5e because there are half-elves and half-orcs a core part of D&D lore.

>TQ
5e because I'm autistic and don't like change
especially not changes to Divine Smite fuck you

>TQ
5.5 because one thing that keeps my players coming back is testing new stuff like UAs, so i have to accommodate them

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How do the modules made for 2024 compare to the modules of 2014?

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>>96506776
From the DM side 5.5e is very similar so they're interchangeable. The starter set for 5.5e is kind of it's own board game and simplified. I haven't read it, the artwork put me off.

>>96506691
>TQ
5e, because 2024 5.5e was a cash-grab that fixes less of the game than my group's own homebrew. Also fuck supporting modern WotC is any way.

>>96506655
Listen her you fucking cunt. A fighter does not equal a warlord. I do not give a fuck. Their abilities are different and a few subclass powers does not make a fighter into warlord.

>>96506691
>TQ
I’ve already swapped to 5.5, it’s nice to have less bloat and a good start place for rules

>>96507547
>Less bloat
Anon, 5e is perhaps the single most anemic edition in the history of the game.

>>96506694
Firstly, it's just that they don't have unique mechanical options for those specific mixed-ancestry species. But also, why does that matter? I'm running a 2024 game and there are plenty of half-elves.

>>96507555
nta but bloat isn't a measure of absolute rule quantity but how much of the content is useful or well designed. A system can be high crunch with minimal bloat or bloated despite being less complex.

>>96507573
I wasn't talking about rule quantity, I was talking about how 5e has less content than any other edition in D&D.

>>96506691
>If you were to start a new campaign, either as a player or DM, would you rather play 5e or 5.5e? Why/why not?
5e. Half the changes I don't give a shit about, the others are markedly stupid. I already have my own houserules for 5e and the existence of 5.5 alone makes me want to stop running nu-dnd completely because it shits up my search results.

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Do you have any preferred sources for scenery artwork?
I am struggling to choose something for the theatre-of-the-mind trap-avoiding sequence that occurs on the Goblin Trail.

The image I am using for The Triboar Trail is AI generated and The High Road is half AI. I already feel like I am using too much.

>it's another people shit on 5.5 because it's new and not listing any actual inferior changes
yawn

I have two character ideas and I'd like to hear which you'd prefer in your party and any ideas to improve upon the concept.

Egg Nog, the Goblin Warlock named after the drink his mother was drunk upon while giving birth. Spent his life as a thief stealing from nearby villages, made a pact with a Great Old One thinking it would help his thievery. Regrets it and wants to buy back his soul. It'll never happen, but his goal is to steal enough shit to buy his soul back. Illusion/Enchantment focus, great old one patron.

The weaver: Snobby NE aristocrat known for amazing tailoring skills and disdain for most people. Turns out he's just a Druid using wild shape to produce silk as a spider. Actively being blackmailed by the party and is going along with shit to maintain his enterprise

>>96508212
I hate it because it's a transparent excuse to reprint slightly-altered 5e character options at a glacial pace over the next few years instead of actually making new ones. Some of the Barbarian buffs are kind of nice, though.

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>>96508101
This is what I am currently going with.

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>>96508101
I steal from old videogames mainly.

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>>96508101
i make ai in the blurry / soft focus / impressionist style so it's just a general mood and no details are present

What's your idea for a new spell?

>>96506691
>TQ
5e because 5.5 is just a bunch of homebrew on top of 5e, which is what I already run except mine is tailored to my players and campaign.

>>96508267
Hard to decide with how terrible both are, but I think the second one is worse with the way it automatically creates a hostile work relationship with your party and asserts your character as someone who is for some reason desirable despite having every reason to betray your comrades.
By elimination, the unimaginative-yet-edgey goblin I assume you will roleplay in a manner that will be detrimental to your game and table seems to be the ticket.

>>96508267
I don't think GOOs are interested in goblin souls. It's below their paygrade.

>>96506691
>TQ

A mixture of both so for whatever shlub who wants to play a Martial Class doesn't end up being the most useless member of the team

>>96509059
Port Chariot of Sustarre

>>96506691
>If you were to start a new campaign, either as a player or DM, would you rather play 5e or 5.5e? Why/why not?
Op... I just started playing DND a few months ago and I'm only familiar with 5.5e.
If you asked me if I'd want to play in 5e 2014 next time... I'd say no, because I'm just starting to understand the 2024 version and the last thing I want is for the rules to start getting mixed up.

