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99 CENTS AMIGO posted:I’m doing the same thing with my Rogue Swashbuckler and while I’m about halfway to level 4, I don’t think there’s a huge difference between doing it at 4 or 5; you’re getting the extra 1 AC from the Dex points at 4, but you’re getting other survivability from multiclassing Fighter. I also have a swashbuckler/fighter and went rogue, fighter, rogue, rogue (swashbuckler), rogue (swashbuckler) on level selections. My primary purpose for the fighter level dip was for the Two Weapon Fighting fighting style and proficiency with martial weapons, but I have found that I use Second Wind a lot and it really added a lot to character survivability at early levels. Leveling from 4 to 5 looks like it will be a big deal (gaining the level was the end of our last play session) because I took +2 DEX for my ASI, and my proficiency bonus went from +2 to +3, so I now have a +2 weapon accuracy difference with that level jump. I am trying to let playstyle direct how future levels are chosen, but I can easily see 19 rogue/1 fighter to maximize sneak attack and rogue/swashbuckler abilities, or go as far as 6 total fighter levels for Action Surge, Battlemaster or Champion, ASI, extra attack, and another ASI. If you want to go sword and board purely for flavor, ignore this completely, however you should weigh selecting Dueling vs selecting Two-Weapon Fighting as the bonus damage from your DEX ability modifier will probably be at least +2, and as a swashbuckler, you won't be relying on using your bonus action to disengage nearly as often as other melee rogues, and spending the bonus action to attack with the offhand gives you an additional opportunity to trigger your sneak attack which will eventually be the bulk of your damage done. In the long run, an extra +2 damage per hit, especially if it's your only attack, is not going to scale very well. If you plan on going at least 3 levels into fighter to get Battle Master, it's only 2 more levels to get an extra attack for an extra opportunity to trigger your Sneak Attack, which will be really important if you do go rapier and shield. Don't just think of it as just an extra chance to do rapier + DEX bonus damage, think of it as having advantage on your ability to land a sneak attack. e: Have you considered selecting Defense over Dueling? If you have a high AC, AC bonuses are even more valuable than if you have a low AC*. Having Rogue DEX and +2 AC from a shield would make the +1 AC from Defense very effective. The longer you stay upright, the more damage you can do. * Say you are fighting something with a +4 attack bonus and you have an AC of 15, you'll be hit 50% of the time. A +1 AC will reduce the amount you are hit to 45%, a reduction of 10%. If you have an AC of 19, you'll be hit 25% of the time and a +1 AC will reduce that to 20%, a reduction of 20%. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 20:34
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Toshimo posted:
I haven't read it, but there may be some useful info for you in here ... https://www.dmsguild.com/product/262748/Tome-of-the-Pact DMG posted:Tome of the Pact is a love letter to the warlock class, featuring:
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Jan 2, 2019 22:20
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Trip report from my group's latest session: We ran into exactly what the thread has been discussing: After entering a warehouse from the back entrance, and the big bad (level 8 Warlock) getting a little overconfident in positioning because the DM expected that we would turtle at a chokepoint instead of charging in, we ended up landing several rounds of melee attacks with swashbuckler sneak attacks right on the big bad in the first 3 rounds of battle, causing him to go into flight mode, casting darkness, and retreating. Our fighter/battlemaster tank (played by a first-time player) jumped off the railing to chase the big bad taking 5 attacks of opportunity (which all could only succeed on a natural 20 due to shield of faith, and a nice evasive footwork roll). Unfortunately, on the big bad's next turn, he cast Banishment on the tank sending him to a 10-round time-out after a failed CHA save which was his dump stat. We proceeded to play out the battle over the next 2 hours where the DM (who is DM'ing 5e for the first time ever) became very aware how not-fun sitting idle for 10 rounds was for this player and was constantly apologizing to him for it. Unfortunately, due to all of us playing 5e for the first time, none of us realized that we weren't subjecting the big bad to concentration checks each time we damaged him, potentially freeing our fighter. The battle ended up being extremely epic where we only survived because the druid summoned a couple of brown bears that both added some damage, but also attracted attacks and and absorbed several of them. The cleric charged after the big bad because he had murdered a temple priest and stolen an artifact sacred to her god and she announced that my very damaged rogue was not getting any healing because she was all-in on going after him. After I used my rogue move, "dash for action" and "dash for bonus action" to close in melee range, I started to unload attacks with sneak attack on him, but the legendary mace he held reacted to every hit by causing around 8 points of damage per hit back to me. We ended up in an epic confrontation where we knew we would take as much damage attacking as we'd get as a reaction and therefore risked death every round. It worked out for us by taking down the big bad as the reaction damage would have missed taking me down to zero. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Jan 7, 2019 |
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Jan 7, 2019 09:15
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Conspiratiorist posted:Your Cleric also forgot she could immediately end the fight with Hold Person. The cleric tried Hold Person twice on the Warlock and it saved both times.
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Jan 7, 2019 17:43
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Nutsngum posted:How much damage were you putting out? Remember you have to receive enough damage from a single attack that takes your HP to its negative maximum to just die outright. I wasn't in danger of dropping outright dead due to massive damage rules, but I was doing 1d6+5 weapon damage and 2d6 sneak attack damage, and then just the 1d6+5 weapon damage with the offhand (Two Weapon Fighting fighting style) and receiving 10-11 points of retaliation damage per hit, and at the end, the cleric and I were at single digit hit points as we were taking as much damage as we inflicted in retaliation in addition to its Eldritch Blast on its turn. There was a good chance of both of us dropping unconscious and letting the DM decide if he wanted to finish us off before having the Warlock make his escape.
