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Mr. Humalong posted:None I can think of off the top of my head, besides maybe the spell-less ranger option? Ranger is not a very good class in 5e. There are some real lovely caster subclasses too, it's just that the base class makes them still good.
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Oct 6, 2019 01:03
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change my name posted:Gloom Stalker and Horizon Walker revised ranger seem good, idk. Yes, as long as your DM still allows you extra attack since they removed it from the revised base class (I have never met a DM that doesn’t allow it). Monster Slayer is fine, too, if more of a “attack spellcasters” type. (Because I always get stuck DMing dohohohohoho)
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Oct 6, 2019 01:37
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Infinite Karma posted:There are some real lovely caster subclasses too, it's just that the base class makes them still good. Personally I find the Way of Tranquility Monk to be the absolute worst combination of class and subclass. Monks already struggle to make an impact, and the Tranquility tradition doubles down on this by emphasizing all of the MAD qualities of the class. It offers up some fairly subpar nonconfrontational abilities and the best part of the class is an ability to heal the other players after combat is over. You're a walking Healing Potion that can talk your way out of confronting the bad guys.
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Oct 6, 2019 03:13
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Mr. Humalong posted:Yes, as long as your DM still allows you extra attack since they removed it from the revised base class What's this now?
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Oct 6, 2019 03:25
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When the Revised Ranger came out in UA the class itself lost Extra Attack. They specifically called out that the two original, not Beastmaster, archetypes gained Extra Attack as an additional feature at 5th level. The other Ranger UA archetypes that came out either at the same time or since then, except maybe after the supposed there is no Revised Ranger bs thing, all either called out that they got Extra Attack at 5th level if used with the Revised Ranger, or got something else at that time. The Revised Beastmaster got something else there. Now when some of the UA archetypes for Ranger were finalized they kind of removed the Extra Attack line, as it didn't make sense for using with the actual PHB Ranger. One would hope a DM who lets you use the UA Revised Ranger would also give those same archetypes the Extra Attack.
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Oct 6, 2019 03:32
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Ranger being such a mess was the first and still the biggest problem I have with 5e. The idea of a class that specializes in hunting monsters and traveling the lands they live in has so much fun potential. But nope, we got the most uninspired and awful class. Like how do you manage to make a class more boring than Fighter without purposefully trying to?
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Oct 6, 2019 03:55
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Kaal posted:Personally I find the Way of Tranquility Monk to be the absolute worst combination of class and subclass. Monks already struggle to make an impact, and the Tranquility tradition doubles down on this by emphasizing all of the MAD qualities of the class. It offers up some fairly subpar nonconfrontational abilities and the best part of the class is an ability to heal the other players after combat is over. You're a walking Healing Potion that can talk your way out of confronting the bad guys. The problem with monk archetypes is it's hard to justify using ki points on anything other than stun locking the biggest threat. I played in the new epic they put out for avernus and they made the mistake of including a solo encounter. The monk went first and the enemy literally never got a turn.
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Oct 6, 2019 04:18
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I don't think our monk has ever succeeded at stunning anyone. His save DC is only 13 and I guess we fight a lot of enemies with good CON.
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Oct 6, 2019 04:38
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I don't think our monk has ever succeeded at stunning anyone. His save DC is only 13 and I guess we fight a lot of enemies with good CON. The issue just comes back to the major MAD requirements for Monk. You need Dexterity to fight, Wisdom for abilities, and Con to survive getting caught in melee. Tranquility then pins its abilities largely on Charisma for an extra serving of MAD. At least PHB Rangers have their spells and the knowledge that when they get lost in the woods they'll get featured by the DM. The Tranq. Monk just seems in the way.
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Oct 6, 2019 04:57
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I asked upthread about multiclass options for a Gloom Stalker Ranger. I had been considering a Rogue, to supplement the shooting and the sneaking. Today we had a fight against a boss who had piercing immunity, which meant I pretty much had no contribution to that fight. I hereby award bonus points to the Sorcerer who said to me, "I don't think shooting it is working, you should try something else." So I'm interested in giving myself some more options now. "More options" seems to me to indicate spellcasting. Druid would be an obvious choice, thematically, but I'm seeing a surprising amount of people on the internet advocating for a Ranger/Cleric multiclass. Is that an insane idea? Because I have to admit it has some appeal. I've even been playing the character as someone who keeps up his people's old ways and reveres their nature god, so it makes some sense. What would be a good domain to go with? I'll stipulate some things first: I still intend to go on with the shooting and the sneaking, I definitely want the character doing that, he's still a Ranger, though as shooting drops off, I may reflavor some of the spellcasting as shooting magic arrows. I do plan to get to level 5 of Ranger, because the level 4 ASI, 2nd level Ranger spells, and 2nd Attack are all good things, not sure if I'd delay them or not. I'm not overly concerned with playing The Most Optimized Character, or else I wouldn't have started as a Ranger. A Cleric will be really good no matter what domain I pick, so I might as well have fun with it, and pick something that works with what I already have going. So, War? Trickery? Nature? What domains are fun?
