and it's. . well, it's different. https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA-Artificer-2019.pdf
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Mar 1, 2019 00:26
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I like the Alchemist getting a homunculus and the Artillerist getting a robot pet rather than both getting a robot pet.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:34
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:On the other side of that coin, as a player, how do you deal with a DM who seems to have a "correct" solution in mind? You have a classic case of "lovely GM" and I'm sorry but it is terminal. Probably. Reminds me of the GM that ran Strahd in my group. I tried to Detect Evil with my Paladin to determine if these two creepy kids asking us to go into the house to rescue someone were evil. "Dude, your evil radar just goes off everywhere because this whole world is evil." Yeah sure thanks, I'll just erase 50% of the abilities I get at level 1.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:45
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Admiral Joeslop posted:You have a classic case of "lovely GM" and I'm sorry but it is terminal. Probably. Which is stupid because most NPCs in Curse of Strahd are non-evil and the creepy kids are (spoiler?) lawful good in any case
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Mar 1, 2019 00:52
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Admiral Joeslop posted:You have a classic case of "lovely GM" and I'm sorry but it is terminal. Probably. BattleMaster posted:Which is stupid because most NPCs in Curse of Strahd are non-evil and the creepy kids are (spoiler?) lawful good in any case This is not how Detect Evil works at all quote:1st-level divination https://www.5esrd.com/spellcasting/all-spells/d/detect-evil-and-good/ The Divine Sense feature for Paladins also has the same wording
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Mar 1, 2019 00:58
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:On the other side of that coin, as a player, how do you deal with a DM who seems to have a "correct" solution in mind? If he is looking for a particular path, and willing to force you down it, just make him railroad you, and follow the railroad. It's better than getting passive-aggressively screwed with for taking the initiative.
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Mar 1, 2019 01:01
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Big Mouth Billy Basshole posted:I've been playing the Eberron adventure league campaign and so far there's not a ton of combat and plenty of room for RP/non combat problem solving. Is there a place I can buy (or DL if it's free?) that if I'm not in adventure league? Not really familiar with how AL works, but that sounds perfect for what I need. Might try Dragonheist, too.
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Mar 1, 2019 01:01
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AnEdgelord posted:This is not how Detect Evil works at all That's what it was, I was trying to determine if they were ghosts or similar, without touching them. That was 3 years ago, I can't remember everything!
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Mar 1, 2019 01:02
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AnEdgelord posted:This is not how Detect Evil works at all Oh oops, but also quote:blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. I guess it uses beta rays? How much detect evil and good can you be exposed to before you reach your occupational limit as an adventurer?
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Mar 1, 2019 01:03
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:On the other side of that coin, as a player, how do you deal with a DM who seems to have a "correct" solution in mind? Just ask what's up. Maybe there's some horrible creature on this base you don't know about and can't reasonably find out about and it's just gonna kill you. The angel thing is weird as hell so I think your dm should be willing to just say you can't go here without ruining everything just trust me
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Mar 1, 2019 01:04
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Admiral Joeslop posted:That's what it was, I was trying to determine if they were ghosts or similar, without touching them. That was 3 years ago, I can't remember everything! In that case he was even dumber for not even pretending to know what the spell description actually says plus he wasn't even hiding anything anyway since they are illusions, not ghosts
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Mar 1, 2019 01:05
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Malpais Legate posted:They just dropped the new Artificer and it's. . well, it's different. Hmm some cool flavorful stuff there. First impressions: The turret effects should scale by class level. The artillerist would be a decent tanky blaster if the hexblade sorlock didn’t exist. That capstone could lead to some really wacky gear-dependent builds.
