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change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

pog boyfriend posted:

i thought i did but i guess i forgot to post. i hate mystic. it is real bad from a dm perspective, because it works nothing like anything else in the game, is not official content(they scrapped it, it is all playtest material) and is wildly unbalanced - being far better than any other class. even when it was in UA i still did not allow it in any of my games as it had a number of severe issues and is just a complete mess, trying to salvage it to make it fit in with the game is just entirely too much work... and now wizards officially dropped support for it as evidently they could not get it to work either.

Yep. We played a one-off and the mystic was... overpowered to say the least. Started in jail with no equipment? Doesn't matter, they don't need anything other than their brain. Countess is keeping the secret of her abusive archmage husband? Cool, just talk to her telepathically to get the details, blow a hole in the wall, and fly to safety without burning too many resources, and without the possibility of it getting counterspelled. It's clearly unfinished and not tested nearly enough.

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TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Speaking of not needing equipment...what the hell does my (Circle of the Moon) Lizardfolk Druid want, from a build perspective? He has his focus, quarterstaff, shield, and Thick Skin for an AC of 16, which isn't terrible given we just hit level 4. With Shillelagh he de facto has a magical weapon, he can't really use magical armor unless it's way over-enchanted, half the time during fights he can't use items because he's transformed, and I don't think any of his spells have material components that cost anything. Everyone else in our group has shopping they want to do and minor character power goals they're pursuing, and about all I can think of is "uhhh, maybe learn about some new forms he could transform into?"

From a roleplay standpoint I have things covered, I just don't really feel like I have anything to look forward to beyond getting new spells. I can live with that, but it feels a bit weird.

pog boyfriend
Jul 2, 2011

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Speaking of not needing equipment...what the hell does my (Circle of the Moon) Lizardfolk Druid want, from a build perspective?

necklace of fireballs

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Reveilled posted:

I really wish they hadn't ditched willpower for Sorcerers from the playtest. For anyone not familiar, Sorcerers used a system a lot like the Spellpoints variant from the DMG to cast their spells instead of spell slots, but as they used up their willpower, they became more and more connected to their bloodline. So the Dragon Sorcerer, after spending 3 willpower, gained a +2 bonus to melee attacks. After spending 10 willpower, they gained damage resistance to the associated dragon type. The dragon sorcerer also got armor and weapon proficiencies and a Dragon Strength power they could use for 2 willpower that effectively worked like a paladin's divine smite, adding 2d6 damage to the next person they hit.

So the Dragon Sorcerer was effectively a spellcaster who would transform into a draconic fighter over the course of the day. Each of the other subclasses would have presumably had their own special transformations, had it ever got out of testing.
Wtf I see exactly why this was abandoned, but drat it shouldn't have been. This rules.

Arthil
Feb 17, 2012

A Beard of Constant Sorrow

Toshimo posted:

Wizards multiclassing into Artificer is like Usain Bolt doing a 3-legged race.

Level 1 Artificer and the rest Wizard is actually really, really good.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

pog boyfriend posted:

necklace of fireballs

We actually found one of those! We gave it to the rogue because he had no ranged options. Plus TBH I kinda want to see someone else get to have fun with Fireball 'cause I've played wizards before.

El Fideo
Jun 10, 2016

I trusted a rhino and deserve all that came to me


TooMuchAbstraction posted:

We actually found one of those! We gave it to the rogue because he had no ranged options. Plus TBH I kinda want to see someone else get to have fun with Fireball 'cause I've played wizards before.

Yeah, that was the reason we gave our Battlemaster the Helm of Brilliance that we found.

pog boyfriend
Jul 2, 2011

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

We actually found one of those! We gave it to the rogue because he had no ranged options. Plus TBH I kinda want to see someone else get to have fun with Fireball 'cause I've played wizards before.

fair, but i want you to suffer so i want you to be aware that you just passed up an opportunity to become a bear, road loudly, rip a fireball off with your teeth, and throw a grenade

Reveilled
Apr 19, 2007

Take up your rifles

mind the walrus posted:

Wtf I see exactly why this was abandoned, but drat it shouldn't have been. This rules.