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Jan 7, 2019 18:06
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Mr. Humalong posted:Are swashbuckler rogues decent as far as doing damage and being able to do sneaky/charisma stuff outside of combat? Or would a swords bard work better? Starting a ravnica campaign soon and I want to be a sneaky but charming rear end in a top hat. Rogues in general do good damage in an environment when they are allowed to take their sneak attack. A swashbuckler in particular is going to get a lot of sneak attack opportunities in melee range that other rogue archetypes will not get with Rakish Audacity. In my experience playing a 1 fighter/4 swashbuckler in my current campaign, I am getting to attempt a sneak attack on 85%+ of my rounds and I very rarely have to take a hide action/bonus action to do so. Any rogue will get to sneak attack when attacking something that an ally is in melee range of, which in a vanilla battle with a tank-like teammate should be at least 50% of your rounds. The amount of extra sneak attack chances you get from Rakish Audacity is going to be very situational, but unless your DM starts to meta-game battle layouts against you, you should get a lot of opportunities to engage a target from a position where you are adjacent to it and no-one else is adjacent to you. Additionally, Fancy Footwork is giving you a portion of the Mobility feat so you can freely move through the battlespace if you take an attack against an enemy. Fancy Footwork, and the aim of landing a sneak attack give the swashbuckler a desire to maximize the number of attacks per round they have. The simplest way to do that is to dual-wield and use one's bonus action to perform an offhand attack to have a second chance to trigger a sneak attack should the primary weapon attack miss, or to perform an attack against an additional melee combatant to avoid an Attack of Opportunity from using Fancy Footwork. Mechanically, at lower levels, Rakish Audacity and Fancy Footwork are all a Swashbuckler has going for them, but they can enable the Swashbuckler to dive in and make a melee attack only to withdraw without using their Cunning Action to Disengage (but this can be mimiced using the Mobile feat). Where the class shines is in charging into the enemy's formation, where it's not just sliding next to the main tank to get flanking sneak attack shots, landing sneak attack damage, and then withdrawing without triggering AoO's, Out of combat situations don't have anything special for the Swashbuckler, other than the "charm spell" ability at level 9 that a Bard is probably going to be better at. For the OP ... the Bard option is probably going to be the overall more powerful option, unless the DM is having a lot of battles per rest. A pure swashbuckler has no short rest/long rest abilities until 4th tier abilities.
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Jan 13, 2019 08:51
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Numlock posted:So for the upcoming d&d game I’ll be playing in I’m playing around with the idea of running an elf barbarian(totem)/rouge(trickster) Think Mob enforcer with serious anger issues.' Did you perhaps mean cleric(trickster)?
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Feb 4, 2019 08:44
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Kaysette posted:He means arcane trickster rogue based on what he wrote. My bad! I had cleric domains on the brain. Conspiratiorist posted:Sneak Attack keys off Finesse, so you can get it just fine if using a Short Sword or Rapier, but if you want the above you need to use Strength with them. Scimitars work here too with the barbarian proficiences.
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Feb 4, 2019 20:59
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Had a pretty cool experience last night. In a previous session a month or so ago, my Swashbuckler had a perfect round in a sewer battle against a crowd of giant rats: natural 20 on both short sword attacks and all 6's on the d6 damage rolls, massively overkilling two of them. The party starts to sarcastically call me the "Ratslayer" and it sticks, to the point my character starts using it in intimidation dialogue. Fast forward to yesterday's session, the party camps during travel at an abandoned farm and we decide to clear the barn before resting for the night. We tear through a group of giant rats in the barn, hamming up the Ratslayer persona, raging through the rats as the DM describes the entrails, tails, eyeballs, etc of the rat corpses hanging off my armor and beard. After the last rat drops, the DM asks what we want to do and I cheekily suggest we look in their wallets. He says "You find this" and tosses a box of Triscuits to me. I catch it, open it up, and inside is a custom embroidered dice bag with a rat skull on a d20 and "Ratslayer" embroidered below it. I think I'll keep this group
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Feb 12, 2019 01:32
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Nutsngum posted:This isnt really any better at all and also ignores that lvl 1 is max hit die so youre more likely going to lose out on this method. If this method is modified to assume that the 1st hit die is max, and then performs the other rolls, it does a very good job of smoothing out the randomness of the rolls and allowing a catchup for consecutive poor rolls while simultaneously dampening the advantage of consecutive great rolls. My DM has us roll for HP, and simultaneously rolls his own, and lets us choose from our known roll vs his hidden roll resulting in a pseudo-advantage roll. I've had 1 fighter level with a d10 roll and 4 subsequent rogue d8 rolls, and whenever I've rolled a 4 or lower, I've taken the DM roll and I've been lucky in that all of them have been above average and I have a max hp of 55 at level 6.
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Feb 13, 2019 07:38
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JustJeff88 posted:Sounds great, but did he receive any actual Triscuits? Yes! The DM's girlfriend is the hostess and she was the instigator on getting me that dice bag while she got her own bag with kitties on it. We have a never ending platter of sliced sausages and cheeses and triscuits in the center of the table as well as your typical vegetable platters with ranch dips. We also have some pretty skilled cooks in the crowd as the druid brings his homemade beef jerky and I bring hand-held items as follows: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/08/curried-jamaican-beef-patties-recipe.html https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/07/the-food-lab-southern-fried-chicken-recipe.html ... but turned into chicken fingers by slicing strips of chicken breast instead of whole pieces.