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Mar 1, 2019 01:16
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ProfessorCirno posted:I'm sorry, but it sounds like your DM really enjoys feeling clever, and will absolutely do so at their players' expense. This is a very succinct way of capturing my complaints. Gharbad the Weak posted:How literal is Literally literal. The campaign is set in Ravnica, so the military are the Boros, who are known to include angels and giants in their ranks. And we're being sent on this mission by the Dimir, the resident spy guild. So it's just barely plausible that "they have an angel, angels have truesight, angels don't listen to reason" and "the guy invisibly tailing you drops a note into your pocket recommending an alternate plan". But it still feels really lovely. (Another example: "You can't Detect Poison on alcohol, because it will always go off because alcohol is itself a poison!  ")
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Mar 1, 2019 01:24
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It has tons of utility and weird creative possibilities, it doesn't seem obviously bad or weak or too strong out of the gates. It didn't jump out at me as having obnoxious multiclass options, and the subclasses seem different enough. I'll have to actually play it but compared to the poo poo shows in the previous iterations, this feels like a roaring success so far.
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Mar 1, 2019 01:27
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Admiral Joeslop posted:That's what it was, I was trying to determine if they were ghosts or similar, without touching them. That was 3 years ago, I can't remember everything! Well they were not ghosts. Cause you meet their ghosts later. Kaysette posted:Hmm some cool flavorful stuff there. First impressions: The turret effects should scale by class level. The artillerist would be a decent tanky blaster if the hexblade sorlock didn’t exist. That capstone could lead to some really wacky gear-dependent builds. You get a second one later on, but yeah they are pretty weak. But the Artillerist is not reliant on them or anything at least. They are pretty much just a cool bonus. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 01:31
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:(Another example: "You can't Detect Poison on alcohol, because it will always go off because alcohol is itself a poison! To be fair, a bunch other people go by this ruling. The penalty for getting drunk is even the poisoned condition. However "Their location and type also become known to you." means you will know if there are extra poisons in the mix." So casting it means you will detecting if there is a different poison in the alcohol.
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Mar 1, 2019 01:35
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Mendrian posted:Weird rules interaction I haven't seen an answer to anywhere else. Similar questions, but this one seems distinct. It's pretty obvious to me, though I don't know if there's a strong rules citation for this, that what would happen is: 1. the monster attacks Hank, which triggers your Sentinel 2. you spend your reaction to use the triggered Sentinel attack 3. you roll to attack, and you hit 4. you spend an Superiority Die to activate Maneuvering Attack 5. Hank uses their reaction to move up to half their speed, and this movement cannot trigger OAs 6. Hank moves away from the attacking monster 7. because Hank is no longer within reach, the monster's attack never goes off and the idea here is that if the Sentinel attack killed the monster, we'd obviously consider that the attack wouldn't go off, either
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Mar 1, 2019 02:55
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Malpais Legate posted:They just dropped the new Artificer and it's. . well, it's different. So, and I guess take everything I say with a grain of salt because I have both seen the previous UA Artificer, and I have seen and even played some of the phenomenal Revised Artificer homebrew but, well it seems pretty bad. I am not sure I am confident enough to say it is actually worse than the previous UA, but it seems like a hot mess. So if you liked the old UA Artificer being able to throw at will acid bombs or fire bombs, scaling better than a cantrip, or doing at will healing flasks that are instead limited by how many times each person can benefit in a day, or some of the other interesting things the Alchemist could do...well you can't do any of that anymore. Now you have to pick a cantrip like any other spellcasters and make use of that. On the one hand less of the all or nothing save things, but some of those cantrips will also be save for no damage. The Alchemist feels absolutely nothing like the previous Alchemist archetype. If you liked having the big gun of the Gunsmith well that is completely and utterly gone from the Artillerist. There is nothing even remotely close to it. The Artillerist will play nothing at all like the Gunsmith from the previous Artificer. 