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Think I might just stick with alert, I need to top the order if I want to get advantage, and being immune to being surprised/snuck up on seems fun
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May 13, 2019 20:40
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I'd rather drop variant entirely and just make normal human not awful so you'd still have a reason to play a human.
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May 13, 2019 20:41
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Anyone have any good let’s play podcasts of D&D (any edition really) that aren’t too memey or rightist?
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May 14, 2019 00:05
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Conspiratiorist posted:In fact, the Fighter/Gloom Stalker combo is a way stronger "1st turn nuke" setup: eight 1d8+1d6+15 attacks, all with advantage, and two of them with an additional 1d8 on top. And you know what? That's perfectly fine - a focused, optimized level 14 archer should be good at its job. It's not going to break anything. Sorry to necro this from a few pages back, but I was away for the weekend. Where is the advantage for this coming from? I figured out the rest, (Fighter 11/Ranger 3 - Action Surge + Hunter's Mark + Dread Ambusher) but not that part (There may be multiple options? The one I saw that seems most obvious was Fighting Spirit from Samurai, but the fact you said fighter rather than Samurai makes me wonder if there are other ways).
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May 14, 2019 00:49
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Gloomstalkers, through their 3rd level ability Umbral Sight, are invisible to creatures who rely on darkvision to see them while in darkness (and have +30ft darkvision if you're already getting it from any other source), so it's fairly easy to position yourself away from any lights to count as Heavily Obscured and thus gain advantage on all your attacks. They are legit better assassins than the Assassin archetype. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 02:02 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 01:59
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Aha. Amazing, and then you could combine that with BM for a stronger fighter side. Thanks!
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May 14, 2019 02:18
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Josef bugman posted:I more meant the whole "hobgoblins are an aggressive, expansionist power" and I then compare it to all the human kingdoms and just sort of raise an eyebrow. I find most fiction and D&D stuff does not tend to treat them differently. Hobgoblins culturally are an aggressive expansionist power. But aggressive human kingdoms are treated just as villainously as them. Evil Empires tend to be the villains no matter what race is running them. Take Greyhawk for example, roughly half of the map is covered in evil empires and kingdoms, most of them human. One of them the Scarlet Brotherhood are basically Nazis. The only one considered worse is the Empire of Iuz which is run by the God of Pain and Oppression.
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May 14, 2019 04:35
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Schadenboner posted:Anyone have any good let’s play podcasts of D&D (any edition really) that aren’t too memey or rightist? I listen to The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, and Dungeons And Daddies. You're probably already familiar with the first two, but Dungeons And Daddies is only like right episodes in. It's about four dads end up in the Forgotten Realms looking for their kids. Anthony Burch is the DM, and Freddie Wong, Will Campos, Matt Arnold, and Beth May play the four dads. It's really good so far, but it's honestly probably a bit to memey for you. I can't shut up about it though.
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May 14, 2019 04:54
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Marathanes posted:Aha. Amazing, and then you could combine that with BM for a stronger fighter side. Thanks! Samurai does let you pull off a fun first turn nova at like level 18, but probably not worth it over Battlemaster in the end. Also, make sure to check if your GM allows for Revised Ranger, which pushes the multiclass even further with the insanely frontloaded early levels. Infinity Gaia fucked around with this message at 05:08 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 05:03
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Soysaucebeast posted:I listen to The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, and Dungeons And Daddies. I mean, my ear-time is p.worthless so I'll give all three a try. Worst thing that happens is I come back here and bitch about it but even that seems kinda  for me, IMO?
