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I've tried that, building a character optimized for grappling. It didn't really work as planned because grappling is intensely random and you need to make several checks in a row to do anything really useful with it. Especially at low levels, 'optimization' means very little in the face of d20 rolls.
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Mar 30, 2016 20:18
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I feel like in the case of specialty characters like that it should be alright to meddle with the rules a bit, especially where they're overly cumbersome - as the DM and players feel comfortable, of course.
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Mar 30, 2016 20:23
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[In the style of Chris Hardwick] "It's eleven fifty-nine and fifty-nine seconds; this happened on Facebook, today..." QuadraticWizard's 5e pointbuy gonna get some mileage, I reckon.  (apologies for the borderline grogs.txt post)
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Mar 30, 2016 21:04
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Loving the dude who goes "Ok but our level 6 fighter gets PLUS EIGHT to swing his sword! It's crazy!"
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Mar 30, 2016 21:11
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ProfessorCirno posted:Loving the dude who goes "Ok but our level 6 fighter gets PLUS EIGHT to swing his sword! It's crazy!" Meanwhile, my level 4 druid can shoot an Eldritch Blast at a target 60 ft. away with a +6 IIRC to the roll, without anything crazier than "is a human with a feat". That post is very  though.
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Mar 30, 2016 21:18
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ProfessorCirno posted:Loving the dude who goes "Ok but our level 6 fighter gets PLUS EIGHT to swing his sword! It's crazy!" That's EIGHT +1s. Do you know how good that is?
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Mar 30, 2016 21:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:Loving the dude who goes "Ok but our level 6 fighter gets PLUS EIGHT to swing his sword! It's crazy!" I was just about to post that. Plus eight! It's a little nuts! Reality check At level six your proficiency bonus is +3. So if you prioritized your main combat stat like you probably would have, +8 is perfectly normal for this level. It's not a little nuts, it's a little average. Maybe even a little bit on the low side for most campaigns, considering that you seem to have no magic items yet. An archery Fighter with a +1 weapon would have +11 at this point. I realize this is going to sound like elitist snobbery but over the past year and a half I've noticed that the people most enthusiastic/impressed with 5e tend to also know the least about it and D&D in general. Not universally true, of course, many people know all about it and enjoy it just fine. And that's cool. But the overlap is suspiciously strong IME.
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Mar 30, 2016 21:24
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Sage Genesis posted:I realize this is going to sound like elitist snobbery but over the past year and a half I've noticed that the people most enthusiastic/impressed with 5e tend to also know the least about it and D&D in general. Or just flatout don't understand math/mechanics/game design, take your pick. e: My favourite quote from that "Feats and ability scores as a fighter, you get your subclasses, you get more HP to do more ballsy moves with." FEATS AND ABILITY SCORES AND SUBCLASSES AND HP: Things every class has, but somehow these things are made better by being a Fighter 
P.d0t fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Mar 30, 2016 |
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Mar 30, 2016 22:00
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P.d0t posted:FEATS AND ABILITY SCORES AND SUBCLASSES AND HP: Things every class has, but somehow these things are made better by being a Fighter Yes, but +8
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Mar 30, 2016 22:10
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P.d0t posted:"Feats and ability scores as a fighter, you get your subclasses, you get more HP to do more ballsy moves with." Yeah, that's what stood out to me too. Mostly because I had the exact same diuscussion with someone in real life recently. Captainsalami posted:Hey, me and some buddies are getting together our first ever d&d game. Were gonna try out a quick little campaign and then try something bigger. We've been kicking around an idea for a half monk and cleric class like a luchador with high grapple skills and my mask is my holy symbol. This sound kinda dumb or awesome? That sounds awesome! Why not go with Bard for a luchador though? Your mask can still play a part by being your "instrument" (spellcasting focus) and you can give people combat inspiration by tagging them in. You'll also end up as a better grappler and won't have to gently caress around with multiclassing or anything.
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Mar 30, 2016 22:14
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Bards also seriously make the best grapplers. Phone posting now but there's a good 5e grappling guide that breaks down why.
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Mar 30, 2016 22:25
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Is there anything bards aren't the best at?
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Mar 30, 2016 22:47
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Skellybones posted:Is there anything bards aren't the best at? Skeleton Armies, my friend. Skeleton Armies.