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Oct 6, 2019 09:21
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Rogue isn't really going to give you more combat options. You could do Life Cleric for the Goodberry/Healing Spirit synergy.
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Oct 6, 2019 09:29
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I got distracted during a session today and started combining two absolutely moronic ideas in my head: 1) how do I make Tavern Brawler good, and 2) how much "passive" dmg can I stack per attack [to offset Tavern Brawler being garbage]. Question B was, why not just be a Monk? As far as I got, Var Human Ranger was the way to go, taking Hunter's Mark and the +1d8 on damaged enemy trait, plus Dueling to stack with Tavern Brawler, to give me: (1d4 - unarmed or improvised) + [str mod] + 2 (dueling) + [1d8 if injured] + [1d6 if marked] Post-Ranger 3 was where I got stuck, because the level 4 ability score and level 5 extra attack really gently caress up the scaling for this. I'd originally thought about multiclass Barb or Fighter, but every class feature that's not an Extra Attack really hurts the build because every attack basically doubles those numbers. Any advice on where to go from here, in order to make my drunken barroom brawler improvising idiot savant a better slammer and jammer, or should I (B), just be a Monk?
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Oct 6, 2019 10:11
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El Fideo posted:I asked upthread about multiclass options for a Gloom Stalker Ranger. I had been considering a Rogue, to supplement the shooting and the sneaking. Today we had a fight against a boss who had piercing immunity, which meant I pretty much had no contribution to that fight. I hereby award bonus points to the Sorcerer who said to me, "I don't think shooting it is working, you should try something else." So I'm interested in giving myself some more options now. Not sure how much overlap there is with Gloom Stalker, but the UA for Twilight Cleric did just drop.
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Oct 6, 2019 10:14
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cowboy
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El Fideo posted:I asked upthread about multiclass options for a Gloom Stalker Ranger. I had been considering a Rogue, to supplement the shooting and the sneaking. Today we had a fight against a boss who had piercing immunity, which meant I pretty much had no contribution to that fight. Are you a UA Ranger or a PHB ranger? If the latter, become the former. Why do you want to multiclass? Keeping pure Ranger will get you +1 to shoot and sneak next level when you get your +2 dex, and a second attack the level after that. If you're thinking about going Rogue just swap out to a Rogue and write "Ranger" on it.
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Oct 6, 2019 11:01
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I don't think our monk has ever succeeded at stunning anyone. His save DC is only 13 and I guess we fight a lot of enemies with good CON. Most monks I see prioritize Wis over Dex. You can force up to 4 of those con saves in a turn as from level 5 when stunning strike is unlocked. A stunned creature loses it's turn and attacks against it are at advantage and it automatically fails strength and Dex saves so a higher save DC does a lot more for you than hitting slightly more. Also you can stunning strike any monk attack so you can potentially shut someone down on there own turn to if you get an opportunity attack.
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Oct 6, 2019 12:26
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Kaal posted:The issue just comes back to the major MAD requirements for Monk. You need Dexterity to fight, Wisdom for abilities, and Con to survive getting caught in melee. I don’t think you’re supposed to be caught in melee as a Monk. Take Mobility. Go in, hit stuff, get out.
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Oct 6, 2019 14:02
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nelson posted:I don’t think you’re supposed to be caught in melee as a Monk. Take Mobility. Go in, hit stuff, get out. If feats were a thing that anyone other than variant humans could afford before 12th level, and if most games didn't end right around there anyway that would work pretty well, sure.
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Oct 6, 2019 14:44
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Feats are also optional, so no class should need them
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Oct 6, 2019 15:48
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nelson posted:I don’t think you’re supposed to be caught in melee as a Monk. Take Mobility. Go in, hit stuff, get out. You're not supposed to, but it happens often enough since you still have to get into melee. All a DM has to do is ready some sort of hold or stun. And when often parties aren't exactly filled with melee folks in the first place, a Monk can often get pushed into a more protective role than they'd like to.