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>TQ
I am starting a 5.5e campaign next week.
A "trapped in a VR mmorpg" campaign with all the terrible and fun tropes from that genre.
My online pals are very excited to play in it, as we are all mmorpg burnouts from the early 2000s.

Using this as the setting map btw.

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>>96507487
>noooo I can't have 15 different copies of the same ability like in 4e where I shift an ally 10 feet and pretend it's epic gameplay in a system with no flanking rules
Warlord fags are insufferable holy shit. They cannot cope with the fact that not everyone liked their stupid-ass "shouting the severed arm back on" abilities and pointlessly shuffling people around out of turn and giving them attacks out of turn. There should have been more abilities like that in general if that was what people wanted. Be happy they put that shit in 5e at all. Adding your charisma to some ally's attack is fucking moronic. You idiots really need to stop overestimating the power of Charisma just because you all have an 8 charisma IRL, you cannot "inspire" someone to suddenly become proficient with a sword. inb4 "momma bear lifts car off her baby with insane strength" bullshit. Guess what? No matter how handsome you are, you're not making her wet enough to do that. That's reserved for maternal instinct only, you fucking incel freak. Seriously, you warlord players are fucking insufferable. You micromanage the entire table and screech like a little bitch when people don't utilize your buffs the exact way you would. It's like a constant pressure cooker especially because a lot of warlord players have anger issues from losing constantly at RTS games. That's why they play TTRPGs, because they're easy mode where you have to try to lose instead of try to win. As a result you can just sit there and give your abilities out and tell people NO MOVE THERE or NO ATTACK THIS GUY and half the time you don't even know how other peoples' powers work. Yeah, fuck yeah am I glad they didn't include Warlord class in 5e. You guys were fucking insufferable cunts and they probably didn't want the normgroid infestation they planned to herald in with 5e D&D to be repulsed by your sweaty tryhardness. I cannot think of a more tryhard class, a more söy class than fucking warlord. Good. Fucking. Riddance.

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>>96508101
I got tired of ending up on page 12 of Google Images trying to find art that matched the vibe I was going for, ended up subscribing to Midjourney; it does a pretty good job, sometimes I have to tweak the prompt a few times but it generally gives me something usable

Also, that screenshot looks like you're using Foundry, I find the "Share Media" module extremely handy - you can share images out of Journals and stuff, so that you don't have to manage a shitload of scenes + constantly moving the players

(Pic is the share controls, I have a GM-only journal named "Artbook" where I put characters/locations/etc descriptions and images, and with Share Media you can show the images to players without giving them permissions on the journal)

>>96509620
Godspeed, anon. Hope you all have a good time.

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>>96509059

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I'm populating this battlemap as described in chapter 1 of Phandelver...
Doesn't this seem pretty hard? I'm not too sure, as this is my first time DMing.
It's for 5 player characters of level 1.

>>96508585
Nice image.

>>96509702
Thanks I'll give the module a look. I don't really know what is and isn't easy because I am prepping for my firs time DMing.
I'll give midjourney a try. The 2 AI images I am using so far I made with ChatGPT.

Where do you go for character and environment art that isn't full of mediocre ai garbage

>>96510130
LMoP&B is surprisingly hard.

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>>96510130
Yeah, but it's fun. And the dragon makes you really enjoy having dwarves on the team.

If i have to instances of resistance to something do they stack?
If my raging dwarf bear totem barbarian gets poison gassed by a green dragon will the double poison resistance stack?

>>96510350
No

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>>96510130
That map doesn't seem so bad to me as long as the players have at least one Druid/Ranger/Cleric to revive people that get knocked unconscious

I imagine the flow will look something like pic related; the players will probably skip the bears (unless someone has Speak with Animals or something, or they stomp the first encounter so you decide to make the bears immediately hostile). So you'll have 3 back-to-back encounters. Probably rough but totally doable, especially if they get at least a short rest afterward.

(I haven't run the module so take my thoughts with a grain of salt)

The best subclasses for a writing-focused character are Bard Lore, and Valor, right? In 5E 2024, so far.

>>96510544
what about those rogue subclasses?