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May 14, 2019 05:29
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Alright, going now off the recent discussion of BM vs Samurai - for a gishy sorc build taking 4-6 levels in fighter depending on how many ASIs I end up wanting (already not an optimal build, I know), is BM or SAM the better choice? The character is only 1/2 Fighter/Divine Soul at the moment, but I'm trying to plot out where to go from here. Primarily I'm responsible in the party for frontline DPR and spot healing if needed (in a 6 person party, a Paladin and I are the only people that can heal at all - our current strategy, which seems to work okay, if not great, is just to murder the enemy before healing becomes necessary - our Abjurer will hopefully be able to help more with that as time goes on). At a certain point, being able to get shadow blade up and running, then using appropriate blade cantrips can kick out respectable damage (Assuming level 8 - 5 DS/3 Fighter - 3d8+1d8+potentially/ideally more per attack, with potentially 7 attacks (twin blade cantrip, twin action surge blade cantrip, quicken blade cantrip, reaction twin blade cantrip in a round) assuming I'm willing to suboptimally burn sorc points for more attacks. But which fighter archetype plays into it the best? BM seems to give a lot of versatility, and fits my dex based flamboyant, swashbuckly caster/fighter character well with options like parry, riposte, and feint. Precision attack would likely replace one of those just because it's so good, and because it would help to assure sorc points didn't get wasted by missing a twinned attack. However, only ever having 4 d8s for superiority dice makes this somewhat less attractive. However, the SAM level 3 fighting spirit would still allow for a pretty drat mean nova, and assure the attacks are more likely to hit, at the expense of losing the quickened spell (which is the least efficient use of sorc points in the nova as is). It would also give 3 uses per short rest, which would likely last longer than the 4 superiority dice would. SAM could fit pretty easily into my character concept as a cool discipline underlying the flamboyant, swashbuckly bits. The others don't seem to offer much to this sort of build. AA and EK are clearly out, Cavalier and Banneret also don't offer any additional offense. Champion doesn't offer too much with just the 19-20 critical but I'm not sure if I'm missing something else. Also let me know if I'm somehow misreading this and I have something wrong about how this should shake out. Thanks as always for pointers / feedback!
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May 14, 2019 05:43
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Note that Fighting Spirit recharges on LONG rest for some loving reason. So the Superiority Dice would likely end up giving you more if you get even one short rest in a day. Assuming you REALLY want this specific combination of classes, BM is almost certainly your best bet.
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May 14, 2019 15:04
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Thank you for pointing out that mistake to me, and for the input. I figured BM would probably be best in the end, and BM was my plan since the beginning, but I wanted to see if SAM might be a contender. The class combo, as I said, is knowingly suboptimal, but it's what I have and what I wanted at the core, so I'm trying to do my best with the concept to make sure I'm still carrying as much weight as possible, since we have some newbies and other folks that don't really care to optimize at the table. I honestly don't think, in ~3-4 years of playing 5e, that I've ever taken a short rest. If I ever did, over the course of 4 separate campaigns, it would have only been a few times. I think others have pointed out that this is an issue at other tables broadly. I'll talk to my DM and see what his plans are for short vs long rests and how long short rests take, etc. SAM might be a better choice if we're never going to really get shorts.
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May 14, 2019 15:28
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Anyone got any good articles on a good Session 0?
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May 14, 2019 15:43
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Marathanes posted:Thank you for pointing out that mistake to me, and for the input. I figured BM would probably be best in the end, and BM was my plan since the beginning, but I wanted to see if SAM might be a contender. The class combo, as I said, is knowingly suboptimal, but it's what I have and what I wanted at the core, so I'm trying to do my best with the concept to make sure I'm still carrying as much weight as possible, since we have some newbies and other folks that don't really care to optimize at the table. My groups take plenty of short rests, mostly because there are clearly telegraphed mid dungeon spots with campfires or otherwise designated "relatively safe" spaces with a clearly signposted "bad stuff this way" ahead. Or I just bake them into traveling from point a to point b on the world map (i.e. you travel for a few hours at a leisurely pace, count it as a short rest).
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May 14, 2019 16:40
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No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:Yeah, this is true in OD&D. Law is conflated with communal values and Chaos with individualist ones, and the early books basically said outright that chaotic behavior tended to resemble "evil". You could be a chaotic hero or lawful villain in theory, but in practice that isn't how things worked. This is so wrong. Its hard to even even address this. You cannot map D&D alignments to real life political structures. Now you can map Law / Chaos to political structures in like Warhammer but it doesn't make any sense in D&D.
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May 14, 2019 16:45
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Has anyone played an evil campaign without it devolving into constant theft and random murder? Just because you’re a bad guy doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, to quote a movie.
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May 14, 2019 16:53
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change my name posted:Has anyone played an evil campaign without it devolving into constant theft and random murder? Just because you’re a bad guy doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, to quote a movie. Just like an ordinary heroic campaign, you need to have hooks for a bigger plot, or players quickly become murderhobos. I once played an evil campaign where the players were the devil and four horsemen of the Apocalypse (in humanoid form) and traveled around planting the seeds of destruction, causing wars, tempting mortals to indulge their darker natures... it was great fun and some great roleplaying.