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Feb 13, 2019 07:50
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bare bottom pancakes posted:Your DM sounds amazing and I want to read more about this group I'm a 1 fighter/5 rogue (swashbuckler) who was a spy for a now-disgraced house. The DM's girlfriend is a 6th level Order Cleric of Bast (Vengence and Cats) which my character is also a follower of. She's only previously played 2e before. Our Druid is a 6th level Moon Druid who I will charitably describe as not the most tactical of players ... he spent every round of a combat trying to use his entire spell pool to impede some mooks approaching him while another player had an illithid cracking through his skull and sucking his brain out . Our tank is a 6th level fighter (battlemaster) dwarf with distracting attack, sweeping attack, and precision attack who has never played D&D of any sort before. We also have a bard who is the 2nd character after the arcane archer got his brains sucked out by the illithid.
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Feb 13, 2019 08:16
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Evard's Black Tentacles question:5E on Evard's posted:Squirming, ebony tentacles fill a 20-foot square on ground that you can see within range. For the duration, these tentacles turn the ground in the area into difficult terrain. ... and ... 5E on Restrained posted:Your speed becomes 0, and you can't benefit from any bonus to your speed. The way we have been playing it is as soon as the spell is cast, everyone in the affected area makes a saving throw. But that then led to characters who had made their saving throw once the spell was cast having to make an additional saving throw once their turn started, and that just seemed off to us. Should we have not had characters make their initial saving throw until the start of their own turn? How do others play this? Secondly, to escape the tentacles, if a character uses DEX, my understanding is that it's a DEX check, not a saving throw, and therefore you would not have disadvantage, but you would also not get your proficiency bonus to a DEX saving throw, nor would you get your proficiency bonus to Acrobatics like you would if you were escaping a grapple.
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Mar 5, 2019 18:16
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Besesoth posted:As far as I know: I chatted w/my friend, the DM, about this a bit tonight, and he seems to have also been discussing it with his girlfriend (the cleric in our party) after our IM exchange earlier in the day, and hoo boy ... did this turn into a bit of a can of worms. His primary concern is that if the initiative order goes NPC wizard, party cleric, affected PC, then RAW would mean that the NPC wizard could cast the spell, the party cleric could cast dispel magic, and then the affected PC doesn't even need to make a saving throw and a 4th level spell was trivially negated. I suggested that we could house-rule that the effects occur immediately, but that affected creatures wouldn't have to make an additional save upon the start of the turn as they've already done that. This would allow the damage at least to apply to those that failed their saving throw, and if the scenario of the cleric casting dispel magic, that at least the spell has had some affect. We then pointed out how the affected characters would be able to use their action on their turn to attempt to break free, and he felt that it was unfair that someone could try to break free of an effect in the same round that they had failed their save to avoid that effect. I argued that pretty much any other effect behaved that way ... if my character uses shove to knock someone prone, they don't lose their turn, and can stand up as soon as its their turn at the cost of half their movement, but at that point, I think I started to get the vibe that the conversation was verging on getting a little too adversarial and at the point, I just switched topics to something unrelated to the game. I definitely don't want the game to turn into a rules squabble, and I've avoided some areas of disagreement (for example, he doesn't think that rogues should be able to get a second sneak attack per round with their reaction), so I haven't pressed that issue, partly because my swashbuckler is already the highest DPS in the group without that and don't want to further exasperate the optimization imbalance with the rest of the party. I think that since we've been trying to rapidly tie up a lot of plotline loose-ends, most of the past few sessions have been 1-2 epic battles between the party and named PCs who have been recurring antagonists and the DM has a world he's been running since his teens that maybe we're just experiencing natural conflict from opposing sides being very invested in their characters and having ideas on how potent they should be and feeling resentful when certain abilities or encounters are countered easier than expected. The fight with the wizard who was casting Evard's Black Tentacles included my swashbuckler jumping off a balcony to gank the wizard who had just riskily sent his skeletal warrior bodyguards up the stairs to engage the party. One natural 20 and a 37 point sneak attack later, and we had (or so we thought) just ended the big boss fight early. We mopped up the rest of the undead, making some decisions that were more for fun than strategy (such as jumping from the ground floor up to the balcony while yelling "Parkour!" each time we rolled for an Athletics check), and I noticed that the DM kept making an extra roll during some of the NPCs turns. I assumed at the time that he was rolling to see if the undead minotaurs that had been turned and ran out the door were engaged, stopped, turned around, etc, but no ... suddenly the wizard that my character had dropped stood back up, wheeled around, and got 5/6 of our party in a cone of cold, dropping 3 of us. Luckily the cleric was the one not in the cone, ran over, cast Prayer of Healing, and the monk sprinted out and took out the 1 HP the wizard had left. The DM had been rolling death saves for the wizard, and he succeeded all 3 rounds, stood back up, and tried to get one last bit of revenge. It made for a hilarious bit of tension after we thought the fight had gone into mop-up mode after my character dropped the wizard. Anyway, this is a bit of a ramble, but I enjoy our group and wouldn't mind some advice on balancing when to say "well actually .." vs just rolling with what the DM wants, especially given that absolutely none of us have played 5e before this, and our most recent experience before this would be the DM and several others playing 2e, and me playing Pathfinder.