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Mar 30, 2016 22:58
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Being wizards. Specifically: having the word 'Wizard' written in front of their level number on their character sheet. For the lazy, bards make the best grapplers because it's entirely skill based, and expertise makes it easy to have a high enough score to offset having a lower strength and some. Then, you layer cutting words to gain an additional bonus, and lay down aoe spells so that you can drag your grappeled guy into them. Like silence, to neuter wizardy enemies. In the RAW as written, most of the classes you'd assume should be good at grappling (like monk, barbarian, or fighter) are only okay at it and once they have a grapple going, it doesn't do anything for them. The vast majority of enemies either can't or won't want to try and kite you, so turning off their movement and being able to drag them small distances just isn't worth it. The real point most of the time is to set up for proning them with a shove and stopping them from standing up (by virtue of reducing their movement to zero). This means that it'll take you more than one attack to get any functional effect or bonus (by the RAW), and one that actually will disadvantage most of your group attempting to hit that target. Or you can take the pin option and remove that penalty by enforcing a rather harsh penalty on yourself. The classes that are self-sufficiently functional at grappling are those that can use grappling and forced movement to drag targets around aoe effects - but it's still really cruddy to try and roll two or three successful opposed d20 checks in a row. I've always asked for and allowed fluffed benefits for grappling, such as being able to control victim facing to prevent them from attacking or casting spells in directions they cannot see by virtue of being headlocked and turned away from the party.
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Mar 30, 2016 22:58
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The most excellent grappler is a Monk/Druid. Take the Athlete feat (and Mobile later), cast Jump and Longstrider on yourself, burn a Ki point to double your jump distance with Step of the Wind, and drop (i.e. powerbomb) your grappled enemy from 30-40 feet up. Taking falling damage even makes your enemy land prone for ease of re-grappling.
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Mar 30, 2016 23:25
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Alternatively play an Aarakocra monk and see if the GM will let you keep your flying speed. 
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Mar 30, 2016 23:43
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The druid has the benefit of also being able to shapeshift into a form that has a higher strength score, which means better grapples and better jumps. You can also argue that the multiattack power allows you to use more than one maneuver per turn, like the extra attack feature. This is what I did.
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Mar 31, 2016 02:40
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We recently started playing through Out of the Abyss (well, a little while ago, but due to timings and online play it takes ages to get anywhere) but this decade-old webcomic seems to sum things up so far: Also the GM made us roll stats weirdly to make it so everyone has really high stats and then one ridiculous dump stat. As a wizard I have 18 Int and great scores in other stats but a 5 in Charisma. I told everyone that I literally looked like a goofy spooky skeleton thanks to a necromancy accident, and I have a high screechy voice and an extremely offputting personality. That said he did seem to endear the group to him by starting to refuse to call drow 'drow', instead referring to them only as 'Failure Elves'.
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Mar 31, 2016 03:37
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I'm going to be playing in a friends game soon and want to make a gimmick build that lets me goof off and not break his first ever campaign but can quickly become competent if I need to be competent to help keep things going. My current thought is to play a pinball wizard but I'm not sure how to set it up. I'm thinking either divination or transmutation wizard as the base. e: Also I finished my Adventuring License Paperwork. Enjoy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1egQQLelOAsWa9Elc91ubauW6OcyxWsOWsjJYfmlQmp8/edit?usp=sharing Soylent Pudding fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Mar 31, 2016 |
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Mar 31, 2016 03:58
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Soylent Pudding posted:e: Also I finished my Adventuring License Paperwork. Enjoy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1egQQLelOAsWa9Elc91ubauW6OcyxWsOWsjJYfmlQmp8/edit?usp=sharing I hope your players are the kind of players who like that kind of thing, because it's really great.
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Mar 31, 2016 04:38
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Sage Genesis posted:I realize this is going to sound like elitist snobbery but over the past year and a half I've noticed that the people most enthusiastic/impressed with 5e tend to also know the least about it and D&D in general. Not universally true, of course, many people know all about it and enjoy it just fine. And that's cool. But the overlap is suspiciously strong IME. Well, a lot of people don't know the game system they like to play, game design, probability math, or the like in general. The hobby neither requires it nor does the 5e books make it obvious. Add in the common mentality of "without magic, everything should be realistic" which makes spellcasters gods and martials poo poo farmers and you got this common thread of people worrying over objectively non-game breaking poo poo while allowing actually game breaking poo poo.
