Storytime Edition>2024 Core Rulebookshttps://mega(dot)nz/folder/d2ohSCSL#5HnqSMJncr9Queh8KDzbSQ>2024 Official free ruleshttps://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/free-rules>2014 Official Free Ruleshttps://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/basic-rules-2014>2024 UAhttps://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/ua>2014 Erratahttps://dnd.wizards.com/dndstudioblog/sage-advice-book-updates>5etools (2024)http://5e.tools>5etools (2014)https://2014.5e.tools/>Resources:https://pastebin.com/X1TFNxck>List of changes between 5e and 5.5ehttps://pastebin.com/p5jwkihkPrevious thread:>>98786507>TQHow is your campaign going anon?>BTQWhat's the dumbest reason a campaign you were in died?
>>98853118>TQBadly, a player cancelled yet again. In 5 weeks we've gotten 2 hours in because someone couldn't stay long. I'm thinking of cancelling it soon>BTQNot sure, I've had many games that did one session everyone had fun, but then it just never happened again.
copied my question from the last thread:what cool house rules and optional bits do you like to use in your campaigns?i'm going to be dm'ing soon for the first time and im curious. i've been playing for a while and the campaign i was in was quite light on rules and time-keeping, id like to make it a bit more crunchy and present more options to the players.so far im using encumbrance, flanking, crit initiative and lasting injuriesi was thinking about taking shadowdarks torch idea but idk if that actually works irl
>>98853118Going pretty well, we're almost a year and a half in.Playing in the Dark Sun setting that has been converted to 5E. We're on our way to overthrow a Half Giant slave tribe leader.
Name a more chad class than paladin.
>>98853535>Oathbreaker hasn't been updated to 5.5eYo what the fuck
>>98853178I can't say I'd recommend getting too carried away with houserules for your first time DMing.That aside, what I do for flanking is have it apply extra damage instead of giving advantage to hit. Helps speed up fights without making other sources of advantage obsolete. I also make use of Lingering Injuries, but only as a rare chance after a battle in which a PC went down to 0 at least once. I don't like to load up on multiple checks if they go down multiple times or get crit, and ultimately it just serves as an incentive to heal people before they go down.Other houserules I use tend to be more simple. Drinking potions as a bonus action. Spells like Fog Cloud/Darkness are hard-coded to apply disadvantage so they can actually be used to blind enemies or help the party avoid getting ranged attacks. The Hunter's Mark doesn't require concentration. Rogue's Sneak Attack upgrades to d8s starting at level 5. I also use the version of Exhaustion that was in the OneD&D playest. Up to 10 levels, dying at 11, and each level of Exhaustion subtracts from numerous things. -1 to d20 checks, -1 to a character's DCs, -5 ft of speed, -10 lb of carrying capacity. Regaining 1 point of exhaustion per long rest, or 2 if they spend the night somewhere comfortable like a proper inn.I find that the current version of Exhaustion doesn't do enough to affect spellcasters very much, and it also serves as a way to discourage the party from going full murderhobo and camping in the woods all the time.
>>98853191are you the champion spear & board guy? i feel like i tell you this every time but i love you. i aspire to find a table like yours and make a character as simply cool & iconic
>>98854237No, I'm the Dark Sun Blue Tiefling Templar guy
>>98854257>tieflingDoes Athas even have Tieflings?
>cHaracTer PoWer!!!!>How can I make my immortal character who can’t fail or lose fights more powerful ?!!!!!!>how can I turn small number into big number?!!>how can I turn big number into even bigger number?!!!>numbers!!!!>don’t forget to “flavor” your numbers/5E/thread
>>98854303faggots will take offense to this and try to argue against it. Sit back and watch
If I want to grant some sort of magical item or equipment to my party, would it be unbecoming of me to incorporate that item into my NPC's stat block? For example, if I had an NPC use a Dagger of Venom, could I reasonably add 2d10 poison damage to their multiattack, being mindful of DPR?
>>98854467Give the NPC a vorpal sword in the statblock then once they loot it it's a moon-touched sword
>>98854237Naw, that's me. Thanks anon. Just killed Andropinis a couple of weeks ago.
Where do the cool devils hang out?
>>988542724E added them along with Dragonborn when they became core races. I didn't know what Dark Sun was when I joined the campaign and asked to be a Tiefling Warlock as that is my favorite combo to use in BG3. DM made it work.Waiting to see how 5.5E adds Aasimar and Orcs now that they are core species. Abalach-Re gonna change to the Orc Light Cold.>>98854715Awesome
>>98854753Oh god, Descent into Avernus was utter horrid dogshit. I made the mistake of reading the module then my friend wanted to run the campaign and I made another mistake in not telling him it's dogshit and we slogged through the book. He's not the brightest bulb out there, never read ahead and planned things out, and combining those two traits with a poorly edited book, we never even met Zariel, you know the character that's pasted on the front cover of the book?