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Mar 6, 2019 07:48
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Besesoth posted:Beyond what others have (correctly) said about this, point out that in order to reliably cast Dispel Magic against a 4th-level spell, the cleric has to cast Dispel Magic as a 4th-level spell; otherwise, the cleric has to make a 14 DC Wisdom check. So a character is using a 3rd-level spell slot to maybe cancel a 4th-level spell, or using a 4th-level spell slot to definitely cancel a 4th-level spell. It is not "trivially negated". You and everyone before in the thread make very good points that basically support the idea that 5e has been balanced around the concept of action economy and that arbitrarily modifying the rules outside of some glaring edge cases (rogue with magic initiate and a familiar doing the help action every round is going to annoy a reasonable DM) doesn't actually help things. The group I play with are my friends, not people that are friends because I play with them, and our sessions are fun, despite the frustrations around rules application, so any flavor of  isn't the answer.As I mentioned before, the DM previously ran 2e campaigns. The reason we're currently playing 5e is simply because of the availability of online tools such as dndbeyond and roll20. If it weren't for them, we'd be running a 2e campaign and therefore the DM isn't super invested in 5e as a system, more as a convenience and I think this has a lot to do with his tendency to approach the rules as "what seems right to him" vs "this is a contained system that has had balance baked into it". I like to think of myself as someone who will bring up concerns about rules whether or not they are beneficial to myself, or the party (such as reminding the DM that he needs to make our cleric or our druid make a concentration save when they take damage), but, I could have very selective memory there. True or not, his opinion of me is that I am absolutely a rules lawyer (to be fair, I'm literally asking questions about the rules on Internet forums right now and I guarantee neither he nor any other player in the group would do so), so I really want to minimize disagreeing about rules, especially in the middle of the game simply because it's not fun for everyone at the table. The DM has created an engaging world with a complex plot with multiple adversaries that are actually working against each other, creating opportunities to make temporary tense alliances, so I wouldn't agree with some earlier accusations that the DM just wants to railroad the players and give us no agency. In fact, I was the one who suggested to him that he maybe needed to provide an obvious narrative path to keep the story going as the group would descend into complete analysis paralysis in an information vacuum. We're nearing spring and biking season for the weekends, so the DM wants to only have 2 more sessions and would like to wrap up some story arcs. Given all that, I'd really prefer to avoid a major argument over rules, especially since I think it's perceived that the reason I'm arguing them is simply to provide myself or the party an edge over the NPCs, I am absolutely a tactical junkie who looks at the grid battlefield as a problem to solve and know that my passion in that arena makes it hard for the DM to accept that my arguments for the rules we've been talking about in this thread aren't just me trying to gain an advantage. Anyway, I appreciate the feedback, agree with it, but don't think it's wise for me to aggressively push for any of them with just 2 sessions to go as that'll just create tension. After the campaign is over, I'll push the DM to do some research on 5e balance, and go on forums himself to ask questions as the answers given here should make him reconsider his current opinions.
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Mar 7, 2019 09:19
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JustJeff88 posted:I enjoyed it as well. Even if the DM misread the rules, it seemed perfectly appropriate to me that a "boss monster" could get up after the fight was won, drop one last big spell and then get his head punched off. Since nobody in the party died because of it (correct me if I am wrong), I think that it's fine. You're correct ... noone died. I'll very subtly update the DM that no, your NPC doesn't automatically stand up on the 3rd successful death save, but, it was fun. 3 of us went unconscious but noone died. I would have called BS had the DM instead had the wizard Dimension Door away and escape after making his saves, vs making a suicidal last-gasp action. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Mar 7, 2019 |
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Mar 7, 2019 09:36
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:This is wrong, always cast Vicious Mockery, every round, forever. Insulting someone so hard they literally die is basically the heart and soul of the hard class. I don't know if it was intentional, but this is a great typo for the "I roll to seduce" crowd.
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Jun 21, 2020 19:35
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Tonight, in our "Tomb of Annihilation" group, we were in the temple by Camp Righteous, and we were navigating the way past some traps, and up and down ledges. After making several really high Investigation rolls to detect traps, I asked the DM if I could roll to Investigate for any signs of milk or cheese. The DM gave me an odd look and said to go ahead. I got a middling roll ... a 13 or so, and after being told that I didn't find anything, declared "Huh. I guess this means we aren't in the Ledge and Dairy Temple I've heard so much about." Amazingly, I am still invited to the next session. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Oct 9, 2020 |
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Oct 6, 2020 06:31