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Oct 6, 2019 16:59
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Splicer posted:Right now it sounds like your best options are to pick up a spare short sword or scimitar. Possible two. I am...not thinking about going Rogue. I am also definitely getting my next level of Ranger.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:14
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Syrinxx posted:I recently DMd for the first time ever, and it was after a 25+ year break from the game in general. It was for a group of 11-12 year olds as well. I learned quite a bit watching this series on YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oIIZJeVGpc. The players are semi-celebrities, almost all noobs, and the DM is good at helping them through their first adventure. Mistakes are made, but no big deal and everyone seems to have a good time. Although one of the players is a cable TV D-lister who is kinda pushy with his team. Thank you, I started watching the videos and I’ll probably use that same DMs Guild adventure! I’m still getting acquainted with 5e rules now but it seems pretty straightforward. Bhodi posted:If you go with roll20, check out the "Beyond 20" addon which lets you have a char sheet in dndbeyond and just click to use your abilities in roll20. It's pretty great, since you can create custom homebrew creatures and if you use the right text format you can launch attacks/spells/saves directly from the roll20 monster sheet, and your players can do the same with theirs. Really cuts down on the bookeeping. That seems like it might be perfect thank you! Willie Tomg posted:You want Roll20. There are similar options out there that others will recommend, but it's free to experiment with and has pretty good 5e integration and there are a lot of resources to learn how to run a game on Roll20. Yeah roll20 is a really good resource thanks for that 👍🏼 Also I’m listening to Master Manual, a podcast that has something to do with Harmontown. It’s a couple guys talking about DMing and so far fairly enjoyable.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:26
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Brain In A Jar posted:I got distracted during a session today and started combining two absolutely moronic ideas in my head: 1) how do I make Tavern Brawler good, and 2) how much "passive" dmg can I stack per attack [to offset Tavern Brawler being garbage]. Question B was, why not just be a Monk? Monks use weapons. Until 11, a mundane quarterstaff or spear outdamage your unarmed strikes, nevermind magic weapon bonuses.
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Oct 6, 2019 18:32
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Kaal posted:You're not supposed to, but it happens often enough since you still have to get into melee. All a DM has to do is ready some sort of hold or stun. And when often parties aren't exactly filled with melee folks in the first place, a Monk can often get pushed into a more protective role than they'd like to. If the enemies are holding actions for melee let your ranged teammates take them out. They’re basically stunning themselves at that point.
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Oct 6, 2019 19:30
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nelson posted:If the enemies are holding actions for melee let your ranged teammates take them out. They’re basically stunning themselves at that point. Which just goes back to the main concern which is that Monks struggle to make an impact on the game. Waiting for your teammates to deal with a problem is hardly that.
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Oct 6, 2019 19:37
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Kaal posted:Which just goes back to the main concern which is that Monks struggle to make an impact on the game. Waiting for your teammates to deal with a problem is hardly that. To be fair, I don’t know many DMs who would hold monster actions just to deal with an annoying Monk. But if they did, I’d say that’s a pretty big impact.
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Oct 6, 2019 20:06
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The monk goes down when someone readies a grab and the rest of the monsters dogpile them. One of these days D&D will come up with a useful vision for the monk. Today is not that day.
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Oct 6, 2019 20:29
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Ours seems to do fine. The move-attack-move thing 5e lets you do plus Mobile (which you pick up at all of level 4) makes it a lot less painful to be a fast melee guy.
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Oct 6, 2019 20:40
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nelson posted:To be fair, I don’t know many DMs who would hold monster actions just to deal with an annoying Monk. But if they did, I’d say that’s a pretty big impact. Trading a player’s turn for one NPC's turn seems like a pretty poor exchange to me, particularly since players are generally outnumbered. And in any case since you can choose to when to trigger your reaction it wouldn't be difficult to just define it broadly like "When an enemy moves into range, grab them", and then wait for the Monk but keep your options open for someone else if the Monk isn't moving into range. But your mileage may vary I suppose. As a DM I wouldn't start out with these sorts of tactics, because I want players to feel successful, but I'd eventually start using them against a Monk that was acting like they were untouchable.