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May 14, 2019 17:02
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I played in a campaign years ago that was basically our party, which was predominantly a bunch of selfish assholes (probably half of us had some form of evil alignment), vs an evil overlord that was after us for nicking his magic book, vs a wicked powerful necromancer who was also after us because he wanted that drat book. The book had chosen our wizard as its owner, so to get their hands on it, he would have to die, and though we were evil, we were still friends and didn't want him to get murdalized (not to mention they would probably murder the rest of us as well and we stood a better chance of survival by sticking together). We weren't traditional heroes, but we did a lot of heroic poo poo just trying to save our own drat hides from these fellas and their minions who were after us and were even more unscrupulous than we were. Sure, we lied, cheated and stole when we needed to, but mostly we were just trying to survive half of the time. A lot of notable Realms locations and other old supplements made an appearance (Undermountain, Dragon Mountain) and the DM was really good at leading us to choices that weren't super railroaded (the conceit of the campaign was that the book was sealed and we had to find all the seals to unlock it, which would be our best chance of surviving), but at the same time gave us a chance to make allies among good inclined folks that probably wouldn't have ever helped us out if we didn't have this book and weren't clearly the lesser evil compared to the other parties that were after it. Many of the evil party members evolved to neutral or good over the course of the campaign, if only because we began to realize how this magic book (an artifact that ensured nothing written in it was ever forgotten) could really gently caress up the world if any of the folks hunting us for it got their hands on it, and because of the help others gave us along the way. Long story short - an evil party can work if their enemies are even worse, and/or if they are forced to work together to survive (and don't tear themselves apart with infighting).
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May 14, 2019 17:12
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change my name posted:Has anyone played an evil campaign without it devolving into constant theft and random murder? Just because you’re a bad guy doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, to quote a movie.
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May 14, 2019 17:39
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The way I see it, you can play Evil vs. Good as selfish vs. altruistic tendencies. That means you probably have to work a little harder (as DM or player) to come up with motivations for working together, but it's not impossible. Personally all my successful "evil" games have been in VtM (I mean you're a loving vampire, support for being evil is built into the game), worst person I've played in D&D is LN.
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May 14, 2019 17:51
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I’m about to enter a game as an LE kobold rogue and I think I’ll steal things to give the other party members as gifts, to establish positive relations with my new packmates, on whom my survival and wellbeing will depend.
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May 14, 2019 18:10
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Liquid Dinosaur posted:I’m about to enter a game as an LE kobold rogue and I think I’ll steal things to give the other party members as gifts, to establish positive relations with my new packmates, on whom my survival and wellbeing will depend. Blackmail, too. Tricking people into doing bad things (that you make sure are bad things), and then getting favors out of them), classic evil move.
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May 14, 2019 18:24
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Liquid Dinosaur posted:I’m about to enter a game as an LE kobold rogue and I think I’ll steal things to give the other party members as gifts, to establish positive relations with my new packmates, on whom my survival and wellbeing will depend. had this idea for playing a tabaxi ranger where I'd go out into the wilderness and bring back goblin limbs for my party to show that I really appreciate them
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May 14, 2019 18:24
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change my name posted:Has anyone played an evil campaign without it devolving into constant theft and random murder? Just because you’re a bad guy doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, to quote a movie. I ran a Ranger in 13th Age that woulda been Neutral Evil in 5e. Its surprisingly easy. The things that kept people guessing on his alignment: Picked a big fluffy dog as a companion Bought gifts for party members Genuinely cared for aforementioned dog Tipped generously We were halfway through the game before it tipped that he was an absolute fucker to everyone not in the party, used his dog as an excuse to get overly violent, and was overtipping to willfully crash economies. On our last mission it came out that his plan for the artifact we were chasing was to overpopulate dogs everywhere so they would outcompete and starve out magical creatures.
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May 14, 2019 18:39
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Yeah you just have to give them a hook. If players don't have a motivation they'll find their own and without alignment to guide them away from acting like total bastards, their motivation will become "gently caress that guy in particular"
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May 14, 2019 19:06
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Marathanes posted:Alright, going now off the recent discussion of BM vs Samurai - for a gishy sorc build taking 4-6 levels in fighter depending on how many ASIs I end up wanting (already not an optimal build, I know), is BM or SAM the better choice? The character is only 1/2 Fighter/Divine Soul at the moment, but I'm trying to plot out where to go from here. Primarily I'm responsible in the party for frontline DPR and spot healing if needed (in a 6 person party, a Paladin and I are the only people that can heal at all - our current strategy, which seems to work okay, if not great, is just to murder the enemy before healing becomes necessary - our Abjurer will hopefully be able to help more with that as time goes on). Just stick to Fighter 1, maybe Fighter 2 for Action Surge. Champion's expanded critical range is in fact nice if you plan to use Shadow Blade extensively (in darkness/dim-light, with Elven Accuracy), but a) Sorcerer progression is better and b) there are also generally better uses of your Concentration than Shadow Blade, like Twinned Haste or Twinned Polymorph or Twinned Greater Invisibility. (Since you're a Divine Soul, there's also Twinned Shield of Faith, Twinned Protection from G&E, and Spirit Guardians) Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 19:25 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 19:23
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change my name posted:Has anyone played an evil campaign without it devolving into constant theft and random murder? Just because you’re a bad guy doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy, to quote a movie. I tried so hard to make it work, it didn't. A year and a half of running from town to town loving up jobs and running from the authorities before they ended the world. Also if you're still looking for a group, my table is in much better shape now with a catering/restauranteur campaign that is decidedly not murerhobo'ing. You should come to one of AR's game nights to hang, and I can find a way to write in another employee if you end up in.