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ritorix posted:A few general things I would do: Spoiler tags in this post are covering Tom of Annihilation possible spoilers. I'm running a level 5 Divine Soul Sorcerer (In Tomb of Annihilation for further thread coincidence) and I think I have some lessons to take away from this. Race: Dispater Tiefling Feats: None Metamagic: Twin Spell and Transmuted Spell Cantrips: Fire Bolt, Guidance, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Thaumaturgy, Toll the Dead 1st: Bless, Disguise Self (Racial), Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Mage Armor 2nd: Detect Thoughts (Racial), Spiritual Weapon 3rd: Fireball, Haste Party: PCs: Drunken Master Monk, Circle of the Land (Coast) Druid, College of Lore Bard NPCs: Artis Cimber, Dragonbait I had originally built the character for a Sword Coast campaign with some diplomacy and subterfuge, and had Suggestion and Subtle Spell Metamagic, but once we decided to run Tomb of Annihilation, the DM let me switch up some spells that were more suited to the campaign. The players are myself, my wife, the DM's wife, and the DM's mother, and I'm the only one with much experience playing D&D so I've been attempting to do a playstyle that lets the other players shine, however the DM basically said that I need to take Fireball as the party didn't have any other AoE capabilities, and he knew some of what we'd be facing. Transmuted Spell seemed useful for being able to change fireball (and firebolt for that matter) into any other elemental damage type for a low sorcery point cost, especially if I intend on twinning Haste during big battles. I was twinning Mage Armor onto myself and the Monk (who, at the time, had a +0 WIS modifier due to RP reasons) for an effective +3 AC on each of us, but they've since rebuilt the character to have a +2 WIS modifier, so the effective bonus for twinning Mage Armor is down to a +1 for the Monk, and I question the value of a sorcery point for that +1 AC. We used to have a Oath of Conquest Paladin in the party, but the player had to quit due to RL time constraints, so I have found myself with the Monk and the two NPCs as the natural options for Twinned Haste, but, for the Monk, it doesn't feel quite as epic as they already had a ton of movement, and the extra attack isn't as dramatic for someone already attacking 3-4 times a turn. It's very effective to cast it on one or both of the NPCs, but, that deprives the players I'm playing with of the spotlight and relegates the party to being sidekicks of these badass NPCs. I did not have an escape spell because I had a spellbook with Misty Step in it, however I had to use it (as a single use scroll) when we entered Omu, and were ambushed by Assassin Vines. I did cast Twinned Haste on the Monk and Dragonbait mainly because I wanted to give the Monk extra actions to try to break out of being restrained, but that was more of a situational benefit. With this background, I'm wondering if I should be altering my spell list to make better use of Twinned Spell, or altering my metamagic to adjust to the fact that I am not using Twinned Spell well as is.
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Feb 10, 2021 01:25
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radlum posted:When you DM do you make voices for all your NPCs? My current DM is OK at making voices (to be honest, I find it corny most of the time and just bad when it comes to voicing female NPCs), but that's not my thing and that's the one thing that I'm not that excited about when I start my own campaign as DM. I don't really do voices (except for outrageous Scottish accents for all the dwarves in Icewind Dale), so much as mannerisms and tones. My favorite so far is a terrified, easily excitable, and foul-mouthed (RotFM Spoiler: awaked shrub)
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Mar 24, 2021 16:18
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We just had our first session of a new campaign that was a branch off of our White Plume Mountain campaign. Basically, the PCs won White Plume Mountain, and all three artifact weapons were retrieved, and the party escaped, and now we're branching off into an all-dwarves campaign with one original character from the previous campaign, and the rest of us creating new dwarf characters to accompany him. We're all starting at level 9, and my character is a Circle of the Wildfire Druid that I somewhat modeled after Durance from Pillars of Eternity. He's a Dwarf, but he believes in the purifying attributes of fire. Jumping straight into combat and summoning my Wildfire Spirit, I've got a few observations: 1) The Fiery Teleportation ability of the Wildfire Spirit creates a minigame puzzle that allows the druid to shuffle the entire battlemap within the 15 foot constraints of the ability. This is AMAZING, especially for someone like me that loves a tactical puzzle in combat. 1b) Rules as written, the Fiery Teleportation ability of the Wildfire Spirit does not say that the teleportation results in the mass of teleported allies moving in one bunch and arriving in the same relative grouping. The Wildfire Druid should take advantage of the entire range of the teleport ability to distribute the arrivals of each ally individually. This means that the teleport ability can be used to individually place allied creatures in the individually most advantageous position for each individual creature, within a 3-dimensional space. I used it tonight to put the barbarian 5 feet above an enemy wyvern so he could attempt to climb onto it. 2) The order of operations for the Wildfire Spirit are pretty specific. I have Cure Wounds as a subclass spell known, so I want to take advantage of the ability to cast it through my Wildfire Spirit, however, the rules are pretty specific ... I use my bonus action to command my Wildfire Spirit to do things, but it acts after I do, immediately after my initiative order. What this means is, if I want to have my Wildfire Spirit move to a specific spot so that I can cast Cure Wounds as a touch spell through it, I need to hold my action to cast Cure Wounds with the condition of "when I am adjacent to my target" I cast Cure Wounds. This works, but I need to spend both my Action and my Reaction to accomplish this. At level 9, this isn't costing me a lot as my only reactions are Attacks of Opportunity and Absorb Elements, but at 10th level, that'll interfere with Cauterize Wounds. 3) My future plans for this character are that I'll be able to cast a lot of spells through my Wildfire Spirit, including Thornwhip. Since my Wildfire Spirit is flying, I potentially could be using this to pull an enemy over a precipice since the pull can be centered on my Spirit. 4) A Circle of the Wildfire Druid may want to have a fire damage cantrip, but, Create Bonfire is Concentration, and Produce Flame has a target of Self. Since Produce Fame has a casting range of Self, it is not eligible to be cast through the Wildfire Spirit. 5) As written, the d8 bonus roll only occurs when the spell itself immediately causes a roll for healing or for fire damage, but that leaves some ambiguity for things like spells that don't instantly cause their dice roll for healing or fire damage such as Aura of Vitality. Any observations on anything I'm missing or overlooking? Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Nov 12, 2021 |
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Nov 12, 2021 09:28
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I had them meet a friendly Halfling Cleric of Tymora on the road who blessed them all with the effects of the Aid spell that lasted until the next long rest. This is almost exactly what I have planned for my party for when I run the campaign. My party will be all experienced players, but with new players, I'd also have an npc introduce them to the concept of readying actions for when enemies appear from behind cover.