>>988551475e only had 3 good pre-written adventures. Lost Mines, Curse of Strahd, and Tomb of Annihilation.all made when Mearls worked there.
>If your wish would undo the multiverse itself, threaten the City of Sigil, or affect the Lady of Pain in any way, you see an image of her in your mind for a moment; she shakes her head, and your wish fails.What if I wish for the Lady of Pain to show me an image of her shaking her head?
>>98855455Then you see an image of her shaking her head at you...? What a waste of a wish.
>>98855463But then I've made her do something, thus affected her, and at the same time my wish succeeded.
>>98855474Naw, you just saw an image of her doing that. You gotta word it better.
>>98855147>we never even met Zariel, you know the character that's pasted on the front cover of the book?My PCs have met her twice, both times in circumstances unrelated to what the book suggested might happen. Just last session the ranger pacted her soul to Zariel, which was cool.
>>98855569You need to read it better.
>>98855455You get the secret ending where The Lady of Pain gives you a prize for finding the paradox. The prize is probably a horrific death.
>running 5e game involved Shadowfell BBEG (because why not?)>next adventure was going to involve going to shadowfell fortress to find artifact MacGuffin to help defeat BBEG>beholder from nearby beholder kingdom (which PCs have been close to but never visited, so it's properly foreshadowed) was going to be there also, with his minions, looking for the artifact for his own reasons>they are level 8 so a beholder is still decently scary for them and they would get a chance to spot his camp and be like "oh shit" and have to visit when he's not there or possibly confront him over the artifact>this would be their first encounter with a non-zombie beholder>......>last session, one PC finally go to do something from their backstory and get a clue to where their missing family member is>I kinda spaced out and improvised it and made it so that he was a slave to the beholders>PCs will now go rescue him>this will take all the weight out of encountering the beholder in the shadowfellSo how do I handle this? Should I have them meet the particular beholder treasure hunter while rescuing the family member of that PC? Or just hear about him? Maybe they can hear a rumor that he is seeking out the artifact as well and then they have to decide whether to rush to stop him? What do you guys think?
You ever put shit in your encounter tables mostly to fit a vibe but then your players assume there's a connection and start trying to figure out a scenario that isn't really there?Like I know what the deal is with the Pale Traveller and why there was an old weak werejackal roaming the place who mindlessly attacked them, and they both relate to parts of this broader adventure, but not to each other.Anyway, I have a bheur hag encounter to flesh out.
>>98856156Seems like the obvious way to loop it in would be to have the beholder be absent while they're raiding the lair. That way they can hear about him, and get clues about his plan. Which also serves as an explanation for why the beholder was absent, since it'll indicate to them that he's out doing more dangerous things than just capturing random people. The main downside being that if they effortlessly clear out his lair while he isn't there, it may be a little underwhelming if they return to steal the artifact from the beholder and similarly breeze through. Perhaps the beholder's less valuable slaves could be held somewhere outside of the lair, busy with mining or some other menial labor. Thus the party could still get some info and still rescue the family member, but only have to contend with a fraction of the beholder's defenses/minions.
>>98856156>beholder kingdomBeholders cannot fucking stand each other. How do you get a kingdom of them?
>>98856246Kingdom ruled by A Beholder?
>>98856262Waterdeep?
>>98856262The phrase>slave to the beholdersimplies more than one.
>"that guy" goes on hiatus>the game is immediately functioning faster and smootherfucking shocker, that one
>>98853535What would be a good flavor for a psionic themed Paladin? I keep thinking of a name like Oath of Vigilance but mainly I just want an excuse for Paladins to wield psychic lightning seeing as a one trick pony subclass like that used to exist. That and psionic lightning just sounds cool.
>>98856841Oath of Enlightment maybe, play into the new-age mysticism shit that inspired it.
