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Toshimo posted:And also your Bonus action, which is often also an attack. It’s a 5% chance, or if you kill the enemy. I’ll argue that if something is close to dying and there are other targets nearby, you’ll just attack it yourself so we can eliminate that scenario. As far as 5% goes, yes it’s per attack. But let’s say you’re down to your last attack for your turn and you haven’t critted (in other words you haven’t had the opportunity to use your bonus action). Now you have a choice of using that last attack for commander’s strike on the rogue or attacking the enemy yourself. What do you do?
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Aug 28, 2019 23:54
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Conspiratiorist posted:You get a C-, for the effort. I'll post the crunch tonight. You don't have to be condescending about it, we're adults here. I'm interested to see how there's any other aspects that would change anything of what I said though. There's definitely the fact that this kind of damage potential comes online for the Fighter earlier, especially if they started off as Variant Human, but I'm pretty sure I've taken into account all the options. nelson posted:It’s a 5% chance, or if you kill the enemy. I’ll argue that if something is close to dying and there are other targets nearby, you’ll just attack it yourself so we can eliminate that scenario. As far as 5% goes, yes it’s per attack. But let’s say you’re down to your last attack for your turn and you haven’t critted (in other words you haven’t had the opportunity to use your bonus action). Now you have a choice of using that last attack for commander’s strike on the rogue or attacking the enemy yourself. What do you do? They were talking about the additional attack provided to you by Polearm Mastery. It's only ever a 1d4, but it does get the benefit of being able to add a superiority dice to the damage plus using GWM. Arthil fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 28, 2019 23:59
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Arthil posted:Yeah I edited to take into consideration Polearm Mastery. A ranged rogue is unlikely to be hidden both for their own turn's attack and also for an off-turn reaction attack, so you'll have to find some other way to trigger Elven Accuracy, to even consider that. Then, there's also the extra per-attack riders (+X Weapon, Flametongue) that also are doubled for the fighter, GWF, etc. In short, yes, it's a small bump of damage, but we're talking about maybe 5 damage at the cost of the rogue's reaction, which they should have some real good options for. It's very ok.
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Aug 29, 2019 00:01
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Toshimo posted:A ranged rogue is unlikely to be hidden both for their own turn's attack and also for an off-turn reaction attack, so you'll have to find some other way to trigger Elven Accuracy, to even consider that. I mean yeah if we're taking friggin' Flame-Tongue weapons into account then it gets a bit more difficult. However... you aren't getting a bonus action attack if you are swinging around a Flame-Tongue Greatsword, not without critting or killing another enemy. There are no Battle Master options that will provide an attack for a bonus action.
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Aug 29, 2019 00:05
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Arthil posted:I mean yeah if we're taking friggin' Flame-Tongue weapons into account then it gets a bit more difficult. However... you aren't getting a bonus action attack if you are swinging around a Flame-Tongue Greatsword, not without critting or killing another enemy. There are no Battle Master options that will provide an attack for a bonus action. I think you will find the upcoming Eberron book comes with a Flametongue Double-Bladed Scimitar so you don't even have to pay the feat tax. But, we're going awful deep into charop for a thing that's unlikely to happen often enough to matter.
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Aug 29, 2019 00:16
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I haven't seen Conspiratiorist's math, but I'm fairly sure that the point of contention is that you're not taking hit chance into account. The fighter could be using precision attack to add 1d10 to their attack rolls, which is going to do significantly more damage on average than adding it to their damage directly.
Ineffable fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 00:19
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Goddamn, what do you even do with a character like that? Isn't literal godhood somewhere around 30th level?
