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In my opinion D&D 5E isn't a game where you come up with interesting builds. From what i've seen there was no attempt for character flexibility in the design, you just play your roll and either do it well or not. If anyone has some counter examples please correct me.
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Jan 8, 2018 09:05
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I think you'd just focus on the "fun to be around" part, because you don't need mechanical support to be bad at things. Reskin your successes as comic pratfalls and "accidentally" screwing over your opponents. It's harder to pretend to be good at something you mechanically suck at. Play a cleric, cast bless on the party, but roleplay it as you making GBS threads your pants and passing out as your teammates did better than you if being bad at your job is such a fantasy. Oh absolutely! Because being a lovable fuckup is what you're trying to play - which is, ironically, better represented in this example by being good at something and hammering it home with the theatrics rather than the mechanics. I can see getting some good mileage out of Vicious Mockery and Grease. Rolling constant failures isn't interesting, it's banal. In D&D a failure is almost always 'nothing happens'.
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Jan 8, 2018 09:06
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CJ posted:In my opinion D&D 5E isn't a game where you come up with interesting builds. From what i've seen there was no attempt for character flexibility in the design, you just play your roll and either do it well or not. If anyone has some counter examples please correct me. In 5e in particular? Yes. I've always approached 'builds' in D&D from the perspective of, "Here's the character concept I want to play, how would I best realize that within the boundaries of the rules and still be good at the niche I elected?" I suppose you could also look at 'good' versus 'bad' builds. One could look at two different wizards and say this one is broadly better at defeating monsters than this one. 5e has very little material released for it - at this point, builds boil down to abilities scores, race, a scant few feats (you probably are going to get 1-2 in the average game) and any multi classing you might do; everything else is just taking what your class gives you. One of the upsides of bloated games like 4e or 3e is that they have so much material. "I want to play Kratos" is met with, "ah okay, take these feats and these powers, that should just about approximate it." 5e doesn't really have the support to do that yet.
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Jan 8, 2018 09:11
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Arthil posted:I think the main issue is people just not bothering to give thoughts on how to make the class/race/stats work which is what I asked in the first place. It was "Hey any build ideas for this?" Not "Is this Hyper-Optimal?" Just seems pretty clear min-maxing isn't required for something to work and not be bad. But you already got your answer right away. There's very little to add to it. Everything else has just been discussion on how stat rolling and playing mechanically inept characters is generally bad.
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Jan 8, 2018 09:14
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CJ posted:In my opinion D&D 5E isn't a game where you come up with interesting builds. From what i've seen there was no attempt for character flexibility in the design, you just play your roll and either do it well or not. If anyone has some counter examples please correct me. Sounds right, it's a big factor for why I try to convince my friends to play some other system, 5E lets players fall into too many design traps that were really just page fillers.
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Jan 8, 2018 10:22
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You can also play a narratively inept character without playing a mechanically inept character. Imagine a clumsy fighter who keeps fumbling with their overlarge axe, but still (because they have 18STR mechanically) keep on clumsily and awkwardly hacking into enemies. Or a 'good ole boy' with no fancy booklearnin' or dictionary words, nothing but a banjo to their name, just somehow sometimes having a sincerity about them that charms people (and their 18CHA helps too). A giant dumbass who always speaks the obvious, hears the obvious, sees the obvious and nothing more... but sometimes the 'obvious' is just what's needed (18WIS). It's not hard!
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Jan 8, 2018 10:50
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Also there’s stuff like ethics, prejudices, racial stereotypes, personality, attitude, being a pirate or detective,relationships, ideology, class schtick, poo poo like that which has nothing to do with stats and is way more interesting than making things difficult for everyone else.
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Jan 8, 2018 10:59
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Look, I see you shaking your head. If you don't raise skeletons because you want to play a weaker character, get your paper boo boo. But if you aren't trying to play a weaker character, and not raising skeletons, I don't know what you're doing with your character, I really don't.