>>98853118>Party are fighting Treants>There's like 8 or 10 of them and they're chucking rocks at us>Decide, as the Wizard, to go invisible and chuck fireballs in return>Team gets mad at meYeah, next time I'll make myself an easier target
>>98856246They made a pact to not fight each other (one super-advanced beholder forced some others into it) in a ritual, and the allied beholders slowly absorbed and conquered the unwilling ones and forced them to join the pact. >>98856234>Seems like the obvious way to loop it in would be to have the beholder be absent while they're raiding the lair. That way they can hear about him, and get clues about his plan.>Which also serves as an explanation for why the beholder was absent, since it'll indicate to them that he's out doing more dangerous things than just capturing random people.That's a good idea. Thanks anon.>Perhaps the beholder's less valuable slaves could be held somewhere outside of the lair, busy with mining or some other menial labor. Thus the party could still get some info and still rescue the family member, but only have to contend with a fraction of the beholder's defenses/minions.Yeah that's probably what would happen. He would be gone looking for a shadowfell portal he has heard about, with a significant portion fo his minions, and the characters could go to his keep / village and rescue the family members from his hobgoblin underlings, and escape. Then they can meet hobgoblins with the same insignia as him in the shadowfell... or maybe see the beholder himself in a camp in the shadowfell near the dungeon that has the artifact.
>>98856967did you fireball them or something? why are they mad?Was it a party of entirely other casters who were also squishy?
>>98857017>did you fireball them or something?I fireball'd one time before our Warlock Blighted everything away right after>Was it a party of entirely other casters who were also squishy?Monk, Hexblade and a Tempest frontlining Paladin (Our DM) and a Bardlock in the back, that's just how things ended up
Kek
Without downtime crafting, how many wands can an Artificer have?
TQ: I'm DM-ing The Lost City (Goodman Games version).The players are making good headway and are in the city of Cynidicea for some R&R and politicking between the three benevolent cults before moving on to murder and loot the shit out of the baddies.
>4th session of my first ever DnD campaign>set in fantasy early settler Australia>female half-elf ranger, female human druid>both characters are natives of fantasy Australia>me, a human paladin from the papacy overseas with good intentions who is looking for demons>we leave a frontier town and head out to visit the local tribes (goblin, dragonboard, and elf tribes)>take gifts to the tribes to win favour so we can collect information>we buy some bags of fruits and meats from the town>I, being religious, take incense and holy symbols>the tribes appreciate the food>they don't appreciate the holy symbols from the foreign paladin>I realise I unintentionally come off as a colonizer and christian missionary>the ranger and druid have to talk to the tribes people to avoid the troubleI love this game
>>98853535>puckee aka redditor pucke℮21 spamming his commission againhttps://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1x45q0c/artcomm_sigeric_galran_paladin_by_lily_curtis/https://desuarchive.org/_/search/image/TpdHaI4yyazdR_wisdhXYQ/>posted 2 times since October 2026
>>98854753Phlegethos is the layer of lawfare and partying. So there, I suppose.
>>98854753Cania, both literally and figuratively
Do NPCs ever use Leomund's Tiny Hut?
Where is a good place to read free adventures written by random players instead of published crap
Are there any websites that have a lot of official DND art? I want to see if something's depicted>just do what you wantI know, but I'm being autistic and want to be autistic.
How do I restore the enthusiasm of my players? Lately they've been looking raggedly for a while. Last week when we got together two came late and then three of them just sat on the couch for 30 minutes staring at their phones. I know they're jaded from life and relationships (one has a kid and this is his probably only relief from that thing) but I feel like their get-up-and-go got up and went, their thirst for adventure is petering out. To be fair they did get into the game but it took an hour and a half just to get to that point and when our sessions are only 4 hours long, I can't wait nearly half the session for them to get in the mood. Should I just spike their drinks with caffeine? >>98858127I too would like to see this, especially if its older edition art
>>98858322Have you tried simply asking them what they want?
I FUCKING HATE N
Hey folks, maybe someone can give me a bit of education here.I haven't played DnD in a very long time, never played 5e at all, and I've been trying to see if it's worth getting into.Something I can't seem to understand is that it seems to be really difficult to find shared pdfs of the 1st party source books. Core rules pdfs are fine, but other stuff seems difficult to find. I know where to look, I'm used to finding troves with dozens and dozens of 1st party 3e/3.5e books but all the 5e stuff seems more difficult to find.Am I right in thinking this is mainly due to that functionality all having been trapped in DnD Beyond? Where all the digital media is basically trapped in online databases and rulebook pdfs aren't a thing anymore?What's a good place to get started analyzing what's out there when you can't just grab a couple pdfs and leaf through them instead of being confronted with giant lists of stuff?
>>98859796Well, for starters, 5e doesn't really have dozens of 1st party books. And a lot of the books that do exist have maybe a handful of subclasses and a dozen feats/spells if you're lucky.A lot of the time 5etools works well enough, since you can filter by sourcebook in order to parse things.