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Aug 29, 2019 00:50
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Arthil posted:You don't have to be condescending about it, we're adults here. Sorry, I was trying to be witty but I've had a really long day. Other people have addressed the major contention points: - You're not factoring in accuracy, which is where Precision shines (and Archery FS, but let's not get into that yet). - You're not looking at magic weapons, either, and when you're talking level 13+ then we'll certainly be fielding +1 at least. No need to get into the more extravagant weapon types. - Rogue can't give Hide advantage to both its attacks, so for the sake of simplification we consign it to its normal action, meaning it's not a factor in this analysis. - Lastly, GWM critical hits mean the Bonus Action attack will be 1d10 instead of 1d4 when combined with Polarm Master. It's just 14.26% chance of bumping the damage die up, but all these little bits add up.
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Aug 29, 2019 00:51
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FRINGE posted:That wasnt actually possible in ADnD. He was playing some kind of house game and is mad the rules werent good. BECMI had the Immortals rules (The "I" in BECMI). This is incorrect. After awhile, some classes (but not all) simply have a footnote to their advancement tables describing per-level advancement with no cap listed. Fighters can go on forever, taking 250,000 XP to level up each time. In addition, 100th level characters are presented for fun Monty Haul-style play in the adventure Throne of Bloodstone.
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Aug 29, 2019 01:08
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Reposting this cause y’all have just been babbling about edition wars poo poo that nobody cares about. Advice very much appreciated. Epi Lepi posted:I'm thinking of playing a Circle of Dreams Druid for a Level 10 one shot. Party will be 3 other players, one a Barbarian, one leaning Sorcerer and one debating between Fighter and Bard. I have never ever played a Druid so I have some questions:
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Aug 29, 2019 01:37
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Epi Lepi posted:I'm thinking of playing a Circle of Dreams Druid for a Level 10 one shot. Party will be 3 other players, one a Barbarian, one leaning Sorcerer and one debating between Fighter and Bard. I have never ever played a Druid so I have some questions: Not a systems master, and also not a super optimizer, but If I was making a 10 Dreams Druid: 1) I'd be sure to grab War Caster or Resilient (CON) - this will help make sure you don't lose concentration if you summon something or use Healing Spirit or whatever else. The other I'd use for ASI on WIS. Not sure if it's the optimal choice, but it's what I'd probably do. 2) I wouldn't - Druids have all of the needed healing stuff and a few things that Clerics don't, plus as a Dreams Druid you'll have a bunch of d6s to sling for healing anyways. Remember - dead monsters don't inflict damage, so the best thing you can do is put down/control threats before healing is needed. 3) For debuffing / controlling / buffing / healing I'd take at least some picks from the following: Healing Word, Faerie Fire, Heat Metal, Pass Without Trace, Healing Spirit, Conjure Animals/Woodland Beasts/Minor Elementals/Elemental, Wrath of Nature, and Polymorph. I'd focus on using your actions to control/debuff/attack and use your bonus actions to heal with your Dreams d6s. Really, once you have a good debuff running with concentration (or a summon), you'll be cantriping for damage anyways, unless you're using more offensive spells, which you seem to be leaning away from. Clerics have better buffs than druids imo (not counting polymorph), but druids have some good debuff and control options, especially in their summons (though some people hate summons, and they are semi-DM dependent). If you do really want more buffs, a Cleric dip would give you Bless, which is great, and possibly the best level 1 spell buff there is. I'm sure some other folks might have some other spell choices that are good that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. 4) Wild Shapes will be utility only for you, so pick something that can fly, something sneaky, and anything else that might fill a niche that your skills/stats don't cover. I'd probably use more common sorts of forms than a Moon Druid would, things like horse, cat, owl, mastiff, bat, etc.. that can blend into multiple kinds of environments.
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Aug 29, 2019 02:01
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The two best Druid spells are Call Lightning and Spike Growth, fight me edit: Healing Spirit is good too though.
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Aug 29, 2019 02:35
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My land druid pretty much only turned into a giant eagle after I unlocked that form. You can also do a Quetzalcoatlus if you want to get huge.