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May 30, 2022 04:39
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100YrsofAttitude posted:I'm now pretty sure I'm going Beast Master Ranger, as a Kobold with Draconic Sorcery assuming Booming Blade Stacks with Shillelagh. The idea is to grapple enemies with the Beast of the Sea, smack them around with my attack and extra attack (taking Polearm Master), and then having the Beast move with the grappled enemy triggering Booming blade for... 7d8 between everything? Not counting the attacks the beast gets in itself. (1 die for the OG staff attack + 1 for the polearm bonus action + 2 from Booming blade at lvl 11 + 3 for when it triggers on movement). I may be misinterpreting things, but, is your intention to use one of your Extra Attacks to cast Booming Blade? If so, that isn't RAW. You are using your Action to cast Booming Blade, which allows you to make a single attack as part of casting the spell. You are forgoing the ability to make multiple attacks using Extra Attack to instead cast Booming Blade. In fact, RAW, you can't perform your bonus action attack from Polearm Master because you did not take the Attack action, you instead took the Cast Spell action with Booming Blade. This is all moot if you and your DM are house ruling it to be allowed, but it probably should be intentionally house ruled rather than just not actually realizing it's not RAW. E: I'm playing a Kobold Drakewarden Ranger that is currently level 3, and when Monsters of the Multiverse came out, I converted him to the new Kobold race and decided to go with Draconic Sorcery too, and spent some time going through the cantrips. Ultimately, I decided that most Sorcerer cantrip options weren't going to be an in-combat replacement for Extra Attack, once that comes online, and so I went for Minor Illusion, which fits the character's desire to have an escape option available. E2: Also, unwilling movement from being dragged by a creature that is grappling you should not trigger Booming Blade as it explicitly states 'if the target willingly moves'. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 21:27 on May 31, 2022 |
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May 31, 2022 21:05
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neonchameleon posted:In practice human and vhuman are the two most popular races; a lot of players either want to play something 'normal' or find the class on its own provides more than enough of interest. Anecdotally, my experience has been that many newer players want to be a version of themselves, but in a fantasy world, and many of them pick one of the human options, or stick close with half-elf or elf. In fact, that DnD race breakdown says that 43.1% of all characters are Human, Variant Human, Half-Elf, or Elf. I've also seen that someone's 3rd or 4th or 5th campaign is when they try the exotic ... Loxodons, Tabaxi, Kobolds, Harengin, etc.
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Jun 13, 2022 21:31
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Arivia posted:For once, 5e thread, I come to you with an actual 5e question. A friend is running a 5e FR game, and I'm playing in it. The allowed books are the PHB+SCAG, with flexible racial bonuses but no access to other supplements. I was thinking of going swashbuckler rogue, although some sort of cleric or paladin is still open as well. Any build advice or recommendations? The first thing I'd recommend figuring out what you'd like to be doing with your bonus action during battle: The base rogue in melee generally doesn't want to stand at the front line, and therefore wants to move in, attack, and then move out. Non-swashbucklers will usually use their bonus action to Disengage using their Cunning Action, after swooping in to take a swing, and then moving away from the front lines to relative safety. Fancy Footwork gives the swashbuckler a couple of alternative uses of your bonus action by giving you the equivalent of a Disengage on each melee target you swing at. 1) You can dual-wield, and use your bonus action to attack again, letting you a) have another chance at landing your sneak attack in case your attack action misses, or b) attack another enemy to trigger Fancy Footwork to avoid an opportunity attack on a second opponent. In this case, your movement to advance, attack, and retreat will be limited ... 25' - 35' depending on your race. 2) You could instead use your bonus action to Dash using Cunning Action and be extremely mobile. This option really shines with a high movement speed race, like the Wood Elf previously suggested. That character would be moving 70' per turn with Dash which is an amazing amount of mobility, letting you get to the front lines (or even behind them), strike, then retreat to a very safe distance. Another build concern is around skills and the ability score assignment. If you're wanting to build a complementary party, you should figure out if you're going to be the party face (handling social interactions and making Persuasion, Deception, and/or Intimidation checks) and should therefore favor a high CHA score and Proficiency (or even Expertise) in one or more social skill. Additionally, you'll want to know if your character will be the party scout in normal exploration scenarios, which will make you want to prioritize Stealth, Perception, Investigation, and maybe even Survival (for tracking). Finally, Athletics and Acrobatics are very thematic for a swashbuckler, even though a class feature around them doesn't come online until very late (Elegant Maneuver at level 13). You will want DEX as your highest stat, followed by CON and CHA in some order, but since STR, INT, and WIS all fuel skills important to you, there is no obvious dump stat. I personally would dump INT but try to counteract that by being proficient in Investigation unless someone else in the party can handle that for you. I would also speak with your DM and confirm that they are on board with rules allowing a rogue to sneak attack on someone else's turn by using a reaction, then start looking at some ways to get that to come online via other party member abilities and features, multiclassing options (Battle Master maneuvers for example), or feats (Sentinal, Mage Slayer, or Martial Adept with Riposte for example). Finally, swashbuckler multi-classes very well, especially with fighter. A single level dip gives you a Fighting Style (Two Weapon Fighting for dual wielders, Defense or Dueling otherwise), shield proficiency (use one if not Dual Wielding), medium and heavy armor proficiencies, martial weapon proficiencies (grab a Heavy Crossbow when you are forced to fight at range), and Second Breath. You can make a solid build adding fighter levels all the way up to 5th for Extra Attack, which synergizes with Fancy Footwork very well.