At some point I want to try homebrewing up a completed version of the beta sorcerer, but I have no idea how to design a balanced class, and since technically the playtest materials were considered "confidential" with "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" printed on every single page, I'm worried it could be too filesy.

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



FFT posted:

I think the 3.X sorcerer had the balance right. Fewer spells known, more slots.

That was the pitch - but it really didn't work that way. At every odd numbered level a smart wizard who specialised would blow a sorcerer out of the water simply because they had three spells (one plus one for specialisation plus one for stat) of a higher level than the sorcerer could cast at all and only one spell fewer at the highest level slot the sorcerer could cast (with the sorcerer only knowing two spells at that level). The sorcerer only really got one extra slot extra of each low level slot. Meanwhile at even numbered levels the sorcerer caught up a bit - but only knew one top level spell and two second tier spells while being able to cast just as many top tier spells and only one fewer second tier spell. So the sorcerer alternated between being crushingly far behind and simply behind.

Orange DeviI
Nov 9, 2011

by Hand Knit
Currently creating a magic item for a Lizardfolk Ranger who's more flavored as a shamanic warrior. Level 3. Power level's pretty low, nobody's got a +1 sword or anything, the most powerful thing we've found is a periapt of health (not my campaign).

Aside from lore, which I've written in spades, I'm struggling a bit flavorful mechanics which are good enough to be cool, but not so good that this Gloom Stalker would just overshadow anyone else. This is what I've got right now, tried to make it a sliding scale from calculated attacks to frenzying:

When you hit with an attack, you may choose to use Hungry Jaws without expending a use in return for losing 2 AC until the start of your next turn. If you hit with Hungry Jaws, you may follow up with a single additional attack, but the next attack against you will be made with advantage. You may do this a number of times per long rest equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1).

Here's the item I've made so far: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/1983890-spear-of-fate

Orange DeviI fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jul 29, 2020

pog boyfriend
Jul 2, 2011

Reveilled posted:

At some point I want to try homebrewing up a completed version of the beta sorcerer, but I have no idea how to design a balanced class, and since technically the playtest materials were considered "confidential" with "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" printed on every single page, I'm worried it could be too filesy.

the hardest part of designing new classes is the lack of playtesting material. i have been working on an archetype for an int warlock myself but i am mostly just imagining scenarios which may be overpowered, setting a line of "too strong" and getting as close to that line as possible to make the class feel good, and making it fun to play. but likely some combo will break the game that i have not accounted for because players will find the most wild things to break your design

Boba Pearl
Dec 27, 2019

by Athanatos
I'm trying to create an alternative HP system for DND, though I kind of don't want it to be too specific, so you could still use it for pathfinder as well. (I'll be crossposting this to the Pathfinder thread.) What do you think of these rules as a health system?

Alternative Health System for DND / Pathfinder

This system is based off of TBZ, in TBZ your character only dies when you choose too. You do this by progressively risking more and more harm to your character for larger and larger bonuses. This lets the players set the stakes for the campaign, and decide what they are willing to risk at any time. During the battle, you can check off any of the boxes in progressive order (Incapacitiating Wounds, Grievous Wounds, Death,) to acquire the bonuses attatched to them, BUT you can not un-check these boxes until the battle is over. The bonuses for checking these boxes are listed below.

Take yourHP, multiply 1.5 round down.