20th level feature of being able to attune to 6 items, and getting +1 to saves per attuned item, is the same. But no longer can you get increasing number of attunements as you level so it just dumps all of it on you at level 20. Instead of getting certain magic items, from a list, as you level you instead get these Infusion options. Kind of like Invocations and you can change them as you level. I think I like this version better than the previous version, but I haven't checked to see if all the old options are still there. That said there are some stinkers. Have to be level 8 to get a +1 weapon that can shed light? Only reason I can see to take that is if you already got the +1 weapon that scales to +2 at level 12, and wanted to give two allies magical weapons. The class is a better spellcaster now I believe, and gets Cantrips now. Including a number of attack cantrips, which is good because odds are that 99% of the time or more you will be using a cantrip to attack. That said the 5th level ability is kind of like Extra Attack but only works with magical weapons, the wording makes it sound like the weapon attacks on its own which sounds like they took it directly from the Infusionsmith archetype of the Revised Artificer homebrew. Except that there is no range on it, no explanation of what it actually means and it doesn't even actually call out a weapon floating about with you or anything. So the feature is kind of questionable, and will only ever have a use if you are attacking with a weapon and also have a magic weapon. No idea if you can make both your normal attack and the extra attack with the same weapon if it is magical. Of course this doesn't matter much because the class gets Cantrips and will almost always be better off just using them. Especially since the Alchemist gets Int to damage on two damage types of cantrips, and Artillerist picks one then two cantrips that they can get Int bonus to as well. Basically the cantrips and the Extra Attack like feature conflict. The class gets no big boom stick that they might actually want to attack with more than once. It also gets a new 1st level spell that requires Concentration, lasts for up to an hour, and makes a weapon that they specifically are wielding magical and get an extra d6 of elemental damage, the only scaling this spell gets is that Concentration can be maintained for 8 hours if you use a 3rd or higher spell slot. The important thing is that while it has cantrips it is still not a full spellcaster. It gets nothing like Sneak Attack, nothing to really make the Extra Attack equivalent actually useful or to really bring it to respectable damage. Now there is the Companion feature. There were two big problems with the Companion feature of the old Artificer. One was that all Artificers got one, even if it didn't fit the concept. The second was that you got it at a decent CR when you first got it, and it was a useful companion early on, better than what the Ranger got I believe, but it didn't scale... at all. This new UA Artificer still has the exact same two problems. They have different companions depending on archetype but still. The Homunculus of the Alchemist is now Tiny, has meh to garbage stats, fairly bad AC and is pretty terrible at combat, which it can only take part in if the Alchemist uses their Bonus Action to command it. And it has 3/day pretty blah to bad abilities. Might as well just ignore it. The Turrent of the Artillerist has much better AC, slightly less HP, and basically no real stats. The Turret is not a constant companion like the Homunculus it is instead summonable 1/day, with additional summons costing spell slots. The Turret also takes a Bonus Action to do anything. The Turret has 3 options, a non scaling pitiful fire cone, a nonscaling long-ish range decent at low level damage single target shot, or a temp hp aoe generating turret. Slightly more accurate, or a pitiful aoe option, as a bonus action for a battle per day per spell slot. Its pretty terrible but probably better than the Homunculus if you can manage to have it out for a battle, but after the first battle of the day you might be better off not bothering. Especially if you have anything else to do with your bonus action. So yeah still has the trouble of not scaling as you level, and being forced on all current archetypes, but ignoring those two problems that also existed in the previous version it is just inferior all together compared to the companion from the previous UA Artificer. So all in all I liked a few minor things, but otherwise felt like it was either a step back or just a terrible attempt at trying to redo the Artificer. And am I the only one wondering why this Int heavy class that seems focused on Cantrips but also having Extra Attack like options, doesn't have anything like Shillelagh or something that lets them attack with Int when using weapons?
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Mar 1, 2019 03:11
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Yeah, personally I really liked the previous version of Artificer, I just wanted them to jazz that one up a bit and make it a little more exciting to play, with the robot replaced and turned into a third subclass. The fact that they basically threw everything out and started from scratch is really kinda disappointing to me. Getting a thunder rifle or acid bombs felt like unique options to me, now you're stuck using cantrips or crossbows like everyone else for the majority of your actions, it seems like. It also seems weird to me that if you stick to cantrips, there are a lot of wasted bonuses to weapon attacks, and if you stick to weapon attacks, there are wasted cantrip bonuses. Maybe the math works out and the class is really powerful or whatever but it seems to have lost a lot of the flavor it once had.