Do I want to play a barbarian who can attack big or a fighter who can attack more
>>98860091Fighters also attack bigly
>tfw got told a knightly bard subclass is terribleFeel bad now
>>98843249The first 2 panels are a total strawman. Doesn't happen at all in the actual comic.A pretty big part of the theme of the story is that neither humans nor goblins are pure evil/good. That's how the end of the first Arc goes.
>>98853118What stuff do you miss from earlier editions?Like class options, species, magic items, spells, or whatever?
>>98854924Tarruk in Dark Sun were used as Orc stand-ins. The only reason 4E didn’t have playable tarruks was they couldn’t get the online compendium to run a custom code.The draft is still on Enworld.
>>98858127Forgotten Realm wiki generally has art of the listed monsters per edition.1d6chan/2d4chan has galleries that occasionally have the old art.
>>98860279thanks
>>98860267At this point, I don't even know. My 5e game is so hobbled together with houserules and homebrew, I can barely remember what is RAW, from earlier editions, or made up
>>98854924>I didn't know what Dark Sun was when I joined the campaign and asked to be a Tiefling Warlock as that is my favorite combo to use in BG3. DM made it work.
>>98853118>TQI want to throttle my flakey faggot friend for saying he can't make it to the session and then him openly admitting he's just sitting at home watching anime not an hour later>BTQDM dropped off the face of the earth because the chick he was pining stopped talking to him
>>98860202If it was someone in your group, fuck them then make one
>>98860267I miss rules and guidelines on certain things. Last year me and my group were having a discussion about a character developing lycanthropy but there were no rules to use or guide us so we had to cannibalize rules from grim hollow and pathfinder. There seems to be a lot WotC says is DM discretion which is keyword for 'we don't want to deal with it, you do the work'
>>98860454WoTC releases full DMGs full of "If you want to, you can come up with a rule for it" which is the equivalent of a recipe book saying "You can pick the ingredients you want for this soup" and retards here will STILL defend them the game "doesn't need more systems"
>>98860269Curious to see if they'll do the same for 5.5E even though it feels more likely that the Cleansing Wars will be written out entirely.>>98860360Fair, but everyone got to start somewhere. I offered to change but my DM was cool with it and the character came out great.Game has been going for past a year now so I'd call it a success
>>98857568Unintentionally? Geeze, you're treating the natives of fantasy Australia a lot nicer then my party/colony did....Although weirdly religion wasn't one of the issues we had, our colony was big on freedom of religion and when one of the NPC council members running it worships a literal lovecraftian deity (politely only revealed once we encodified freedom of religion into our law, of course) is kinda hard to have standards in what we allowed.Still my favorite campaign.
>>98860505I'm trying to be good and well intentioned. I could go the colonizer route, but the ranger and druid characters are both women and half-aboriginal. What is funny though: I went to the local guard for info on a secret group, and incidentally asked them if there had been demon activity in the area, since my goal as part of my religion, church and noble family, is hunting and eliminating demons.They accused the local tribes of being demon worshippers because they're filthy pagans and I guess natives/aboriginals?I ignored this, but I am tempted to make my character a bit prejudiced.The other players and the DM are not murder hobos
>>98860571Eh, don't try and force it if it doesn't seem appropriate, but keep an eye out if an opportunity presents itself for your character to become a little more jaded. Especially if you want your character to ultimately be good and well-intentioned. I think my party only had one Good aligned character (one good, two neutral, two evil), and none of us had any initial connection to the inhabitants so it was considerably easier for my party to be morally dubious.
>gehenna is jew hell>gehenna in dnd is full of evil merchant profiteers of wari am noticing
>>98854303Damn man I just wanna play a fantasy themed team shooter game like overwatch or league of legends but with tons of customizable options that make it truly a build brawler. No I have never read a fantasy novel or watched any movie made before the year 2014
We're back.
>>98860895sad
>>98853118>TQWe were able to convince a group of troublesome kobolds in the sewers to go to work for the city in an official capacity by delivering a letter to their leader (and some aggressive negotiations from my Redemption Paladin and by that I mean he got tired of their shit and grabbed one through bars in a sewer tunnel and talked them down). We did find out they were being blackmailed by a chromatic dragon (later half the party scouted using a familiar and found an ADULT RED DRAGON down in a pit) and my character - who worships bahamut - immediately decided he's going to kill it because by his faith chromatics are capital E Evil and got his hands on a Dragon-Slaying Javelin in return for promising the smith - an ex-dragon slayer himself - the head of the creature.
>>98861016This sounds extremely lame and boring
>>98861016Sounds like a fun session anon, ignore the no games.
>>98861016>>98861192>samefagWhy does 5E of all games attract you schizo loser types?
>>98861016I'm assuming you're at a level that this is unlikely to end up as the BTQ?