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Jan 8, 2018 11:10
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Arthil posted:I think the main issue is people just not bothering to give thoughts on how to make the class/race/stats work which is what I asked in the first place. It was "Hey any build ideas for this?" Not "Is this Hyper-Optimal?" Just seems pretty clear min-maxing isn't required for something to work and not be bad. If you've got 15s in Wisdom and Charisma but low Dexterity and Constitution, you'll probably want to hang back and be a caster at a distance. The problem with being a magic/melee hybrid on this character is that you'll have, at best, 50% chances to land your concentration saves if people hit you while you have a spell up. And a lot of good spells, including defensive ones, are concentration. Technically as long as you've got 16 in your main attacking stat a character can work just fine; the problem is that your dex save, con save, and AC will be very low. That, and the high wisdom means you'll either just be good at not being mind controlled (but I don't think Sorcerers get proficiency on Wisdom saves so it'll just be a +3 in the end), or you'll be able to effectively multiclass to Cleric. That said, you could do something kind of interesting that these numbers are uniquely suited to. You could become some flavor of Dwarf for the ability to not have heavy armor slow you down (but your speed will be 25). Then you go Cleric/Sorcerer and you have proficiency in heavy armor which gets you to 18 when you get plate, and you won't need an stats to support it. Your spells known/preparable will progress at a lower rate, but since both Cleric and Sorcerer are full casters you'll have the same number of spell slots and your spell choices will be quite varied. Also you might want to take as many of the Wisdom/Charisma skills as you can to get more out of the ability score distribution. You could be a Sorcerer who's good at both telling and discerning lies.
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Jan 8, 2018 13:44
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Mendrian posted:Oh absolutely! Because being a lovable fuckup is what you're trying to play - which is, ironically, better represented in this example by being good at something and hammering it home with the theatrics rather than the mechanics. I can see getting some good mileage out of Vicious Mockery and Grease. Yeah playing a loveable fuckup works fantastically well in something like Edge of the Empire (I will never shut up about it) becuase constantly failing on the dice mathematically means you will probably have lots of advantage to do something super cool. Like the character who opens fire with a big gun missing everything in sight but then can spend that advantage to set off all the fuel tanks on the other side of the room and blow up half the building.
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Jan 8, 2018 13:51
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xiw posted:Cities are great because you have lots of NPCs right there, an excuse for them to come up to your PCs and ask them for things, and it's harder for your PCs to just murder all the ones they disagree with. It's also much easier to take advantage of your PCs individually rather than as a fully operational adventuring party deathstar - in a city adventure, without the 'we are in a horrible place and have to work together to not die', the game doesn't fall apart if PCs disagree about how to achieve something. Thanks for the links and the advice. Your post and just a cursory glance at the blog and the Fallen London wiki has set the ball rolling and I'm jotting down ideas left and right. The characters are part of the city guard, so I'll have no problem putting them in harms way, but I'm looking forward to have them solve things and interact with the world in a non-violent way.
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Jan 8, 2018 15:49
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Look, I see you shaking your head. If you don't raise skeletons because you want to play a weaker character, get your paper boo boo. But if you aren't trying to play a weaker character, and not raising skeletons, I don't know what you're doing with your character, I really don't. Not exploiting the most egregiously powerful spells and effects in the game is exactly the same as playing a melee fighter with 10 Strength and Constitution, yes, exactly.
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Jan 8, 2018 17:09
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Hows the new subclasses for sorcerer in XGE? I'm making a caster by next week for SKT and I'm leaning towards Draconic, but I've played one before. We got 2 clerics, a paladin, barbarian, and a rogue.
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Jan 8, 2018 17:24
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I've decided to make a vengeance pally with a big fuckoff maul and that 'damage dice reroll 1s and 2s' feature. His name will be Bolf Grudger and he carries around the big book of all dwarven grudges to punish the people inside. I am ordering this miniature for him. gonna smack some motherfuckers with a hammer is what i'm gonna do
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Jan 8, 2018 17:57
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ReapersTouch posted:Hows the new subclasses for sorcerer in XGE? I'm making a caster by next week for SKT and I'm leaning towards Draconic, but I've played one before. We got 2 clerics, a paladin, barbarian, and a rogue. Storm is garbage - it's worse than its UA before it, which wasn't any good to begin with. Shadow is decent enough, with utility, survivability, and a strong (though expensive) casting buff built into its kit. Divine Soul can pull off some neat and strong tricks through access to the Cleric spell list, but with 2 Clerics and a Paladin in your party it might come off as rather redundant and the rest of their class features aren't anything to write home about (it's very lazily designed). Draconic is a tad boring but remains the gold standard for Sorcerer archetypes since it plays off the class' strengths.