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Jul 19, 2022 18:09
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nelson posted:5e rogue is … not great. They give up spellcasting and armor and get good at skill checks. Except the Bard is also good at skill checks and gets to be a full caster. Damage wise, the rogue gets outclassed by a fighter with one of the power attack feats. But the fighter also gets good armor. I like the idea of the Rogue being the skill monkey who has the higher floor and is much less likely to gently caress something up, and that is Reliable Talent. The problem is that level 11 is way too late for something that should be archetype defining to come online. If I were tweaking the Rogue base class, I'd have Reliable Talent come online at 5th or 6th level (maybe swapping it for the second round of Expertise choices). Skillchecks could play very differently if you've got that Reliable Talent Rogue who is guaranteed to succeed any skillcheck easier than a Hard DC for anything they're proficient in. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Aug 5, 2022 |
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Aug 5, 2022 16:33
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:Just the weapon die though, not the smite die or sneak attack die. So its a huge nerf to them. We should wait to see if in the class sections, they explicitly state that crits double sneak attack and/or smite damage, but currently, yes it does look like a big nerf. I do like how many feats scale with proficiency bonus, but steering martial backgrounds to take the Savage Attacker feat, which looks to be just as underwhelming as it is in current 5e doesn't give me warm fuzzies that they recognize that martial classes needed help.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:07
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St0rmD posted:
I would guess that Lucky's explicit language of imposing Advantage/Disadvantage is meant to result in it canceling out existing Disadvantage/Advantage, rather than replacing the results of an Advantage/Disadvantage roll. This seems like it would be extra useful for rogues to make an attack eligible for Sneak Attack by simply using the Lucky feat. According to this table, the benefit of Savage Attacker maxes out at slightly less than a +2 to damage for a d12 weapon on a single damage roll per round. code:
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Aug 18, 2022 22:42
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Mr. Lobe posted:I like this idea narratively. It's like your team has drilled and practiced so much they're as coordinated as a sentai superhero group. Same. It's like if the Swashbuckler with a +8 initiative uses that to point out the impending ambush to the control Wizard instead of just charging right into battle with the rest of the party unwarned.
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Aug 18, 2022 22:57
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Going back to suggestions to improve Monks, I've been toying with this idea (along with increasing the amount of Ki points a monk gets). Change Patient Defense from: quote:You can spend 1 ki point to take the Dodge action as a bonus action on your turn. ... to ... quote:You can spend 1 ki point to take the Dodge action as a bonus action on your turn or as a reaction on any turn, including your own. This would give Monks basically a martial Shield spell and would be very thematically fitting. E:. If this belongs in the playtest thread, let me know. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 18:35
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lemonadesweetheart posted:I need help, I'm coming up to my first feat/asi choice. I have str 14 and wis 18 and am a life cleric. I am torn on whether I should take heavy armor master or +2 to Wis. I already got a free feat at first level and took war caster. My thoughts for HAM is that using it with warding bond would be kinda cool and generally help my survivability a bit. Also 15 str would mean i don't get a -10 to speed if I ever get better than the chainmail I'm currently wearing. I'm likely going to take one or the other this time and the other at the next. Should I just leave it and go with the wis? Is HAM a bad idea in general? Assuming your DM would allow the Heavy Armor Master feat to reduce mundane slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage taken from Warding Bond, it is a valid playstyle, but I suspect that it won't perform well at higher levels. It's good that you have War Caster, but even with that, taking damage every time your tank takes damage is a lot of opportunities to lose concentration, and maintaining concentration is a big part of higher level cleric play. If you're willing to delay things a bit, I'd recommend taking a +1 WIS "half" feat now, like Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Telekenetic, or Telepathic, and then at level 8, take +1 WIS and +1 STR. If you don't think your campaign is going to go into levels 8+, HAM is most useful at lower levels and would let you get Splint now, and Plate when you can afford it.
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Sep 18, 2022 01:10
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Regalingualius posted:Well, after thinking on it a bit, I think I’ve settled on going with a Paladin after all, and probably going to be going the full 20 in it for simplicity’s sake, and going with a Far Traveler background. I’ve also been referencing from http://dnd5e.wikidot.com Re: dual-wielding: You cannot attack with both a longsword and a shortsword without the "Dual Wielder" feat. Without the feat, both weapons wielded must be light, which means scimitars, shortswords or daggers. If you are very invested into dual-wielding a longsword and shortsword (or scimitar, or even a second longsword) as a katana and wakizashi, you could take the Dual Wielder feat as a variant human, and take the Defensive fighting style, making you fairly tanky, but still having the dual-wielding flavor. Just realize that you're investing quite a bit of resources into the playstyle without getting the same raw power that alternate choices could give you.
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Oct 11, 2022 22:25
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Zurreco posted:Reflavor breastplate to be petrified wood. ezpz In one of my campaigns, my Forge Cleric made giant crab shells into Scale Mail for the druid, but in retrospect, I should have said it was Half Plate armor. Also, if she takes any fire damage, the armor is going to turn bright red.
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Oct 14, 2022 23:39
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Government Handjob posted:It is the first encounter, actually. It is very poorly balanced with regards to character levels and player (or DM) experience. It's been called the deadliest encounter in 5e because of how many TPKs it has caused. When I run this campaign, my plan is to have a priest of Lathanader accompany the party from Neverwinter, and when the party turns the wagon from the High Road to the Triboar Trail, the priest will cast Aid (twice if there's 4 or more members in the party) on them before bidding them farewell and continuing South on their own. The extra 5hp per character should really help 1st level character survivability, and also lower the need for an immediate rest before continuing past the first encounter.