Divide by 2 round down, This is your Wounds Limit when this reaches 0 you pass out, but take no other wounds

Divide the remainder by 2 again Always Round down, Your HP increases by this amount, going over Max if need be, this is your Grievous Wound limit, when this reaches 0 you pass out and take a serious wound, this is something that is ultimately healable, but will hinder you until you get it attended too. This kind of wound provides a -1 per level malus to all checks. Checking this box gives you a +.5 bonus to hit per level, and a +1 bonus to damage per level

Divide the remainder by 2 again Always Round down, Your HP increases by this amount, going over Max if need be, this is your Incapacitating wound limit, when this reaches 0 you pass out and lose a limb. Lose a limb / chunk of your face / part of your skull and take a -2 to one of your ability modifiers. Checking this box gives you a +1 bonus to hit per level, and a +2 bonus to damage per level. This is a permanent malus to your character unless you find a way to replace the limb.

Divide the remainder by 2 one last time, Your HP increases by this amount, going over Max if need be, this is your Death Limit Always Round Down, when this reaches 0 you Die. No ifs, ands, or buts. You hit 0 when checking the death box and your character takes the big dirt nap. Checking this box gives you a +3 to hit per level, and a +6 to damage per level

Example, let’s take a level 12 Barbarian, which normally has 89 HP or there’s abouts. We would then take their total HP and multiply it by 1.5 Which equals 134

Their wounds limit would be thusly

[x] 67 / 67 HP

Their Grievous wound limit would be

[ ] +34 HP Grievous Wounds (+.5 to hit per level, +1 to damage)

Their incapacitating wound limit would be

[ ] +17 HP Incapacitating Wounds (+1 to hit per level, +3 to damage per level)

And their death limit would be

[ ] +9 HP Death Wounds (+2 to hit per level, +4 damage per level)

Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jul 29, 2020

Arcsech
Aug 5, 2008

Boba Pearl posted:

Alternative Health System for DND / Pathfinder

I still don't quite understand how this would actually work in play. So you check a box and then you... Take all damage at that level? Take damage at that level once previous levels are exhausted? If you check multiple boxes, are the bonuses cumulative, or do higher ones replace lower ones?

Also, "round up" is the opposite of what D&D does the rest of the time, if you can make the math work rounding down I'd recommend that.

Boba Pearl
Dec 27, 2019

by Athanatos

Arcsech posted:

I still don't quite understand how this would actually work in play. So you check a box and then you... Take all damage at that level? Take damage at that level once previous levels are exhausted? If you check multiple boxes, are the bonuses cumulative, or do higher ones replace lower ones?

Also, "round up" is the opposite of what D&D does the rest of the time, if you can make the math work rounding down I'd recommend that.

I changed it to round down, it's only 3 or 4 hp in the end so it doesn't matter so much. You check a box and you gain that much HP, I changed the wording / example around to make that more specific.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Reveilled posted:

At some point I want to try homebrewing up a completed version of the beta sorcerer, but I have no idea how to design a balanced class, and since technically the playtest materials were considered "confidential" with "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" printed on every single page, I'm worried it could be too filesy.

Yeah I just looked up the Spellpoints variant in the DMG and while I like it, I have a hard time imagining it as a terribly useful alternative for Sorcerers as-written.

Gobbeldygook
May 13, 2009
Hates Native American people and tries to justify their genocides.

Put this racist on ignore immediately!

mind the walrus posted:

Yeah I just looked up the Spellpoints variant in the DMG and while I like it, I have a hard time imagining it as a terribly useful alternative for Sorcerers as-written.
Every single person in the past forty-six years who has wanted to switch from Vancian magic to spellpoints has initially kicked around the idea of just converting all spell slots to an equivalent number of spellpoints. Usually they do some quik mafs and realize this would let spellcasters cast a lot more of their highest-level spells per day so it would need to be balanced out by nerfs somewhere else, but sometimes they don't care and write some dumb poo poo like the 5e DMG's spellpoint option.

change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

Gobbeldygook posted:

Every single person in the past forty-six years who has wanted to switch from Vancian magic to spellpoints has initially kicked around the idea of just converting all spell slots to an equivalent number of spellpoints. Usually they do some quik mafs and realize this would let spellcasters cast a lot more of their highest-level spells per day so it would need to be balanced out by nerfs somewhere else, but sometimes they don't care and write some dumb poo poo like the 5e DMG's spellpoint option.