>>96510130
>my first time DMing.
dont do video game shit
all this time you're wasting being a literal engineer curating a video game experience with fully mapped dungeon is time taken away from actual dming
describe things and ask players what they're doing

>>96510563
NTA

I was LITERALLY writing a post about this exact thing. My players during the zero session weeks ago were completely adamant on being interested in RP and world-building and exploration and such, all the cool stuff that P&P lets you do that video games don't do very well but in my last few sessions we haven't had combat, and I've noticed that literally everyone has been checking out, playing on their phones and it seems like they're losing interest and focus. I tried asking all of them individually (away from the table) and they all tried to deny it, but I can feel this slight sense of apathy from them growing and I want to know what steps I can take to nip it in the bud before it results in absences and other shit that leads to the dissolution of a campaign

>>96510553
When I say a writing-focused character, I mean a character who... likes to write in a book.

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>>96510172
Glad my intuition was okay.

>>96510300
I think it's fun. My players are all roleplaying game first-timers, I'm worried I'll scare them off.

>>96510470
>bears
Yeah, I better change that token. Those are meant to be wolves.
And they are rather easily avoided.

It's also possible to avoid the creatures in the south-western room being drawn in to the pool-room fight.
I think adjusting this encounter to be the optimal difficulty on the fly won't be too hard.

>>96510563
The encounter before this is entirely in the mind's eye.
This session should have a little of everything to try:
>roleplaying dialogue
>methodical exploration
>grid combat
>theature of the mind

>>96510703
haha them being wolves makes a lot more sense, I was like "man this module must have some custom low CR enemies or something, how are level 1s gonna kill all these bears"

>>96510643
>assassins can't keep meticulous and detailed notes on the close acquaintances of their mark as to better assimilate themselves into their life as they close in to make the kill
>masterminds in the service of their lord don't have entire catalogue of documentation regarding every rival barony, viscounty, and other lesser (or greater) land owners within their vicinity, tracking wealth and/or military power, not to mention all of the various administrative duties a position like this might entail that would require a strong pen hand
>scouts ranging ahead of their party wouldn't have a detailed log of all the various passers-by and a good record on meteorological knowledge, even if its primitive or uncertain

if you literally mean a novelist, i genuinely don't think that has literally any bearing whatsoever on what class someone is. an arcane archer could theoretically write a swathe of pulp romance novella just as well as a college of eloquence, or valor, or lore, or whatever bard. for christ's sake, wizards are literally lugging around a damn spell book everywhere they go. hell, even battle master fighters have potential for being among the most well-educated of all the subclasses in terms of pure academia, it's just hyper-specialized toward the fields of tactics and martiality, and all that entails.

>>96510625
>Last few sessions of no combat
You want a healthy mix of combat, exploration, and social encounters. You roleplay during all of them. Combat in particular grabs players’ attention. Start your next session with a combat to grab their attention back.

>>96510801
Yes, you're right about that. I'll think about it.
Although I think I mentioned lore and valor because they have aspects (like historical literary themes and the compilation of ancient epic stories) that attract me.
Lore: chroniclers and collectors of traditions and magic.
Value: They keep the memory of ancient heroes alive by learning their epics and then retelling them.

>>96510703
>>grid combat
I keep seeing this when you guys post module maps with rooms that are 2x3 or 5x6 literal whiterooms and no features. There is nothing interesting about it. The grid serves no purpose. You have not seen it because you say first time DM so let me tell you what's gonna happen: after 1 round everyone is in melee and stops moving. Then you have bored players staring at a grid you spent hours setting up. There is absolutely no value to it. I understand the books and modules make you think there is some point to having a gridded dungeon but there is absolutely none

Now if you make some 30x30+ grid with a bunch of different locations, features, hazards, etc, and more importantly OBJECTIVES besides killing shit yes, that can be interesting. The players make choices, etc.

>>96510625
If you have experienced players they will make their own choices and decisions and drive the game. This is however extremely rare because experienced players are in games, not starting with new dms.

If you have new players that you need to prod along with hooks and quests and events, maintaining focus is about mixing high and low intensity moments, and always starting sessions on high intensity ones.