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Oct 21, 2022 17:08
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Fishbus posted:Anyone have some fun ideas for dual wielding magic items or weapons? I’m drawing blanks for the most part and would like to give something to a rogue swashbuckler. Have the offhand weapon be a parrying dagger, and give it a magical parrying ability. Perhaps simply the Battlemaster "Parry" ability with X uses per day and a fixed maneuver die size, or be a little more exotic and have it do something crazy like add a +5 to a +10 to the wielder's AC for a whole round, at the cost of a point of exhaustion as the dagger whips around in a flurry of parrying strikes while the wielder can barely hang on. Maybe the exhaustion cost only occurs on a failed STR or CON save.
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Dec 8, 2022 19:55
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Rutibex posted:Perry the Magical Parrying Dagger If the wielder is in an elevated position, and there are vertical masses of fabric between the wielder and the ground (crow's nest on a ship with sails, balcony with long tapestries hanging down a castle wall), the wielder must make a WIS 15 saving throw to take a ladder or stairs to the ground floor. On a failure, the wielder will instead jump to the fabric, plunging Perry the Magical Parrying Dagger into it, and riding it down to the ground floor/ship's deck, automatically succeeding on any Athletics or Acrobatics check to safely land.
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Dec 9, 2022 17:57
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Slashrat posted:How much profit per ten-day could you expect to make from a small apple orchard in your average D&D economy? I'd base my ruling on a few factors. 1) What is the typical Lifestyle level of the community that this orchard is part of the economy for, and its expected clientele? 2) Is the business completely hands-off, or has the PC/party invested significant gameplay focus and/or resources in it? The minimum income I'd give for a completely hands-off unremarkable business owned by players, would be the Lifestyle level income typical to the community it is part of. Party investment of resources, or simply gameplay time and attention should automatically bump it up a level to where it has a prominent place in the local economy and is a level of Lifestyle one level higher. Having a niche or precious product could also boost the value (clientele is wealthy patrons from outside the immediate community). Extraordinary investment, and/or access to extraordinary resources (ie, the business is a gem mine instead of an apple orchard), could raise it even further, though I'd also start to use that business as a plot hook for the party: a corrupt tax collector shows up and is expecting a hefty bribe, resources found while adventuring could be used in the business, NPCs encountered in the world could be hired by the business, etc. I'm running a RotFM session for friends, and they've now taken over the abandoned inns in Lonelywood and in Caer-Dineval and the party has hired several local NPCs, and even has the awakened shrubbery from the Elven Tomb managing the front desk. Realistically, those two locations were closed for a reason as the Frost Maiden's Winter has had a massive effect on the economy and travel, so there isn't much income to be had while Auril's curse persists, but they have plans! They had a random encounter with a couple of perytons, and afterwards, when they made a Survival check to see what meat and resources they got from the dead creatures, I made sure that they had a massive amount of feathers and down, which they already plan on turning into upgraded bedding for the premium rooms. I would go so far to say that the future of the Moose Knuckle Hospitality Group is the #2 focus of the party, even above personal secrets (although the poor Tabaxi with a Slaad Host secret may be the exception ...). I doubt it'd dampen their enthusiasm if I said that they only gain 5gp when they ask for the profits from the past week. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Dec 13, 2022 |
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Dec 13, 2022 21:14
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Tosk posted:...snip... From personal experience, I want to warn you that this approach is going to create some massive disparities between your player characters based on which classes need to get their magic from loot, and which have it baked into their class or subclass. If simply being able to deliver magical damage without a malus by Tier 2 is in question, you're going to make your mundane rogues wish that they had picked soul knife instead of swashbuckler, thief, assassin, scout, etc. The same problem will exist for fighters and barbarians and to a lesser extent, paladins and rangers. Monks actually have a built-in solution for this with Ki Empowered Strikes at level 6. You may want to try to balance this by limiting magic granted by classes: magical effects drawing unwanted attention, or making even simple components and foci require questing for, or not automatically granting new spells on level up, or even limiting the number of innately magic classes can be in the party. All these are even further departures from how 5e is designed and balanced for. E: a big part of the problem is many of the base classes and many of the more recent subclasses just really don't fit with a low magic world. You may have to go through all the options to decide which are even compatible with your vision. Ginger Beer Belly fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 15:37
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Pvt.Scott posted:The ranger subclass that lets you murder people with swarms of bees could be fun for stupid jokes. My wife plays a Swarmkeeper Ranger whose swarm is a flock of blue boobies. She never tires of describing her boobies smacking an enemy for extra damage or a pushback.
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Apr 26, 2023 03:35
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Trip report: In tonight's campaign, our party with my level 10 Forge Cleric has closed in on a Ziggurat that a Yuan-Ti cult is operating out of. Once we went through a set of skill checks to navigate our way through the jungle to the structure, I asked if my cleric noticed any signs of bonfires or cooking fires from the structure. The DM replied that from this distance, we didn't seem to see any. I then announced to the party that we should be okay, but to be on their guard, because according to the surgeon general, smoking Ziggurats are hazardous to your health. After much pained groaning, I did get the DM to agree that I had earned Inspiration for that one.
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Feb 13, 2024 09:07
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