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Mar 31, 2016 04:42
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Sage Genesis posted:I realize this is going to sound like elitist snobbery but over the past year and a half I've noticed that the people most enthusiastic/impressed with 5e tend to also know the least about it and D&D in general. Not universally true, of course, many people know all about it and enjoy it just fine. And that's cool. But the overlap is suspiciously strong IME. There's also the viewpoint that conflates "this is less complicated than 3.5e" with "therefore, it's a better game", on top of how Fighters are so much better because they're not the dead-levels-but-with-lots-of-bonus-feats class anymore.
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Mar 31, 2016 04:52
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I kinda wanna make an 80 year old druid with massive wisdom but lovely int cause he has alzheimers. He cant do much but if he gets a spell off, somethings happening.
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Mar 31, 2016 05:53
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Rogue might actually be the best grappler, at least pure class. But it is up to interpretation. The Rogue doesn't get any AoE/Zones to drag people into, doesn't get Cutting Words though it would certainly benefit from a Bard in the party with that ability, and doesn't have the spells to give itself advantage on its rolls, but at 11th level the Rogue can have +5 from Strength, assuming they focus on Strength, and double proficiency to Athletics, so long as they pick Athletics for an Expertise, and they cannot roll below a 10 on the d20 roll for any skills they have Proficiency in. This means at 11th level they can have a minimum roll of 23 on Athletics, 25 at 15th level. Most things in the Monster Manual cannot actually beat a 25 Athletics. Thus they pretty much auto succeed on opposed Athletics checks. Sadly Rogues don't have Extra Attack so it takes two turns to set it up, first to grapple, second to prone, then on the third round they start the shanking with advantage. Of course they also have the problem of getting focus fired by their grapple target, with no resistance or crazy AC. Now if they could add some Barbarian for Rage to get advantage that could help, though by 11th level is probably unnecessary. Fighter could be nice for Champion and the expanded crit for even more chances of critting on the prone target. 5 levels of any Extra Attack class would be nice to speed up the grapple/prone. If you actually manage to get 18 levels of Rogue instead, and picked Swashbuckler for your Archetype, you can start spending Bonus Actions to give yourself Advantage on your next Athletics check. Sadly something like Barbarian for Rage and resistance, or Fighter or something for some heavy armor to actually have a decent AC, or some other way of avoiding damage would be kind of important for the build so your target doesn't just rip you apart as you try to hold them down for the shanking.
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Mar 31, 2016 06:07
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Speaking to several of the above posters, if you want to make a character that might be a druid that you can easily dial up or down in power without anyone really noticing, be a halfling Moon Druid and take the Lucky feat at level 4. You'll be relatively innocent right up until you start turning into a bear and taking huge amounts of damage and then immediately shrugging it off, and Lucky seems innocuous until you use it to turn Disadvantage into 3d20-pick-highest Super-Advantage. That you're also rerolling all initial 1s on.
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Mar 31, 2016 06:08
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Soylent Pudding posted:I'm going to be playing in a friends game soon and want to make a gimmick build that lets me goof off and not break his first ever campaign but can quickly become competent if I need to be competent to help keep things going. My current thought is to play a pinball wizard but I'm not sure how to set it up. I'm thinking either divination or transmutation wizard as the base. Definately re-using this. Also my players are about to have a background check done in Zeitgeist so I definately should repurpose this for that!
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Mar 31, 2016 07:18
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Druid might work cause i could work the bear into my spirit animal.
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Mar 31, 2016 08:12
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I have a Fighter in an 8th level party where my main role is the muscle for whenever the rest of the party's whacky plans fall through. Im also the most reliable source of damage for when we ambush and assassinate enemy leaders, because we've all worked out that open combat gets kind of boring. I do decent enough damage with sharpshooter + crossbow expert + battlemaster precision, but Im feeling left out of the whacky plans and would like to contribute more than just murder. I'm thinking of asking my DM to reroll, but I dont know into what. I was thinking of pala/bard or pala/sorc to keep the ability to damage spike when needed, but I cant really pick. Any suggestions?
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Mar 31, 2016 19:36
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If you really want spike melee damage, reroll as a paladin. If you want tons of fun options, go bard. Idk if I'd try to multiclass them.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:49
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Respec to Valor Bard, do what you've been doing but now with Shatter and Polymorph. And congrats, you are level 8, and the highest CR beast in the Monster Manual is the T. Rex at CR 8. Unleash your inner tyrant lizard.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:52
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Ryuujin posted:Rogue might actually be the best grappler, at least pure class. The lack of Extra Attack is severely limiting, because the difference is between being able to grapple + shove prone in a single turn versus taking twice as long to manage that. Additionally, there's the size problem. Your ability to grapple stuff goes right out the window once you encounter something Huge or larger in size, assuming your character is Medium. Bards can get access to Enlarge/Reduce, which lets them get past that threshold. You could play as a Duergar instead to provide that effect once per day, or carry a stock of Potions of Growth, but Valor bards in particular can also get Extra Attack without setting their spell progression behind. The only thing you lose as a grappler from going Bard over Rogue is the ability to guarantee a minimum roll of 10, which you don't really need if you have Advantage on your strength checks from an Enlarge effect or rage.