Implement normal magic and big magic: normal spells convert to 1 slot = 1 spell point, big magic requires twice as much, all spells after 5 or something are big magic

Arcsech
Aug 5, 2008

change my name posted:

Implement normal magic and big magic: normal spells convert to 1 slot = 1 spell point, big magic requires twice as much, all spells after 5 or something are big magic

This is basically how 5e works as-is, 6th level and higher spells are clearly treated differently - basically every effect that restores spell slots only works for 5th level and lower, and Warlocks have this weird setup where 5th level and lower slots recharge on a short rest, but 6th level and up are once per day. They just don't make the normal magic/big magic divide explicit.

I mean, you could just do that: Spell points for 5th level and lower slots, but regular slots for 6th and up.

Monathin
Sep 1, 2011

?????????
?

5th Level spells are also explicitly where the best of the Half/Two-Thirds/Partial/whatever we're calling them casters cap out at. So, yeah, there's already a soft divide between "Magic" and "High Magic."

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Gobbeldygook posted:

Every single person in the past forty-six years who has wanted to switch from Vancian magic to spellpoints has initially kicked around the idea of just converting all spell slots to an equivalent number of spellpoints. Usually they do some quik mafs and realize this would let spellcasters cast a lot more of their highest-level spells per day so it would need to be balanced out by nerfs somewhere else, but sometimes they don't care and write some dumb poo poo like the 5e DMG's spellpoint option.

Use a geometric progression for base spell cost for a given level of spell.

Example: Cantrips cost 2 pts, 1st level spells cost 4, 2nd cost 8, 3rd cost 16, 4th cost 32, 5th cost 64, etc.

So a spellcaster with 96 points can poo poo out low-level spells all day if she wants, can only cast a single 5th level spell, and after that used up two thirds of her daily spell power.

Then adjust the base cost for the relative power of each spell, allowing you to make a finer division of power within a given spell level, assuming you have the patience for this.

You could use a different geometric progression if you want, it's just an fairly simple example of how to work around the problem of points-based casting letting someone poo poo out too many high-level spells by giving up low-level spells.

How Wonderful!
Jul 18, 2006


I only have excellent ideas

pog boyfriend posted:

i thought i did but i guess i forgot to post. i hate mystic. it is real bad from a dm perspective, because it works nothing like anything else in the game, is not official content(they scrapped it, it is all playtest material) and is wildly unbalanced - being far better than any other class. even when it was in UA i still did not allow it in any of my games as it had a number of severe issues and is just a complete mess, trying to salvage it to make it fit in with the game is just entirely too much work... and now wizards officially dropped support for it as evidently they could not get it to work either.

I played a Mystic in a friend's campaign shortly after it was released and yeah, it was just too powerful. I liked the character's personality and she could do a lot of fun stuff, but it required actively holding back on doing things to not wreck the balance of the game. The flavor was fun and I liked how big and chunky that UA release felt but it was really really not tenable for most games.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Leperflesh posted:

Use a geometric progression for base spell cost for a given level of spell.

Example: Cantrips cost 2 pts, 1st level spells cost 4, 2nd cost 8, 3rd cost 16, 4th cost 32, 5th cost 64, etc.

So a spellcaster with 96 points can poo poo out low-level spells all day if she wants, can only cast a single 5th level spell, and after that used up two thirds of her daily spell power.

Then adjust the base cost for the relative power of each spell, allowing you to make a finer division of power within a given spell level, assuming you have the patience for this.

You could use a different geometric progression if you want, it's just an fairly simple example of how to work around the problem of points-based casting letting someone poo poo out too many high-level spells by giving up low-level spells.

Yeah that's... pretty clearly what the 5e DMG has written out. If you look at the spell slots for any caster and convert it to Spell Points via the conversion system they have, they're equivalent. The difference is that with Spell Points the caster could burn more higher level spells at the cost of being able to cast more lower level spells. It doesn't seem enticing enough for anyone other than Sorcerer in terms of theming, but fits more with what I think 5e is going for with Sorcerer (e.g: You're Harry Potter, You're the anime protag, you're The Special, you're Neo, you're the OC).