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Aug 29, 2019 02:48
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Epi Lepi posted:Reposting this cause y’all have just been babbling about edition wars poo poo that nobody cares about. The first piece of advice is that this is a level 10 spellcaster for a one shot. The worst thing you can do isn't to have less than the optimal amount of healing. It's to have a character that's too complex for the amount of prep you put in and to spend most of your time faffing around with your character sheet and holding the game up. 1: Building your ability scores is never wrong and is generally absolutely right if you don't already have a 20 in your primary stat unless you are going for a very specific build. The only exception is that if your Wis is an odd number you might want the Observant feat and never get snuck up on again. But only take it if it bumps your Wis up to an even number. (It's difficult to overrate Perception) 2: Remember what I said about keeping it simple. Teleporting as a bonus action is also great - and that's your level 10 Druid of Dreams ability. It also prevents damage, which is always better than healing it. And teleporting is fun. Don't take the Cleric. 3: Cantrips: Guidance, Shileileagh, Create Bonfire (or Firebolt), Shape Water 1st: Entangle, a healing spell (Goodberry, Cure Wounds, or Healing Word - Dreams already has bonus action healing so Healing Word isn't essential and the other two are better out of combat), - and see if you need either detect magic or protection from elements 2: Darkvision and Pass Without Trace are amazing. Lesser Restoration is something someone needs in every party.. 3: Conjure Animals is superb - but a little antisocial unless you prepare properly. Speak to your GM. Call Lightning is a superb combat spell. Someone needs Dispel Magic in the parrty. 4: Polymorph (who wouldn't want to turn into a T-Rex? Or turn an ally into a T-Rex), Stone Shape, Wall of Fire 5: Scrying, Wall of Stone, Greater Restoration are all amazing. Conjure Elemental is great. You don't need to prep Reincarnate as there's the 10 day limit. Wildshape is obsolete for combat (if you must there's the giant toad to swallow people). You want to be able to fly, swim, and stealth with it. Eagles for speed, owls for darkvision, bats for blindsight - and their giant versions are sometimes both faster and more able to take a hit although they are less subtle. Swimming: Octopus, giant octopus, or some sort of fish. Stealth: riding horse, warhorse, rat, cat, dog - or whatever else in the place you are in will get ignored. You're not trying to not be seen, you're trying to have no one care if they do see you (just don't e.g. turn yourself into a rat when there are cats around)
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Aug 29, 2019 02:56
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Yeah healing word is one of the most important tools in a 'healers' arsenal. Past the first few levels combat healing isn't so much about playing whack-a-mole with health and much more about making unconscious characters conscious again. It's basically impossible to out-heal an even leveled encounter.
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Aug 29, 2019 03:00
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Do people here house rule the minimum range for crossbows and bows? I feel like all my fights are happening close enough that anyone using em will always be rolling at disadvantage. It’s not been a huge problem as our ranger has a plus 8 or something insane but it means our sorcerer with a crossbow has been unwilling to use it most of the time.
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Aug 29, 2019 03:47
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... What minimum range? The only minimum range I know of is having disadvantage in melee. Are you reading the range rules right? If shortbow range is listed as 80/320, you roll normally if you're within 80 feet and you have disadvantage if they're between 80 and 320 feet. More than 320 and they're out of range.
Bhodi fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 03:54
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Yeah there's no minimum range rule that I'm aware of. That'd make sense for artillery tho.
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Aug 29, 2019 04:04
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Bhodi posted:... What minimum range? The only minimum range I know of is having disadvantage in melee. Are you reading the range rules right? If shortbow range is listed as 80/320, you roll normally if you're within 80 feet and you have disadvantage if they're between 80 and 320 feet. More than 320 and they're out of range. Ah, we must have been interpreting it incorrectly then. Good news!
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Aug 29, 2019 04:38
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You do get disadvantage if there's an enemy within 5 feet of you, even if you are not shooting at that particular enemy.