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Jan 8, 2018 18:43
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Conspiratiorist posted:Storm is garbage - it's worse than its UA before it, which wasn't any good to begin with. Shadow is decent enough, with utility, survivability, and a strong (though expensive) casting buff built into its kit. Divine Soul can pull off some neat and strong tricks through access to the Cleric spell list, but with 2 Clerics and a Paladin in your party it might come off as rather redundant and the rest of their class features aren't anything to write home about (it's very lazily designed).
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Jan 8, 2018 18:45
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Favorite underrated spell you wish you saw in play more?
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Jan 8, 2018 19:01
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True Steake
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Jan 8, 2018 19:04
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Conspiratiorist posted:Storm is garbage - it's worse than its UA before it, which wasn't any good to begin with. Shadow is decent enough, with utility, survivability, and a strong (though expensive) casting buff built into its kit. Divine Soul can pull off some neat and strong tricks through access to the Cleric spell list, but with 2 Clerics and a Paladin in your party it might come off as rather redundant and the rest of their class features aren't anything to write home about (it's very lazily designed). Okay. I was looking into storm, but I wasn't sold on its features. This is the only character I'm building that I'm not super into/ have something in mind before I started making. Really makes character creation a slog.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:14
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If you like the Storm Sorceror theming/portfolio, Storm Cleric is standing here with arms wide open.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:16
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Splicer posted:I kind of like the look of stone soul. It's interesting but we'll have to wait and see what state it ends up in when it gets published. ReapersTouch posted:Okay. I was looking into storm, but I wasn't sold on its features. This is the only character I'm building that I'm not super into/ have something in mind before I started making. Really makes character creation a slog. Aye. If you want to spice up Sorcerer you can consider multiclassing; Warlock 2 gives you an Eldritch Blast machinegun while Paladin 2 turns you into an effective glass cannon mageknight slash utility arcane caster.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:21
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ReapersTouch posted:Okay. I was looking into storm, but I wasn't sold on its features. This is the only character I'm building that I'm not super into/ have something in mind before I started making. Really makes character creation a slog. Shadow Sorcerer is actually pretty powerful. You get an improved version of Darkness which is solid, and the Hound which is insane. Hound is, at worst, heightened spell metamagic. If it doesn't die instantly, you keep being able to use it, which can really screw over monsters that you land a disabling spell on. It's also one of the rare class features that's not limited per day, so you can actually use it as much as you need to/can afford to. Plus it can attack of opportunity, provide sneak attack for a Rogue, punch someone in the face, etc. It's real good.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:23
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mango sentinel posted:If you like the Storm Sorceror theming/portfolio, Storm Cleric is standing here with arms wide open. If the party wasn't made up of 5 melee characters already, I'd look into it.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:42
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ReapersTouch posted:If the party wasn't made up of 5 melee characters already, I'd look into it. Tempest Clerics are blasters, not melee combatants. They get heavy armor and counterattack ability, so they can wade into melee, but their counterattack is a spell save. Their channel Divinity maximizes damage of a Thunder/Lightning spell. They get a Divine Strike but unlike War it's not a class where you spend a lot of time hitting things. Their domain spells aren't the best but you're still a full caster in a shield and heavy armor, you also still get flight.
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Jan 8, 2018 20:03
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New Subclasses to be tested. Spores Druid, Brute Fighter and Invention Wizard. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/three-subclasses I have only read Spores so far but it seems rather interesting. Edit:Brute Fighter seems to be second go at the Champion. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 20:15
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Brute is Revised Champion and overshadows Barbarian at pretty much everything.