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Oct 6, 2019 20:44
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If an enemy holds their action to make a Grapple attempt with their lovely Athletics rather than multi-attack with its murderclaws, I call that a net win for the party.
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Oct 6, 2019 21:07
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Yeah I feel like the example of "someone holds down the monk and everyone else beats them up" isn't a good example because an entire group of enemies in concert specifically loving over one player is going to be pretty crushing to just about anyone except a fighter only by merit of their AC and HP which at that point "everyone attacking the fighter" is pretty much what they want anyway. I dunno, from my experience open hand monks do passable damage, inconvenience enemies and are slippery little nerds that are hard to pin down. They don't do as much damage or have as much utility as a fighter or a paladin but, I dunno, they seem fine. Not fantastic, but fine. You can do better as a martial character but they do their job well enough.
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Oct 7, 2019 00:09
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Kaal posted:Trading a player’s turn for one NPC's turn seems like a pretty poor exchange to me, particularly since players are generally outnumbered. And in any case since you can choose to when to trigger your reaction it wouldn't be difficult to just define it broadly like "When an enemy moves into range, grab them", and then wait for the Monk but keep your options open for someone else if the Monk isn't moving into range. But your mileage may vary I suppose. Meanwhile, the rogue is taking a bow shot for sneak attack and ducking around the corner and hiding; the warlock is eldritch blasting and ducking around the corner; the cleric is in range to get any other PC back up; the bard/sorcerer/wizard are probably just outright controlling or killing; the barbarian and fighter want to be attacked, as does the beast shaped druid; nobody cares what the ranger is doing, really. The monk has decent hp, good ability to reposition, and likely a good acrobatics check, and worst-case has a bonus action dodge. Focusing on the monk is rarely going to be the monsters' best move. But that Con save stun can be an encounter winner, especially if the monk slips past to stun the spellcaster. One NPC readied to grab an enemy is wasting its time unless you are the kind of GM who refuses to tell players when an enemy readies (don't be). The spellcaster or ranged monster isn't going to try to pull that trick, and the bruiser can be avoided. It might work having ranged attackers and guards next to them readied to grapple, but even then, you're helping out spellcasters by clumping up. Note that monk performance depends a lot on how open or restricted combat areas are. Fights in five-foot corridors are not the preferred monk fighting area.
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Oct 7, 2019 01:06
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Why should I tell PCs that am NPC is readying an action? Genuinely curious.
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Oct 7, 2019 10:54
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DJ Dizzy posted:Why should I tell PCs that am NPC is readying an action? Genuinely curious. Even if you don't say "The Orc readies an action..." the players are going to notice when the NPC doesn't actively do anything on its turn.
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Oct 7, 2019 11:23
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DJ Dizzy posted:Why should I tell PCs that am NPC is readying an action? Genuinely curious. If you tell them they're readying an action but not what for that implies the NPC is completely no-selling their intents, which is silly. If you tell them the orc is readying an action to whack anyone who comes near, this enables the players to better react to and engage with the battlefield. If you tell them the orc retreats backwards while limbering his shoulders and gripping his axe more firmly, then the players can make an educated guess as to what's going on, enabling them to better react to and engage with the fight.
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Oct 7, 2019 11:37
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This assumes the PCs have a clear line of sight obviously. "The orc ducks into the cave entrance and who knows what he's doing in there" is more than fine.
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Oct 7, 2019 11:41
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Didn't an earlier edition or two have a preparation phase where everyone (including DM on behalf of NPCs) announced their intentions and then they went off in initiative order or am I thinking of a different system/non-standard style of play?
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Oct 7, 2019 11:52
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FFT posted:Didn't an earlier edition or two have a preparation phase where everyone (including DM on behalf of NPCs) announced their intentions and then they went off in initiative order or am I thinking of a different system/non-standard style of play? That’s roughly how initiative worked until 3e in its simplest version.
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Oct 7, 2019 12:13
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It does make more sense than "You get 6 seconds, then you get 6 seconds, everyone gets 6 seconds! One after the other!"
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Oct 7, 2019 12:19
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FFT posted:It does make more sense than "You get 6 seconds, then you get 6 seconds, everyone gets 6 seconds! One after the other!" Yes, we traded some versimilitude for a much larger amount of mechanical improvement.
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Oct 7, 2019 12:53
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Toshimo posted:Yes, we traded some versimilitude for a much larger amount of mechanical improvement.
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Oct 7, 2019 13:00
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