Reminder that the best way to ignore our resident troll is to ignore him.
>>98861304Safe counterculture and corporate virtue signaling.
>>98860991I think 4channel is more MAD than SAD
>>98858322>I too would like to see this, especially if its older edition artIf you are looking for 3.0/3.5 era stuff, there's this: https://web.archive.org/web/20161101193144/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/ag
>>98861347>reminder to ignore the truth Most people don’t need to bolster their cognitive dissonance in to play and enjoy games with their friends. What about you and/or your experience with 5e that makes it exception?
>>988614184channel has been kill for years
>>98861418How inefficient, SAD FTW.
Christ, 5e is so shit and gay
>>98861016That is gay.Me and the boys found out a cave filled with children trolls, so we enslave them to repeatedly cut the tip of their dicks and sell to gnomes (jews) for lunch
Anybody else dissatisfied with offical art?For the longest time I'd been wanting Pig faced orcs back in my D&D, and since Hasbro is all in on AI now, I thought they'd be fine if I fucked around with AI to "enhance" the art, just like their professionals do! Anyway, so here is the Orc.
>>98861794Oh, and because the stat block said greataxe, I gave him one.
>>98861794Not bad but it needs an old-schoolier outfit. Maybe a helmet with viking horns or something. And more spikes/black coloration.
>>98861804Weird thing that. Stat black says hide armor. And it never set right with me the bugbear has hide but is decked out in black leather....so I just left it. BUT. speaking of bugbears and other goblins... I also did goblins. Stat block said scimitar, so he gets that too.
We wrapped up 3 years of Curse of Strahd + various Domains of Dread hopping. Prior to this we played through Carrion Crown in Pathfinder, and a year long campaign of World of Darkness various splats.It was a good time, I am absolutely burnt the fuck out on "horror" campaigns and settings. But it's the only theme I have ever ran for my players. I dont even know where to being at something different, more lighthearted.
>>98861838Watch some Marx Brothers as a palate cleanser.
>>98861818Messing with the armor, now it looks like hide, trying to decide if the morning star should be rounder, but eventually I left it go.
>>98861915It also bothered me I was facing hobgoblins in platemail when the stat block says chain... you'd think they'd at meast drop a breastplate, so, I tried to put them in chain while keeping....... whatever the vibe is suppose to be.
>>98861935>>98861915>>98861818These are neat but if you're gonna dump you should probably pivot to the AI slop thread.
>>98861941I actually only have one more which I didn't post for that reason. It's a rendition of Droop from Lost Mine of Phandelver since I was outraged they didn't give him any art, despite wasting art on shop keepers. This dump was more in comparison to the official art, not just producing the sloppa.However, I guess might as well to just cap it here with pure sloppa. Just in case anybody wanted to use the Droop art some day. Enjoy
>>98861935Gemini right? Generally the best I've found for simple edits of pictures. Combined with a bit of photoshopping I'm basically doing the same shit I did when I would photobash stuff together. It's just more cohesive now.
>>98861997Free and casual. The official art has thus tendency to be sloppy in some ways, early probably because of deadlines but late because of pure laxiness. I was dissatisfied with the original art, but I HATE the new stuff. That's why I feel no guilt "fixing" the original to my taste (or closer anyway) and using their own slop against them. I share it now precisely because it should be free to make people games a little different, if not better. If they can use art to "fix" the past, two can play at that game.
>>98862043I had a game set in a more arabian setting, and it was great being able to put appropriate clothes on npcs and monsters instead of it all looking like medieval (gay) europe.
>>98853118I play 5.5e, but I started reading about 3.5e because it seems relatively popular for an older edition. And holy shit, the sheer amount of content is ridiculous. It's also so much easier to break than 5.5e.There's the Dweomerkeeper, which lets you create an army of simulacrums without spending any gold or XP, or create virtually any magic item.The Incantatrix, which lets you apply Persistent Spell for free.Blasters (fireball orbs stuffed with metamagic like a Thanksgiving turkey) that deal hundreds of damage.Martial characters (War Hulking Hurler) that deal thousands of damage.And there are even plenty of poorly worded spells that allow for ridiculous exploits through unintended synergies.For example, the Incantatrix (using Metamagic Effect, or Instant Metamagic if you can't beat the DC) lets you make a spell last 24 hours, and a few levels in Wyrm Wizard let you learn divine spells of a level you can cast.You use Greater Consumptive Field (7th level), kill a bunch of vermin, and your caster level increases by half the amount of your current caster level. But more importantly, the spell's designers forgot to put a cap on the amount of temporary HP and Strength it grants, as well as a minimum CR for the creatures you kill.So you can cast this spell on an anthill and gain a ridiculous amount of temporary HP and Strength, allowing you to one-shot practically anything.who the fuck designed this
>>98862177>who the fuck designed thisPeople whose goal was to sell splatbooks in the same way as MtG cards, where a player would go out and buy more books purely so they'd have access to as many options as possible in order to make crazy combos.