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Aug 29, 2019 05:53
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Mendrian posted:Yeah healing word is one of the most important tools in a 'healers' arsenal. Past the first few levels combat healing isn't so much about playing whack-a-mole with health and much more about making unconscious characters conscious again. It's basically impossible to out-heal an even leveled encounter. Making most healing spells a full action again was one of the worst decisions 5e made. Getting rid of minor actions is, in general, the real problem, but it's so obviously bad when it comes to healing, because it's almost never mathematically worth it to heal someone unless they're about to lose a turn if you don't, which means even a party with 3 healers who have a ton of healing spells can have people go down a bunch of times in a medium difficulty encounter because the healers are saving their heals. It's absurd.
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Aug 29, 2019 08:11
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Lurdiak posted:Making most healing spells a full action again was one of the worst decisions 5e made. Getting rid of minor actions is, in general, the real problem, but it's so obviously bad when it comes to healing, because it's almost never mathematically worth it to heal someone unless they're about to lose a turn if you don't, which means even a party with 3 healers who have a ton of healing spells can have people go down a bunch of times in a medium difficulty encounter because the healers are saving their heals. It's absurd.
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Aug 29, 2019 08:55
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Lurdiak posted:Making most healing spells a full action again was one of the worst decisions 5e made. Getting rid of minor actions is, in general, the real problem, but it's so obviously bad when it comes to healing, because it's almost never mathematically worth it to heal someone unless they're about to lose a turn if you don't, which means even a party with 3 healers who have a ton of healing spells can have people go down a bunch of times in a medium difficulty encounter because the healers are saving their heals. It's absurd. The healer problem is symptomatic of a few deeper, systemic problems, I think. For one, damage in D&D has always, for as long as I can remember, been extremely bursty - the nature of rolling attack rolls against AC means attacks either hit you, or they don't. Your character sheet might say you have 30 hp, which is about average for a level 3 character with a d8 hit die and a +3 CON modifier, but practically it might be worth as few as two or three hits from most CR 2-3 monsters. This has the consequence of making trickling, in-combat healing almost completely useless - often times, your party members will either be at full health, or they'll be one hit from dying and a few points of HP won't put them above the threshold of surviving another attack. Something like a cantrip that, on a failed save against a hostile target, dealt 1d6 damage and healed an ally for your WIS modifier, would be worse than Sacred Flame for most of the early levels, since the extra 2-3 health is probably not enough to save anyone from another round of enemy attacks. A heal that's big enough to keep up with incoming damage has to be as costly in terms of time, which means eating up an entire action. Healing Word is the exception, but it's also a lot less potent in efficiency. The other problem is that designing fun and enjoyable healers has been a challenge for all games of all genres since pretty much forever. Nobody wants to play the healbot, and clerics historically suffer in popularity due to their popular perception as heal bots. In a game that's typically about playing out your characters and stories from your favorite pieces of fiction, being the guy that's responsible for making sure nobody runs out of not-dying points is usually not anyone's idea of fun, and a game where someone is forced to play that role against their will is a pretty messed up and flawed game. For healing to not feel awful, it has to be time-efficient and not eat up your actions, and for trickle healing to work, the system needs to throw damage in trickles as well, as opposed to the huge chunks it tends to do right now, and I'm not sure how much that's possible in a d20 system where success is always all or nothing, with not a lot of room for close hits or near misses. As an addendum, I'm fine with combat healing being inefficient if the game is balanced around the assumption that combat healing is also unnecessary, barring spot treatments like Healing Word to bring someone back on their feet. And for the most part, the game has done an okay job there: the people that want or need to be in the thick of things have tools to survive there, while the ones in the back still have tools to mitigate some incoming damage. lightrook fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 09:17
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lightrook posted:The other problem is that designing fun and enjoyable healers has been a challenge for all games of all genres since pretty much forever. Nobody wants to play the healbot, and clerics historically suffer in popularity due to their popular perception as heal bots. In a game that's typically about playing out your characters and stories from your favorite pieces of fiction, being the guy that's responsible for making sure nobody runs out of not-dying points is usually not anyone's idea of fun, and a game where someone is forced to play that role against their will is a pretty messed up and flawed game.