Reveilled
Apr 19, 2007

Take up your rifles

mind the walrus posted:

Yeah that's... pretty clearly what the 5e DMG has written out. If you look at the spell slots for any caster and convert it to Spell Points via the conversion system they have, they're equivalent. The difference is that with Spell Points the caster could burn more higher level spells at the cost of being able to cast more lower level spells. It doesn't seem enticing enough for anyone other than Sorcerer in terms of theming, but fits more with what I think 5e is going for with Sorcerer (e.g: You're Harry Potter, You're the anime protag, you're The Special, you're Neo, you're the OC).

In the DMG though the spell points increase near linearly, Leperflesh's idea of them increasing geometrically changes that. In the DMG spell points system a 9th level spell is 13 points and a 4th level spell is 6 points, so once you can cast 9th level spells, every 9th level spell you cast would cost you two potential 4th level spells.

If the point costs grew geometrically instead, a 4th level spell might cost 32 while a 9th level spell costs 1024 points, so if you want to cast an extra 9th level spell you'd need to give up 30 4th level castings, so if the points are tailored around the standard castings for other classes it wouldn't be possible to sacrifice your 4th level spells to cast an extra 9th level spell as you just flat out couldn't get the points.

What it would do instead would be the exact opposite, which would be to make someone able to cast 9th level spells think "Hmm, I could sacrifice one of these 9th level spells for sixty fireballs." So I don't think it solves the problem anyway, unfortunately.

EDIT: However, the fact that one pattern has players thinking the optimal choice is clearly to trade up for big spells while the other makes it optimal to trade down for small spells suggests to me that there might be a sweet spot for costs somewhere in between.

Reveilled fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Jul 29, 2020

MelvinBison
Nov 17, 2012

"Is this the ideal world that you envisioned?"
"I guess you could say that."

Pillbug

pog boyfriend posted:

i thought i did but i guess i forgot to post. i hate mystic. it is real bad from a dm perspective, because it works nothing like anything else in the game, is not official content(they scrapped it, it is all playtest material) and is wildly unbalanced - being far better than any other class. even when it was in UA i still did not allow it in any of my games as it had a number of severe issues and is just a complete mess, trying to salvage it to make it fit in with the game is just entirely too much work... and now wizards officially dropped support for it as evidently they could not get it to work either.
Thank you. I guess it's a good thing my eyes bounced off the class write-up then. Artificer it is!

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Reveilled posted:

EDIT: However, the fact that one pattern has players thinking the optimal choice is clearly to trade up for big spells while the other makes it optimal to trade down for small spells suggests to me that there might be a sweet spot for costs somewhere in between.

Yeah, this is mostly a matter of playtesting and fine-tuning the formula. For example, you could have a geometric escalation where the exponent is 1.75 instead of 2, causing costs to go like 1, 3, 7, 11, 17, 23, 30, 38, 47, 56. Then a 9th-level spell is worth about 3 4th-level spells.

The only two issues I see with it are 1) different players are going to have a different opinion of where the sweet spot is, and 2) keeping track of your spellpoint count involves a lot of bookkeeping.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.
It makes perfect sense to differentiate casters based on how they perform magic, with Wizards / Clerics having classic Vancian casting, Warlocks / Bards with a simplified slot-less form, and Sorcerers / Druids having modernized mana. After that larger design space is established, it's just a matter of creating the right balance based on how many prepared spells / slots / spell points they each get. Certainly it would be a better system than one where casters can be ranked based on how similar they are to Wizards.

please knock Mom! posted:

Variant human still gets 18 strength or dex, other races can still get 16 which honestly is fine