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May 14, 2019 19:28
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I was def planning to go to at least 3 in fighter, and once I do that it seems foolish to not go to 4 to pick up the ASI. Fighter 5-6 is something I've been debating a lot over but honestly they're almost certainly not worth it. I was planning on using shadow blade a lot (though we do have one human in the party that threatens to foul that up anyways), but you're very right that twinned haste/greater invis are drat powerful, and will be especially so since we have 2 sorcs in our 6 person party. If I elect to not use shadow blade and instead haste myself and our paladin or fighter, I guess my default turns look like - action blade cantrip (potential twin), haste action blade cantrip (potential twin), any potential bonus action spell/quickened spell, and a reaction spell or OA/War Caster opportunity blade cantrip. I'd be losing a d8 or two per attack by using a rapier instead of shadow blade, but that'd likely be more than made up for by the twinned haste on the paladin or fighter. Greater invis would cost an attack but disadvantage to be hit and advantage to hit are huge, especially twinned. You've got me mostly sold on that, but my mind is stuck on getting to at least fighter 3 - it seems like I lose out on some really solid potential offensive benefits by not going to at least fighter 3, but that's likely completely offset by additional sorc progression, (especially once I get 3rd/4th level sorc spells) eh? Haste is just so drat good. So when should I snag the 2nd level in fighter? I was planning on just nabbing it early on, as my next (4th) level, but perhaps I should make it my 7th level, after I grab Haste? Did they errata something about Spirit Guardians or something? I swear I had looked at that and thought it wasn't twinnable (I think it targets self). The other low level cleric spells for twinning are very helpful. Thanks for your input, as always, Conspiratiorist.
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May 14, 2019 20:33
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Nephzinho posted:I tried so hard to make it work, it didn't. A year and a half of running from town to town loving up jobs and running from the authorities before they ended the world. Ah cool, maybe. How does a restaurant-focused campaign work even?
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May 14, 2019 20:36
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Is there a professional-sounding D&D podcast that's funny/goon-ran, like the 40K Badcast?
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May 14, 2019 20:44
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Marathanes posted:I was def planning to go to at least 3 in fighter, and once I do that it seems foolish to not go to 4 to pick up the ASI. Fighter 5-6 is something I've been debating a lot over but honestly they're almost certainly not worth it. I was planning on using shadow blade a lot (though we do have one human in the party that threatens to foul that up anyways), but you're very right that twinned haste/greater invis are drat powerful, and will be especially so since we have 2 sorcs in our 6 person party. Sadly you can't cast spells with your additional Haste action, but it's very worth it nevertheless if you're hasting a paladin alongside yourself. As for Spirit Guardians, sorry didn't mean to imply it was - just that it's a good concentration spell used as is. As for when to grab Action Surge, I'd want until after Sorcerer 6. Sorcerer progression is just so strong, you know? More spells, more slots, more Sorcery Points. If your table is being generous with Short Rests then I can see the point of grabbing Battle Master. Honestly though, I think the character concept you were going for would've worked better mechanically as either a pure Eldritch Knight (gets to grab Shadow Blade at level 8), or by taking a single level of Hexblade instead of Fighter.
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May 14, 2019 21:03
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It probably would have purely mechanically been better, but I'm willing to make a few concessions for the sake of the character feeling right in my mind - which is why I may yet juggle the idea of taking a 3rd level for BM stuff, but if I do it'll be later and once I get war caster and haste I may never look back. I don't love the idea of being a buffbot, but being a selfish assmaster that only uses my concentration on myself is worse - Spirit Guardians may be a good middle ground when i feel like being blastier/rolling more dice personally with my concentration - convince the other sorc or the abjurer to haste the fighter and paladin and I can just roll with them and ghost some fools. We'll see how it plays out. Thankfully making a few concessions for the sake of flavor isn't such a bad thing at my table, and I'm definitely trying to be as good as I can be given such concessions, but as you've said before, that is not the case at all tables, hence why I'm always happy for the input you and others have.