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Jan 8, 2018 20:48
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Conspiratiorist posted:Brute is Revised Champion and overshadows Barbarian at pretty much everything. Not really. Barbarian's advantage makes GWM much more easily used for higher damage per hit, plus the damage resistance while raging is huge. Brute getting a bonus to all saving throws forever is amazing though, and probably one of the strongest level 7 features in the game. Especially since it applies to Death saving throws. A Brute next to a Paladin is going to be really hard to shut down.
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Jan 8, 2018 20:57
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Don't know that I would go that far. It does generally seem better than the Champion, not sure it is all that great, but better than the Champion for sure. Its damage bonus is going to do more damage than the Barbarian Rage bonus most of the time, but the Barbarian is more likely to get Advantage and thus more likely to hit and crit. The bonus to saves is not as good as permanent advantage on all saves of the playtest fighter, but much better than indomitable became. Its nice. The final ability is the same as what the Champion already gets. The new crit feature is nice, though unlike the Champion the Brute has no increased chance to Crit. That said its possible the Barbarian at that level would be doing more damage on a crit, as the Barbarian gets extra damage dice on a crit at higher levels. Again, like the Champion, it feels like an Archetype that would fit better on a different class, like a Barbarian. Though that 3rd level feature does benefit from the eventual 4 attacks around instead of the Barbarian's 2. EDIT: One thing I really notice is how the two spellcasting classes' archetypes get more features, particularly early on, than the Fighter's Brute.
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Jan 8, 2018 21:05
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MonsterEnvy posted:New Subclasses to be tested.
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Jan 8, 2018 21:08
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Just about to start a 5e campaign (haven't played since AD&D 2) and might have to reconsider everything now that there's an 'I collect spores, molds and fungus' Druid.
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Jan 8, 2018 21:24
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Ryuujin posted:Don't know that I would go that far. It does generally seem better than the Champion, not sure it is all that great, but better than the Champion for sure. Its damage bonus is going to do more damage than the Barbarian Rage bonus most of the time, but the Barbarian is more likely to get Advantage and thus more likely to hit and crit. The bonus to saves is not as good as permanent advantage on all saves of the playtest fighter, but much better than indomitable became. Its nice. The final ability is the same as what the Champion already gets. The new crit feature is nice, though unlike the Champion the Brute has no increased chance to Crit. That said its possible the Barbarian at that level would be doing more damage on a crit, as the Barbarian gets extra damage dice on a crit at higher levels. If you're running Barbarian with a GW, you're pretty much going to be taking the -5 to hit for +10 damage, which is way better than rolling the dice from Brute, plus you're getting the flat rage bonus. Barb's rocking +12 or +13 extra damage compared to the d4 and d6 of Brute early on. Brute probably comes out ahead against high AC stuff where the Barb can't do that, but even so the flat damage from Rage isn't far behind. Plus the crit chance being higher, etc. Now if the Barb's not rocking GWM, then yeah, it's not as awesome. Over a whole day the Brute might come out ahead in total damage thanks to not Raging 24/7, the third and fourth attacks might push it ahead as the day goes too. GWM Brute would be terrifying too, but again, it's tougher to get advantage for a Fighter than a Barb.
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Jan 8, 2018 21:25
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evenworse username posted:Just about to start a 5e campaign (haven't played since AD&D 2) and might have to reconsider everything now that there's an 'I collect spores, molds and fungus' Druid. Make sure that Zuggtmoy features.