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Aug 29, 2019 09:41
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lightrook posted:Nobody wants to play the healbot I think this is, in itself, a thing we've turned into conventional wisdom that may not be true. Nobody wants to play a boring character. Most people find martials who just passively deal reliable but not outstanding damage per turn with normal attacks and survive on the strength of passive defenses lovely, too, no matter how "good" they are mechanically. Peoples' reasons for disliking AD&D Clerics were less to do with people not liking healers or even dedicated ones, but the fact that everything about how the class was written in the core was boring. They couldn't use any fun weapons for arbitrary fluff reasons, most of their non-healing/killing spells were incredibly boring stuff like minor buffs instead of the wacky bullshit Mages got, and even the method of their healing was boring; touch-range, automatic success, roll some dice. Even just having a "quick", ranged, minor heal and a bigger, slower, touch-range one as options at the same level is the kind of thing that would make healing much more exciting if they were better balanced against one another and the game in general. I think there's a conception that healers have to be doing damage and beating guys up to be fun or appeal to a decent number of people, and I think that's untrue; there are absolutely people who love playing supporting roles, or whose idea of a hero is someone who keeps everyone else alive. You can totally make a healing-dedicated healer people are excited about if you do things like give them a variety of ways to heal. 4E did a pretty good job with this, but it sure wasn't in the PHB1. 4E Clerics are probably the most uninteresting and poorly-designed Leaders, and stand out doubly because 4E nailed the rest of the "core four" within the constraints of that system.
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Aug 29, 2019 10:36
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Arivia posted:In addition, 100th level characters are presented for fun Monty Haul-style play in the adventure Throne of Bloodstone.
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Aug 29, 2019 11:49
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Most of our healing is either bonus actions (celestial warlock’s radiant light) or done between combats. Are not most groups the same? Also inspiring leader is pretty wonderful for giving a nice thp buffer after every short or long rest so that healing is less needed.
nelson fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 12:59
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Speaking of inspiring leader, I wish there were more healing options involving temp HP. While I'd never want a class to be a MMO-style healbot, many MMOs and CRPGs have different flavors of healing that typically take the form of direct heal, heal over time (HOT), and warding. You can even dichotomize it into proactive and reactive healing since HOT just wouldn't work that well with the current 5e flow of combat. Proactive healing with a full action almost never makes sense in combat for reasons already stated here, but a bonus action spell like Healing Word + Blade Ward that grants temp HP and a resistance to physical attacks while you have em would be neat. e: and yes I know 4e bards exist
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Aug 29, 2019 14:51
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They could at least go back to some level of percentage healing.
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Aug 29, 2019 15:08
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Are there even any HoTs/regens in 5e? HoTs work well in vidya games because they take care of the bookkeeping, but in a tabletop game, I could see them being a pain in the rear end to track. Temp HP are essentially MMO shields.nelson posted:Most of our healing is either bonus actions (celestial warlock’s radiant light) or done between combats. Are not most groups the same? Also inspiring leader is pretty wonderful for giving a nice thp buffer after every short or long rest so that healing is less needed. This all comes down to your group and especially your DM. My groups are good about designing fights to account for the fact that we don't have a ton of healing, so most of it is done out of combat. However, as many people in this thread are fond of noting, that doesn't account for bad groups / DMs.