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Mar 1, 2019 03:27
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Just had a pickup 5e game after decades away from RPG dice (Advanced Edition). The character I was handed clicked well for me in the session and I have a chance to continue with it. Lvl 2 Ranger - Stout Halfling - 10 18 12 14 15 12 After a bit of comedy party arguing, we subdued a Goblin Boss's mount, and now we have Bill the Dire Wolf which is now important to my character for RP. What development goals should I plan for to integrate a Dire Wolf with my Ranger in a smart way? I feel like a trick rider and shooter from a hard knock circus. Extreme soft spot for protecting animals and unarmored party members.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:00
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:Literally literal. I'm reliably the "there exist no in-game solutions to out-of-game problems, talk about it like adults" guy and I still want to burn this game to the ground through in-character actions.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:00
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:(Another example: "You can't Detect Poison on alcohol, because it will always go off because alcohol is itself a poison! Yeah, this is 100% someone addicted to the smell of their own farts. Sounds like their enjoyment is going to come at the expense of your own in most cases, since it sounds like what they enjoy is being "smarter" then you.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:37
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:Is there a place I can buy (or DL if it's free?) that if I'm not in adventure league? Not really familiar with how AL works, but that sounds perfect for what I need. Might try Dragonheist, too. If you search for Embers of the Last War on DMs Guild or elsewhere you should be able to find the adventures.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:38
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:Yeah, personally I really liked the previous version of Artificer, I just wanted them to jazz that one up a bit and make it a little more exciting to play, with the robot replaced and turned into a third subclass. The fact that they basically threw everything out and started from scratch is really kinda disappointing to me. Getting a thunder rifle or acid bombs felt like unique options to me, now you're stuck using cantrips or crossbows like everyone else for the majority of your actions, it seems like. It also seems weird to me that if you stick to cantrips, there are a lot of wasted bonuses to weapon attacks, and if you stick to weapon attacks, there are wasted cantrip bonuses. I looked over it with my player who had just spent a year-long campaign as an artificer, ending at level 16. We had to do a lot of homebrewing on it to keep him competitive with this fellow partymates, but we agreed this new artificer would have required twice as much maintenance for the same payoff. I like the ideas they're going for, but boy howdy that homunculus would not scale well. I'm glad to see they upped the spellcasting progression, but the leaning into the spellcaster elements really just makes Alchemist a lovely wizard with a built-in familiar. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they threw the baby out with the bathwater.
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Mar 1, 2019 05:06
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The Homunculus and Turret don't really need to scale much, as they look more to just be extras. Abilities like infusion look to me were the class will shine.
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Mar 1, 2019 05:42
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I spent some time looking at the Artificer, and the question that has me stumped is, what is the artificer meant to be good at? Static all-day bonuses to arms and armor is nice, but the limit on items infused means the artificer isn't exactly kitting out the entire party. It does have cantrips which is nice for a half-caster, and getting potent cantrips earlier than most casters is nice too, but that's kind of all it has in terms of standard-action offense. I know the complete and utter lack of companion scaling looks bad, and it is, but at least it only takes a bonus action to use, so it's not too awful compared to stuff like PAM, Crossbow Expert, and Martial Arts. The turret specialist is at least a coherent idea; a 2d8 spell attack may not scale, but it's still comparable to an upcast Spiritual Weapon, and that's pretty good. Spending a 1st level spell slot for each turret after the first seems pretty steep though, especially for a half-caster. It probably wouldn't even be an issue if it was completely resource-free, with the only caveat being the limit on turret(s) deployed; spending an entire action is honestly opportunity cost enough. The homunculus specialist, on the other hand, is kind of a mess of loosely-related ideas. Access to long-duration flight at level 3 is honestly really neat, since it does negate a lot of typical mundane obstacles like a sheer wall or a broken bridge, but I'm not sure what else you can really do. The fact that the turret uses a spell attack but the homunculus doesn't, for example, is kind of godawful; I'd get it if the damage doesn't scale, but for the attack roll to not scale with Proficiency, the one thing that connects everything? That's pretty garbage. I don't really see a sensible play pattern for the Alchemist either; the Artillerist at least has a clear pattern of putting down a turret and shooting Firebolts and Ballista shots, but the Alchemist kind of just... flails around with weak cantrips? You could probably give the Artificer both subclasses simultaneously and it would probably still be on the low end of reasonable. Overall, it really seems just... disappointing. I haven't looked much at the old Artificer, so I wouldn't know just how much of a step backwards this is, but it definitely seems like they've completely failed to learn anything at all from the Ranger, i.e. the best-known failure of 5e, especially in regards to the lack of companion scaling. The first question I asked myself was, what does an artificer do better than any other class? And I can't really think of anything. The next question I asked myself was, why would I ever take an artificer over a cleric? And I also don't have a good answer to that. The best thing I can really say is that if I wanted to play an artificer, I know what abilities my reflavored cleric or wizard ought to have.