I'm still confused by this. Are you talking about Level 8? Or some sort of alternate feat rule? The highest that a variant human could get at Level 1 without rolled stats would be 17 STR/DEX, by having 15 for their main stat, adding one to it from their variant, and then picking a half feat that adds another one for a total of 17. The initial variant ASI allows you to increase two different ability scores by one, so you can't double up with it, so I don't understand how you would get 18.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jul 29, 2020

Arcsech
Aug 5, 2008

Reveilled posted:

In the DMG though the spell points increase near linearly, Leperflesh's idea of them increasing geometrically changes that. In the DMG spell points system a 9th level spell is 13 points and a 4th level spell is 6 points, so once you can cast 9th level spells, every 9th level spell you cast would cost you two potential 4th level spells.

If the point costs grew geometrically instead, a 4th level spell might cost 32 while a 9th level spell costs 1024 points, so if you want to cast an extra 9th level spell you'd need to give up 30 4th level castings, so if the points are tailored around the standard castings for other classes it wouldn't be possible to sacrifice your 4th level spells to cast an extra 9th level spell as you just flat out couldn't get the points.

What it would do instead would be the exact opposite, which would be to make someone able to cast 9th level spells think "Hmm, I could sacrifice one of these 9th level spells for sixty fireballs." So I don't think it solves the problem anyway, unfortunately.

EDIT: However, the fact that one pattern has players thinking the optimal choice is clearly to trade up for big spells while the other makes it optimal to trade down for small spells suggests to me that there might be a sweet spot for costs somewhere in between.

I actually looked it up and turns out the DMG spell points variant has exactly the same limitation as everything else that lets you create/regain/etc spell slots:

DMG posted:

Spells of 6th level and higher are particularly taxing to cast. You can use spell points to create one slot of each level of 6th or higher. You can’t create another slot of the same level until you finish a long rest.

So this is only really an issue for 5th-level and below spells. Let's take a look at how that math works out for a 9th-level caster, that just gained access to 5th-level spells - normally, they would get 4 1st-level slots, 3 2nd/3rd/4th-level slots, and 1 5th-level slot (14 total spells per day). With variant rules, they get 57 spell points at 9th level. Per the spell point rules, that would let them cast 8 5th-level spells per day (if they only cast 5th-level spells). That's on par with a Warlock of the same level that takes 3 short rests, though it's not a 1:1 comparison given you could potentially cast all 8 in a single fight (though you'd then be spent for the rest of the day), plus spell list differences.

On the opposite extreme, you could cast 28 1st-level spells per day.

I kind of like it for sorc, but maybe it needs some kind of limit that reduces how much you can alpha strike in a single fight.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

I don't think too many spells in one sitting would be the worst depending if you're properly balancing out encounters for each day between Long Rests.

Arcsech
Aug 5, 2008

mind the walrus posted:

I don't think too many spells in one sitting would be the worst depending if you're properly balancing out encounters for each day between Long Rests.

Yeah, having thought about it a bit more, I think it would be fine - especially since of the 18 5th-level spells sorcs have on their spell list, all except 4 are concentration which puts a pretty significant damper on how much you can spam them and still get the desired effect.

change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

Look at all of these non-divination wizard scrubs who aren't putting out hundreds of mind spikes every day

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Kaal posted:

Warlocks / Bards with a simplified slot-less form
Can you elaborate on this? I hate my players using Warlocks because they always default the stereotype of "Eldritch Blast" + "Can we have a Short Rest I'm out of Slots" and I'm desperate for anything to make them mechanically fun and not deny my players the RP potential.

Sion
Oct 16, 2004

"I'm the boss of space. That's plenty."
What's the opposite of a Druid?

I'm basically thinking either an Artificer Alchemist or a Necromancer.

Madmarker
Jan 7, 2007

mind the walrus posted:

Can you elaborate on this? I hate my players using Warlocks because they always default the stereotype of "Eldritch Blast" + "Can we have a Short Rest I'm out of Slots" and I'm desperate for anything to make them mechanically fun and not deny my players the RP potential.