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May 14, 2019 21:18
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Marathanes posted:It probably would have purely mechanically been better, but I'm willing to make a few concessions for the sake of the character feeling right in my mind - which is why I may yet juggle the idea of taking a 3rd level for BM stuff, but if I do it'll be later and once I get war caster and haste I may never look back. I don't love the idea of being a buffbot, but being a selfish assmaster that only uses my concentration on myself is worse - Spirit Guardians may be a good middle ground when i feel like being blastier/rolling more dice personally with my concentration - convince the other sorc or the abjurer to haste the fighter and paladin and I can just roll with them and ghost some fools. We'll see how it plays out.
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May 14, 2019 21:23
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Infinite Karma posted:A Hasted Rogue plus Commander's Strike can do three sneak attacks per round, too, which isn't nothing. They only get 1 reaction per round so no, two SAs per round is the cap (except for level 17 Thief Rogue).
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May 14, 2019 21:33
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Conspiratiorist posted:They only get 1 reaction per round so no, two SAs per round is the cap (except for level 17 Thief Rogue).
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May 14, 2019 21:59
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change my name posted:Ah cool, maybe. How does a restaurant-focused campaign work even? Basically each scenario is "we have an event to cook for, we are going to make this dish, we have this many days to prepare". They have a list of ingredients to go after, some purchased, some bartered, some adventured/hunted, all of varying degrees. Party prioritizes what they want to get and where they want to go within their time limit. After they prep, cooking time is just a d20 check that they might be proficient in, or have some bonuses from good equipment. 1-5 you've ruined the dish (-5 on subsequent checks), 6-10 it was bad (-3), 11-15 meh (0), 16-20 (+3) came out great, 21+ masterpiece (+5). Ingredients scale up to the head chef NPC's final check with the same sliding scale of success. They roleplay through service and are graded based on the quality of the dish, any sides/drinks they come up with, and the service. Some events are more intense than others (I'm going to have a game show at some point where cooking requires you to be in the oven and take passive damage the whole time unless you can fireproof yourself, fighting NPC contestants for ingredients, etc). Example: for bulette wellington they needed to make a puff pastry (d20 pastry check, +3 because they bartered for some fresh butter), a red wine glaze (d20 mixology check, +3 thanks to having some really nice herbs), a bulette filet (d20 quartermaster check, +0 because it was an elderly one on the edge of the nest), and mushrooms (these were a flat +5 from procuring them in the forest). The head chef rolled d20+proficiency+0 for the mediocre cut meat+3 for the nice glaze+5 for the mushrooms-3 for the messed up pastry. He ended up with an 11, a serviceable dish but not a knockout. The service was good and they used the rest of the red wine in a great cocktail. They ended up with an overall positive review, but 0 stars. The cooking minigame is meant to be a way of giving them options in what adventuring they want to do and act as a bit of a clock on events to prevent constant resting. Episodic nature makes it easy to keep up to date on what's happening. Restaurant setting makes it easy to add and drop players due to scheduling issues or PC death because the help wanted sign can always go in the window. Kitchen minigames provide me with lots of ways to hand out loot without destroying combat, and even the most OP kitchen tool is still just going to cap out at giving the head chef's roll a slightly better mod. Right now it is the pastry chef, bartender, quartermaster, and busboy. Head chef is an NPC warlock with a patron rat. We also order burritos and drink several bottles of wine.
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May 14, 2019 21:59
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A new version of the Artficer is out on UA. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/artificer-returns It looks a lot better than the previous version.
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May 14, 2019 22:26
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Let's say you have a level 12 party of six people and five of them are hilariously bad at doing damage. What would you play to try and cover for that? Right now I'm an Eldritch Knight and it's working pretty well, but I'm getting that itch to alter the character. e: rest of the party is life cleric, shepherd druid, devotion paladin (does decent damage, misses a lot of sessions), some sort of ranger (misses a lot of sessions), and a sorcerer (also does plenty of damage, but relies on fire spells a lot and uh...we're fighting a lot of demons and devils right now). Mr. Humalong fucked around with this message at 23:33 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 14, 2019 23:29
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wokow6 posted:A new version of the Artficer is out on UA. Lol get hosed Beastmaster Ranger, the Battle Smith is the real pet class. Bonus action commands, better HP and AC than animal companions, self healing, the Protection Fighting Style ability just to start. Edit: Didn't even notice Battle Smith gets to use Int for attack and damage with magic weapons Piell fucked around with this message at 00:59 on May 15, 2019 |
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May 15, 2019 00:47
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