>>98862399Just so other anons are aware, he isn't lying. That was literally the design philosophy at the time. Also the reason why there are clear good and bad choices in chargen. Ivory Tower Deisgn at it's peak.
>>98853118>What's the dumbest reason a campaign you were in died?Autismo veteran player decided to play secretly evil character in a game where 2/4 of the players were first timers and stole a family heirloom from another player's backstory quest and just kept cackling when other players asked him OOC if he was seriously going to not give the item back. The tonal whiplash made the newbie and another player drop out because they weren't expecting inner party drama to be part of the game.
>>98862417Chang?
>>98862177>So you can cast this spell on an anthill and gain a ridiculous amount of temporary HP and Strength, allowing you to one-shot practically anything.You don't have a line of effect on the ant swarm inside the anthill, and even if you kick it and force the swarm out it's a single creature. On top of that the spell compendium retards copied the spell from Libris Mortis incorrectly and it's meant to be +2 str flat. Not to mention the actual brokenness of the spell doesn't come from hp or strength, but from caster level increase which can enable you to rape the enemies with a holy word/blasphemy (wouldn't ever happen to me, I always give my monsters extra HD out of ass)
>>98862177>dad was disabled (passed a few years ago) so couldn't play catch with me and brother or go fishing or other father-son things>dad played OD&D, have his copies of the little white booklets less than 5ft from me>decided to teach us to play 3.0>got all 3 corebooks for Christmas 2001>started playing when I was 7yrs old (dad helped a lot at first, but I picked it up, my brother is older so he didn't need as much help)>because it's just the 3 of us we each played multiple PCs at a time>one group, 'The Big 6', where we had 2 PCs each, got all the way to 38th level>I played a paladin and a sorcerer>never heard of dweomerkeeper, incanatrix, or half the shit you're talking about here>remember we just didn't allow anything and everything>game was awesome, never had weak characters, never had characters more broken than anyone else's, just my entire childhood in some books, dice, and minisI miss my dad.
>>98862669>dad was disabled>didn't allow splatsThat tracks
>>98862739we used lots of splats, just not every single splatalso not that kind of disabled, it was physically, not mentally
>Symbiotic Agenda. Immediately after you make a D20 Test and roll a 1 on the d20, your symbiote attempts to assert control. Make a Charisma saving throw (DC 13 plus your Proficiency Bonus). On a failed save, you have the Charmed condition for 1d12 hours. While Charmed, you must try to follow the symbiote’s commands and further its goals, as determined by the DM. Whenever you take damage, you can repeat this save, ending the effect on a success.>At the DM’s discretion, you might make this saving throw whenever you act contrary to the symbiote’s agenda.Any way I can make this less debilitating as someone with a soul-hungry parasite in their body whose mind is that of an infant?
>>98862669sounds like you had an awesome dad. thanks for sharing, anon.
>>98863151Ring of Mind Shielding.Name it "The Mute Button".
>>98862669Sounds like a great time. If my daughter is into D&D I'll teach her how to play, but so far she seems much more into girly things like clothes.
>>98865752If she’s into D&D, even odds that she starts going by “he” in college.
>>98861957It's probably due to being based on an existing artwork, but I like this so much more than the Midjourney slop our DM made for Droop.
I had a good session this week. The campaign is finally starting to get somewhere again.
>>98861957What tool did you use to do this?
/tg/, I have a question for you. My character recently gained access to shapechange, as a level 18 druid. What are some good creatures to turn into?The ones I've got so far are dragon turtle for the HP, hollyphant for the spell immunity & teleport, ancient deep dragon for legendary resistances and planetar to boost my attacks.
>>98867928>Most Temporary Hit Points: Dragon Turtle>Arcanaloth and Archmage: Mind Blank and Mage Armor>Dao, Djinni, Efreeti, Marid, Zodar (while under Death Ward): Wish>Githyanki Dracomancer: Nondetection>Guardian Naga: True Seeing>Blackguard: Find Steed>Witherbloom Pledgemage: Death Ward>Adult Bronze Dragon: Water Breathing>Kraken Priest: Water Walk and Water Breathing>Cultist Hierophant: Mass Suggestion>Animal Lord: Animal Shapes>Druid: Longstrider>Diviner Wizard: Telepathic Bond>Couatl: Greater Restoration>Ki-Rin: Revivify>Sphinx of Valor: Heroes' Feast (Requires Circle Casting)>Diviner Archmage: Foresight (Requires Circle Casting)>Illusionist Archmage: Magic Aura
>>98868246>Arcanaloth>Witherbloom PledgemageI thought shapechange only granted access to innate spellcasting. We're playing with 2014 rules, if it's changed. Anyways, thanks for the others!