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Aug 29, 2019 15:24
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in other news, the final three artificer subclasses are gonna be Alchemist, Artillerist, and Battle Smith https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/cx1vqy/alchemist_subclasses_confirmed_29_minutes/
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Aug 29, 2019 15:53
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Boooo my little robot face
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Aug 29, 2019 15:56
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No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:I think this is, in itself, a thing we've turned into conventional wisdom that may not be true. Nobody wants to play a boring character. Most people find martials who just passively deal reliable but not outstanding damage per turn with normal attacks and survive on the strength of passive defenses lovely, too, no matter how "good" they are mechanically. i mean if you look at video game queue times "nobody wants to play the healer" is a pretty universal statement
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Aug 29, 2019 16:28
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Marathanes posted:Are there even any HoTs/regens in 5e? HoTs work well in vidya games because they take care of the bookkeeping, but in a tabletop game, I could see them being a pain in the rear end to track. Temp HP are essentially MMO shields. Regenerate works entirely passively once cast, while Healing Spirit is functionally a HoT. Aura of Vitality is also a HoT of sorts, providing a small amount of healing every turn provided the caster commits their Bonus Action. They all work best as out-of-combat casts, however.
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Aug 29, 2019 16:32
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I loving love playing the healer, especially in online games. It's a fast track to instant gratification from anyone you play with and makes you the glue that holds the team together. Ever play Mercy in Overwatch? You're auto guaranteed to get "most useful party member" voted at the end of a match unless someone else on your team is a literal god. And in D&D, if you're the only healer in the team, that means instant and infinite leverage as far as party decisions go and can often result in a lot of tense moments managing the entire crew. Granted, a lot of these dynamics came from the fact that I was the only healer more often than not and a lot of the social aspects fed into the fun of being the primary healer/party defense/support person. 4e really helped ease off that with all the different ways party members were encouraged to play support to one another plus all the ways everyone got their own form of healing and/or damage evasion. 5e I haven't personally played cleric but that's largely because 5e Paladin is a total slam dunk in terms of preventing damage, healing, etc. Honestly, the whole idea of support caster falls better into the Bard's hands at the moment anyway, Cleric isn't really about support to me as it's a midweight caster who also happens to brawl. edit: So I think what I'm getting at here is that being beefy guy or shooty wizard who takes down the dragon means you get your gratification from the DM. Making a healer be fun has largely been a matter of my fellow players being happy that I'm there. Ramos fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Aug 29, 2019 |
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Aug 29, 2019 16:41
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FRINGE posted:I havent looked at that since it existed on paper, but I thought the Bloodstone stuff marked that up as "special rules". No. There's guidelines for how to GM for them that basically amount to play the game rules as written so they aren't overpowered but their earned abilities do matter. I believe the series used the Battlesystem special miniatures battle rules though.
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Aug 29, 2019 17:00
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Elfgames posted:i mean if you look at video game queue times "nobody wants to play the healer" is a pretty universal statement Video games suggest that people hate playing tank just as much. More, in some games.
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Aug 29, 2019 17:06
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Taciturn Tactician posted:Video games suggest that people hate playing tank just as much. More, in some games. That's just because game designers often confuse "reliable" with "unexciting". A tank that just soaks damage is boring gameplay that should be handed off to an NPC. A tank that controls the battlefield and sets up decisive combos is lots of fun. People want to feel like they're making an impact on the field.
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Aug 29, 2019 17:18
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Turns out my party is playing a campaign called Storm King's Thunder. My goody two shoes high elf started a combat that had us kill the mafia that tried to take over Nightstone in a protection racket, but now we're being invaded by orcs with no protection racket to protect us.
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Aug 29, 2019 18:13
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Azza Bamboo posted:Turns out my party is playing a campaign called Storm King's Thunder. I'm running SKT for my group. We spun off of Lost Mines so we started in Triboar. They were given some time to check out the town and meet people but instead opted to just drink in the tavern the whole day. The next day when the fire giants attacked and I started pulling out NPCs for them to control, only 2 of which they had met, one of my players realized "oh huh we probably should have done stuff yesterday. It did accidentally help focus the next step of the journey, before I blow it open once they hit Everlund.
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Aug 29, 2019 19:22
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