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Mar 1, 2019 06:44
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I've got a player who is a Gunsmith Artificer right now, and I really had to consider how I presented the Revisited version to him, since it pretty much is an entirely different class. I want to be excited for him if he likes it, but frankly I wouldn't want to switch over if I were him and I'm not planning on making him. They clearly were responding to the folks who were unhappy with the idea of a dedicated gunslinger subclass, because they basically removed it and came up with an Eberron-flavored warlock. It seems like they've got three or four competing subclasses that they're trying to combine into two, and it's not working well. I can definitely see why they mentioned that they plan to spend more time on the Artificer in future UAs, since this latest iteration is more rough than diamond.
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Mar 1, 2019 06:53
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I really liked the alchemist bag the original had and am sad to see it gone.
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Mar 1, 2019 07:13
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Kaysette posted:The artillerist would be a decent tanky blaster if the hexblade sorlock didn’t exist. I'm thinking of playing a Hexblade in an upcoming campaign, what is this hexblade sorlock you are speaking of?
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Mar 1, 2019 09:08
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lockdar posted:I'm thinking of playing a Hexblade in an upcoming campaign, what is this hexblade sorlock you are speaking of?  Half-Elf (10 14 16 8 10 17) is best for Elven Accuracy, but any race that can start with 16 CHA, 14 DEX, and at least 14 CON is functional. Start Sorcerer for Constitution save proficiency; Origin doesn't matter much, but Draconic (Fire, tougher) and Shadow (Darkness trick) are best for what we're gonna do. Level up sorcerer, take Quickened Metamagic plus something else. Though that something else should be Twinned Spell because that's literally the best metamagic. Now, you can do this next step whenever you want through your Sorcerer progression, subject to how soon you want to start firing Eldritch Blasts and wear armor vs having Fireball/Haste and whatnot, but take two levels of Hexblade - Eldritch Blast invocation, plus Devil's Sight (unless you're a Shadow sorc). Just two levels are needed (and recommended), but you can go for three if you want say the Tome Pact. Go back to Sorcerer for the reminder; you want more sorcery points. So what does all of this do? Well, when you get to character level 11 your Eldritch Blast is going to be 3*(1d10+5) plus an additional 3*(1d10+5) by casting it again as a Bonus Action for 2 Sorcery Points. That's very competent damage. And you can make all of these attacks with with advantage by casting Darkness (that you can see through) or Greater Invisibility. And with a pool of 9 sorcery points that you can replenish by consuming your plentiful slots, it's spammable. Oh yeah, and you have Medium Armor and Shield proficiency, so your AC is good. And you can hit in melee using Charisma, so if you want to gish it up with Green-Flame Blade (which if you're Draconic will be bonused) you can. End result is then, a Hexblade Sorlock which has optimized martial-level damage in a fairly tough package, while retaining access to near full spellcasting plus plentiful cantrips for utility.
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Mar 1, 2019 09:46
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re: Gunslinger We've got a new player joining my regular group that's a Bladesinger but with gun(s) instead of blade(s). Basically Gunkata from Equilibrium. Whether this ends up being totally broken remains to be seen in about a week for the first session with a Gunsinger.
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Mar 1, 2019 12:30
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cowboy
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So a high AC wizard with a gun?
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Mar 1, 2019 14:47
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clusterfuck posted:I've been reading this and it's good, except the price. Maybe it’s just my phone but this link doesn’t want to work for me. Which title were you recommending?
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Mar 1, 2019 15:37
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Arcane Weapon doesn't appear to be limited to one attack per round, so you could use it with arcane armament and crossbow expert for 3d6 bonus damage on 3 hits.
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Mar 1, 2019 16:21
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