>>98853118>when the monk takes +2 to Constitution:
>>98868246>Druid: LongstriderAm I missing something? If he's an 18th level druid why would he need to change into a lower level druid.
I have read extensively about dnd lore and game mechanics but I have never played it
>DM: "While traveling through the grasslands, your party encounters a were-anteater!"
>>98870763Go play a game book version at least. https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/220997/d-d-solo-adventure-the-death-knight-s-squire
Rate my helltouched shitling.
>>98870828Freakshit/10
>>98867928I'd like to point out the Intellect Devourer. Yes, it's pretty fragile at that level, but Devour Intellect is just as bullshit against monsters as it is against players, despite the low DC.
>>98870828gross... Have you tried playing a normal human? Or if you must be special, an elf?
>>98870828She cute
>>98870828Why are her hands and tail-tip darker than the rest of her skin?
>>98870907They're a blacksmiths apprentice. It's soot, potentially permanently stained that color because of weird infernal biology.>>98870896Elves are special?
>>98870951>Elves are special?I've heard the wackos tell me elves are freakshit. Just play whatever you want and ignore the retards.
>>98870828Remembering that Tieflings can be small/10 Good job you picked the optimal size for mounting deers.
Seems like 5.5e monks have gotten better from 5e. Anyone can confirm?
>>98872292From the few glances I had it looked stronger (stunning strike halved speed and gave advantage on a SUCCESFUL save) but the entirety of 5.5 is such a disastrous clusterfuck that it's not worth using.
>>98870955Anything other than base humanity is degenerate freakshit
>>98871399>mounting deers
>>98872292Better, but not good. The issue is that balance is relative, and while the monk improved, most of the other classes also got some upgrades, so it still remains one of the weaker classes, just not quite as weak.
>>98872704
>>98872704Here's the wacko now. Hi faggot, you are a stupid cunt. Fuck off back to your OSR threads.
>>98872672I've been using 5.5e for a campaign for over a year. Seems fine to me if a bit lackluster in the changes they made. The main change I like is the weapon masteries. What I don't like is the change to all subclasses being at level 3, for some classes it feels very odd. I wouldn't call it a clusterfuck though. What is it you think makes it a clusterfuck?
>>98874381He's a 5ebabbie that gets confused by anything else
>>98874381Multiple mostly discrete aspects of the new rules that are easy to ignore or do something different.
>>98874540Alright, if they're easy to ignore or do something different I don't see how that's a clusterfuck. When I think clusterfuck I think of something like FATAL with anal circumference tables and retard strength.
Anyone else excited? Dan Abnett wrote it.
>>98874945>expecting anything good to come out of nuD&D.The new art they released showed that Athas of old was destroyed even before they started hiring sensitivity readers.
>>98874966As it should have been. The fuck was the point of my Dark Sun games in the 90's if it stayed the same?
>>98874945>Anyone else excited?Let me remind you:https://archive.is/Zsaex>Dark Sun is expected to get 2 full books & a modified version of the PHB, reflecting the company’s commitment to making it a key part of its strategy.>The return to Dark Sun was driven by fans, D&D executive producer Greg Bilsland told TTRPG Insider. “There’s always been a vocal portion of the audience that wanted us to go back to it,” Bilsland admitted. After years of requests & campaigns, D&D is finally returning to the 30+-year-old Dark Fantasy setting. It’s a notable pivot; former executive producer Kyle Brink said in a 2023 interview with Bob World Builder that “the Dark Sun setting is problematic in a lot of ways, and that's the main reason we haven't come back to it." The statement isn’t that shocking considering Dark Sun’s past books used racial stereotypes and genocide as notable lore elements.>Bilsland insisted that the team is taking the subject seriously. Content is being reviewed by sensitivity readers, Bilsland said. “In fact, we invested more deeply in [sensitivity readers] for Dark Sun, knowing the challenges it faces.”>He also reinforced that the setting's grittiness will still exist, but won’t rely on narratives of mass slavery. “You don't have to have slavery in a setting if in order for it to be oppressive,” Bilsland emphasized. “There are other forms of oppression out there.”>He gave the example of Urik, a city that controls one of the region's leading armies. That’s because leadership regularly presses people into military service, or convinces the poor to give up their freedom for a chance to survive. He hopes it will offer players a chance to deal with more mature stories & themes, such as fighting oppression and tyrants.