Example:
start session: caravan is ambushed. this is a high excitement moment
slowdown moment: party assesses losses and is tasked by caravan to rescue captives, follows tracks into swamp, finds strange ruins, hears loud noise
tension moment: a patrol of 20 bullywugs walks by, the party has to decide to engage, hide, ambush, etc

if you keep mixing these, players stay engaged. I think one of the main things to understand is that people will get bored by anything if it lasts too long, it's not about combat being exciting or the opposite, it's about constant combat or constant slowdown or constant whatever. Learn to mix moods, feelings, safety/risk, "ride-along"/"make a choice", etc

>>96509448
The fuck, this is cool as hell, why didn't this one stick around?

Please give me something unique and fun to play in combat for a one shot.

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imo, the only reason to have a gridded out dungeon is if there will be combat happening throughout the dungeon which is a ton of work. Pic related in thge left is a what is great when you use >>96510563
>describe things and ask players what they're doing
Because chances are, your players don't have a map of a fucking dungeon so they have no reason to know what the layout is.

>you're in a room [description] with [materials], [treasure], and [clues] and you see several door ways to your left, and two more ahead of you etc.

Is all you need, they tell you what they want to do, and you play it out. If some of the rooms have combat, you can just make a map for that room. keep it simple. Even more fun, a player might try to map out a dungeon based off the clues and descriptions you give which is another way to keep players engaged. You can use secret doors and hidden rooms as otehr ways to have players involved

>>96511589
>no level parameters
>no story parameters
>not even whether it's 5 or 5.5

>>96510846
>start your next session with a combat
it can and certainly shall absolutely feature a combat, but there isn't an argonian's chance in the comonna tong that I can start it off with one. They straight-up just returned to the keep from a recon mission for the duke confirming that every single one of the orc raiding parties are moving south towards the sacrificial bait caravan that the party themselves created. i mean, I can certainly make up an asspull, but I feel like it would just make the issue worse, having a high chance of backfiring terribly. i suppose i could explore something like an orcish scout (or maybe a ranger??) tracking them and counter-spying or something, but eh. it would feel too contrived now. an attack within the keep itself is virtually out of the question, unless someone itt is a genius

something I neglected to mention here is that my players are unfortunately very good at avoiding combat, but I'm starting to think it's to their own detriment, in some aspects. they all have solid dex (+2 or better) and are naturally decent at stealth. i don't want them to be punished (or punish themselves) for being sneaky, but i also don't want them to bore themselves because they rely on only a single playstyle, while also seeming like a dictator railroading them like "NO YOU CANT STEALTH FAG"

>>96511348
>always starting sessions on high intensity moments
I am admittedly very bad about this. i've only pulled it off once and it was relatively low stakes. i personally just dislike it, and i think that makes me very biased against it. to me personally, it doesn't feel interesting, it feels overwhelming, like someone woke me up by tipping my off my bed into a swimming pool

>>96511611
What did you use to make the left map.

>>96511631
Probably should have said, yeah, I'm a bit retarded.
5.5
Level 3
Not much story, we're looking for someone who went missing in a frozen wasteland

>>96510130
The goblin ambush in LMoP is infamous deadly, and the cave has been known to wipe partys with both the trap and King Klarg. Last couple of times I've ran it I've leveled up the party to two after the ambush and before the cave.

>>96511201
I personally dislike totm in 5e because the game is trying to be precise enough in scale that the grid matters for stuff like aoe spells and movement
Theater of the mind results in every bit of distance related objectives turning into yes, no, yes but, no but. "Can I hit them all with fireball? No but you can hit 4/5 of them" and everyone has their own idea of what the fight is like
Totm works in less combat heavy systems like the pbta systems (awful) or anything with much more abstract distances of "X is in close/medium/far and you can target up to medium with that"

>>96511642
Symbiote Druid
1st round cast Krails Maggot and transform. Cackle madly as you slowly chest burst the enemy and sling spells with your main action

>>96511686
Symbiote Druid, that's a homebrew? I don't recall seeing that one, what's it from?

>>96511635
https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon

but you can literally just use graph paper and draw it out your self.,

>>96508308
To be fair, 5.14's character design space was fucked and Tasha's was a band-aid. Basically every class had 1 good subclass and 1 that was shit, plus a bunch of trap options. Versus 5.24 having 4 good subclasses for each class in the PHB. Plus on balance classes mostly getting improvements (aside from a few like the Smites).

>>96511686
It's from CBT (Cock and Ball Torture). It's Partnered content, which basically makes it homebrew with official recognition for sale alongside other WotC products.

>>96507487
What power do you want that Battlemaster doesn't cover?