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Jan 8, 2018 21:57
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The Gate posted:Not really. Barbarian's advantage makes GWM much more easily used for higher damage per hit, plus the damage resistance while raging is huge. Brute getting a bonus to all saving throws forever is amazing though, and probably one of the strongest level 7 features in the game. Especially since it applies to Death saving throws. A Brute next to a Paladin is going to be really hard to shut down. There are a few elements to consider here. The first is the myth of the 'tanky' barbarian. The fact is that Reckless Attack and Rage DR effectively cancel each other out within the HP/AC section of combat mechanics. When we deal with this part of the system, Barbarians aren't any tougher than Fighters or Paladins, who boast much higher effective AC, almost the same HP (2+1 per level difference) and also actually possess a separate HP pool feature that more than makes up for that (Second Wind, Lay on Hands). Within the Save section of combat mechanics things get a little muddier, if we're looking at Bear Totem Barbarian that is (other Barbs can just  ). Barbarians get advantage on DEX saves (the second most common type of save) and Resistance to damage types besides Psychic, so this is somewhere they do okay - in regards to HP, at least. Paladins on the other hand get a flat bonus on all saves, and now we've got Brute who gets a 1d6 (on top of Indomitable). So honestly it's a wash.Now let's look at offense. While it's true that Reckless Attack synergizes well with GWM, you need to account for the full offense build combo of PAM+GWM+ASIs, and this is somewhere where Fighters are an ASI ahead of Barbarians up until 12 (for Variant Human!) - at which point Fighter has already obtained Extra Attack 2 and thus outright trounces Barbarian in damage. Before then there's a narrow gap that Battle Master makes up for with Precision, but Brute doesn't even need to, because their inherent on-hit damage bonus means they're actually better off without GWM until way later. So yeah, now we've got an archetype whose flavor and mechanics are being really tough and hitting things really hard, who is tougher than barbarian and hits things harder than barbarian.
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Jan 8, 2018 22:04
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So one of my players is playing a rogue. He has what I think is a philosophical issue about hiding. We've established that step one of hiding is to break LOS with your opponents. If they can see you, you can't attempt to hide. He is presenting the argument that he should be able to hide behind a tree (ok) then dart between trees and maintain the stealth (should he roll well). I believe that if there was just open space between two trees then hiding would be impossible since anyone with eyes can see someone darting about. The intent of course is to get advantage on as many attacks as possible, and the hiding rules as presented are not clear. How do other DMs handle it?
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Jan 8, 2018 22:06
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SettingSun posted:So one of my players is playing a rogue. He has what I think is a philosophical issue about hiding. We've established that step one of hiding is to break LOS with your opponents. If they can see you, you can't attempt to hide. He is presenting the argument that he should be able to hide behind a tree (ok) then dart between trees and maintain the stealth (should he roll well). I believe that if there was just open space between two trees then hiding would be impossible since anyone with eyes can see someone darting about. Give him advantage, Scrooge.
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Jan 8, 2018 22:11
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Party is getting a Lore Bard who is acting as the "healer." Is it worth taking Cure Wouds for out of combat healing?
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Jan 8, 2018 22:12
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The Gate posted:If you're running Barbarian with a GW, you're pretty much going to be taking the -5 to hit for +10 damage, which is way better than rolling the dice from Brute, plus you're getting the flat rage bonus. Barb's rocking +12 or +13 extra damage compared to the d4 and d6 of Brute early on. Brute probably comes out ahead against high AC stuff where the Barb can't do that, but even so the flat damage from Rage isn't far behind. Plus the crit chance being higher, etc. Now if the Barb's not rocking GWM, then yeah, it's not as awesome. See, the thing here is that you're only eyeballing the numbers and severely underestimating how to-hit for given ACs affects DPR. Be it BM or now Brute, Barbarians are at best neck to neck with Fighters before 11, at which point fightingman just powerspikes far away. Great Weapon Master isn't even that good compared to +2 STR. mango sentinel posted:Party is getting a Lore Bard who is acting as the "healer." Is it worth taking Cure Wouds for out of combat healing? No, even out of combat it's not a very efficient use of resources. Take Healing Spirit or Aura of Vitality with Magical Secrets. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 22:12
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blastron posted:Not exploiting the most egregiously powerful spells and effects in the game is exactly the same as playing a melee fighter with 10 Strength and Constitution, yes, exactly. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 22:14
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mango sentinel posted:Party is getting a Lore Bard who is acting as the "healer." Is it worth taking Cure Wouds for out of combat healing? Just Song of Rest should be sufficient for a lot. If the choice is between Cure Wounds and Healing Word, take Healing Word instead - the lesser healing done is offset by the fact that it's usable at range and uses only a bonus action, so you can more easily do the 'pick-up' dance when an ally is knocked to 0.
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Jan 8, 2018 22:15
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slap me and kiss me posted:Give him advantage, Scrooge. He can have as much advantage as he wants if it makes sense. I just wish the rules on hiding were more explicit.
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Jan 8, 2018 22:16
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