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Mar 31, 2016 20:47
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I've updated my serpent barbarian to be a monster grappler. The latest rework is mechanically simple, every turn they stay grappled you get another use of your action to choke them and add another point of exhaustion.
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Mar 31, 2016 20:59
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T. rexes automatically grab medium or smaller creatures on a hit with bite. Just throwing that out there. Not that it much matters. The damage on a T. Rex bite is strong enough to tear apart an "appropriate party CR" enemy in a single hit (probably because you transformed from a player of level 8 to a monster the challenge equivalent of a four-man level 8 party).
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Mar 31, 2016 21:26
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Be a bard with war caster and lucky to maximize concentration save bullshit. Take summon woodland creatures as your cross class spell. Summon pixies. Turn all your fighters into T-Rexes and cast fly on them. Then have your casters ride the flying T-Rexes into battle while you play Ride of the Valkyries.
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Mar 31, 2016 21:31
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Don't forget Greater Invisibility is an option by that point, so flying invisible T. rexes that can grab on an at-will attack and deal obscene amounts of damage. My Warforged Bard would scream "Predacons, terrorize!“ before casting Polymorph and eating a Bar-Lgura in a single bite. Mecha Gojira fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Mar 31, 2016 |
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Mar 31, 2016 23:22
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Mecha Gojira posted:T. rexes automatically grab medium or smaller creatures on a hit with bite. Just throwing that out there. Doesnt Polymorph stick you with the mental stats of the creature though? Youd need a T-Rex whisperer to aim one in the right direction.
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Mar 31, 2016 23:30
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Not a Step posted:Doesnt Polymorph stick you with the mental stats of the creature though? Youd need a T-Rex whisperer to aim one in the right direction. It replaces your stats, but unless your DM is a dick bag, having a relatively low int score (pretty sure their Wis is fine) shouldn't prevent you from knowing friend from foe. Only thing I would worry about is the Rex's low AC, but considering they have well over 100 HP you'll be fine.
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Mar 31, 2016 23:40
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Not a Step posted:Doesnt Polymorph stick you with the mental stats of the creature though? Youd need a T-Rex whisperer to aim one in the right direction. You retain alignment/personality. You're still you, just more stupid.
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Mar 31, 2016 23:41
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Has anyone here played through OotA? We just got through the maze engine sequence in Ch. 14 and some crazy poo poo went down. Spoilers for those who care: We were standing on the engine fighting off vrocks while the DM rolled for the engine's results. He rolled in plain view with a dice tower because he figured we'd call shenanigans with some of the insane results that were possible on the d100 table. We managed to get the "+2 to any stat" result twice (hello 24 int wiz) over the course of the first six rolls before he rolled a 9. He put his head in his hands for a few moments before telling us that we were all instantly transported to the time and place we began the campaign (the Drow prison cell) but with all our memories, items, and levels intact. After some discussion, we spent the next 90 mins roleplaying through instagibbing all the enemies that wronged us, getting second copies of all the magic items we wanted, teleporting to every point of interest we'd been to to warn people or gently caress up the demons' plans, and summoning an army of dwarves in the span of about 5 game days. What initially seemed like a hard reset "gently caress you" option for the maze engine ended up being an awesome "Edge of Tomorrow"/"Groundhog Day"-style perfect replay montage of the campaign. We had a blast, we're now OP as gently caress while still fully within the Adventurers' League rules, and the night ended with me dropping a Daern's Instant Fortress on a demon lord. Good times.
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Apr 1, 2016 02:55
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Imagine being one of the prisoner npcs in that scenario. The unconscious new prisoners suddenly wake up and casually murder all of the drow in the base, knowing exactly what they will do before the drow. Imagine being the specter holding the Dawnbringer, depending on your clever ruse and secret passage to defend you. Party marches in directly towards your corpse , yanks the dawnbringer out, then takes out A SECOND DAWNBRINGER and beats your rear end, ect. Mass confusion.
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Apr 1, 2016 03:01
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