I mean, you should be able to get a short rest every 1-2 combat encounters generally. If for nothing else because someone should be spending some hit dice or checking the area for loot after a fight etc

Sion posted:

What's the opposite of a Druid?

I'm basically thinking either an Artificer Alchemist or a Necromancer.

A despoiler arcane caster in Dark Sun. Other than that, probably a Great Old One warlock. I'd say necromancer, but Spore druids exist

SilverMike
Sep 17, 2007

TBD


Artificer Battle Smith if you want to distance yourself from organic life/material. Necromancer Wizard or Undying Warlock for a perversion of life.
Other kinds of Warlock might work as well if you believe the core part of a Druid is to be heavily attuned to its own plane of existence.

E: My personal opinion is that Spore Druids wouldn't get along with a Necromancer any better than others - they're into the cycle of life and death, which is short-circuited by undeath. I know the description of the Spore subclass calls them out as being mostly fine with undead, but it doesn't seem properly thought-out.

Double edit: Just clarifying my thoughts here. Most undead don't have a timer on when they stop being undead, they just stop there. That seems to directly clash with their value of upholding the cycle of life and death. OTOH, the spore zombies make sense to me since they don't persist in that state for long.

SilverMike fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jul 29, 2020

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Sion posted:

What's the opposite of a Druid?

I'm basically thinking either an Artificer Alchemist or a Necromancer.

If you accept a nature <-> technology "alignment axis" (which seems reasonable given that druids are limited to low-tech equipment...and scimitars) then yeah, artificer would be my guess. Another decent pick would be a thoroughly "city" character, like some rogues, paladins, or bards, to contrast the "country" nature of the druid.

LGD
Sep 25, 2004

mind the walrus posted:

Can you elaborate on this? I hate my players using Warlocks because they always default the stereotype of "Eldritch Blast" + "Can we have a Short Rest I'm out of Slots" and I'm desperate for anything to make them mechanically fun and not deny my players the RP potential.

Madmarker posted:

I mean, you should be able to get a short rest every 1-2 combat encounters generally. If for nothing else because someone should be spending some hit dice or checking the area for loot after a fight etc

yeah, or just cut short rests down to 5 minutes like they were originally and have them functionally be encounter powers instead of the weird structurally obnoxious middle ground Mearls shat out

change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

SilverMike posted:

Artificer Battle Smith if you want to distance yourself from organic life/material. Necromancer Wizard or Undying Warlock for a perversion of life.
Other kinds of Warlock might work as well if you believe the core part of a Druid is to be heavily attuned to its own plane of existence.

E: My personal opinion is that Spore Druids wouldn't get along with a Necromancer any better than others - they're into the cycle of life and death, which is short-circuited by undeath. I know the description of the Spore subclass calls them out as being mostly fine with undead, but it doesn't seem properly thought-out.

Double edit: Just clarifying my thoughts here. Most undead don't have a timer on when they stop being undead, they just stop there. That seems to directly clash with their value of upholding the cycle of life and death. OTOH, the spore zombies make sense to me since they don't persist in that state for long.

The "being okay with undead" thing is likely because the spore druid came out of the Ravnica book, where it was most closely associated with Golgari. Their whole thing is using fungus/decay but also ascending to lichdom or similar undeath.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

LGD posted:

yeah, or just cut short rests down to 5 minutes like they were originally and have them functionally be encounter powers instead of the weird structurally obnoxious middle ground Mearls shat out

Five minute short rests sound way more reasonable from a gameplay perspective than one-hour short rests. My group practically never short rests because we can't countenance spending an hour in a hostile location. Too bad the DM is a rigid RAW type.

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Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Five minute short rests sound way more reasonable from a gameplay perspective than one-hour short rests. My group practically never short rests because we can't countenance spending an hour in a hostile location. Too bad the DM is a rigid RAW type.

Honestly the time matters less than the system that happens during that time. Ask your DM outright what can happen in an hour in a hostile location - does that mean a wandering monster check? If so, how many? What resources get used up?

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