>>98875414>The game will also provide mechanics for making wounds more brutal, healing less viable, and other elements that will help capture the gritty aesthetic that defined it for many fans. While Dark Sun’s moral core is key to capturing the experience, another element is how magic works. While a traditional fantasy setting like the Forgotten Realms may allow Wizards & Warlocks to abide, Dark Sun makes magic more costly.>“Spellcasting in Dark Sun can draw magic from the landscape, cause it to wither and decay,” senior game designer Makenzie De Armas told TTRPG Insider. It’s a theme she tried to capture in the Defiler Sorcerer subclass (teased in a previous Unearthed Arcana). Defiler allows players to draw on their own Hit Dice and those of opponents to fuel their magic, using life force throughout combat.>Sorcerers aren't the only ones with the ability to do so, however. De Armas says there will also be systems available in the Dark Sun books that will allow spellcasters to upcast magic, albeit at the cost of the environment & allies around them.>Another key theme of Dark Sun is Psionics. While subclasses exist in current D&D books (Soulknife Rogue, Psi Warrior, etc), players will be able to pick up “Wild Talents”, allowing any class to inherit Psionic abilities. Operating similarly to Dragonmarks or Dark Gifts, distinct sets of feats from the Eberron & Ravenloft settings with their own benefits & costs. The team basically went through all of comic book & horror novel history to find the most prominent Psionic tropes and convert them into usable feats.>There’s also the Psion, the first new class to be added to 5e since the introduction of the Artificer in 2019's Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Originally teased in May 2025's Unearthed Arcana, the full class lets characters use Psionic abilities in offensive, defensive, and supportive ways. The class has gotten some “pretty solid updates”, De Armas emphasized, but was unable to say more.
NuDarkSun sounds so fucking shit. They’re acting like they didn’t already bring it back and have it fail in 4e.
I have the new Warcraft book, its watermarked to shit but its good. Professions are very well done, probably my favorite part of the book.
>>98875763Can you tell us about the Swashbuckler Rogue? Type out stuff if images aren't going to be okay.
>>98875422>the full class lets characters use Psionic abilities in offensive, defensive, and supportive ways. The class has gotten some “pretty solid updates”, De Armas emphasized, but was unable to say more.Is it still a spellcaster? No buy.
>>98875414>Content is being reviewed by sensitivity readers, Bilsland said. “In fact, we invested more deeply in [sensitivity readers] for Dark Sun, knowing the challenges it faces.”lmfao, they're going to neuter the setting.
>join an online game>two out of five players drop out even before session zeroWhy are they like this?
>>98876628People now don't know how to communicate and talk to other people.
>>98876667I'd understand if they dropped after session 0 or even session 1 because they didn't like the "vibes" of the group or something, but before session 0? Why even sign up for the game at that point?
>>98876686They could have signed up for multiple games with overlapping time slots because they weren't sure which ones they would get into.
>>98867480Gemini, Nano Banana 2 specifically, you can get free uses using even the basic ass google if you want to try it free. Just know it takes some getting use too. My current fun is gender flipping certain characters because if WotC can use ai to race/gender swap, than so can I. Current target: Nafas... because I dream of Genie.
>>98877157They're so insistent on diversity and representation, yet the hot djinn chick has been woefully neglected. But stroking my lamp over here has granted my wish... for more genies!
What about this looks like Athas?The clearly mechanical cabling? The Floating pyrmid with electric lighting? The robot? The holograms?Clearly this is perfectly fitting with the grimdark desert vibes of the first book.
And this? This is garbage!!
>>98877278>>98877287You can tell that they tried to copy from Warhammer 40k's playbook
Why the hell is there so much metal in this city?Metal is a rare precious resource, they're not going to use it so carelessly.
>playing Temple of Elemental Evil>tangle with the fuckass mind controlling acid pool a few times>always made the saving throws>cleric wants to try Destroy Water on it>I decide to use Mage Hand to retrieve a vial of the acid to see if Destroy Water will work on it>being in the line of sight of the pool triggers the mind control, but this time I fail>turns out it's not only acid (figured that out by sacrificing a familiar) but the acid instantly dissolves all nonmagical items and even magical gear if you fail a DC 15 CON save, per item>half of us end up failing at one point or another while trying to restrain the others>no save on the mind control for 8 hours, I had to be restrained and two other players would've died if the pool didn't decide it was full and release the spell after it had consumed like 10 magic itemsThe funny part is, ultimately Destroy Water DID work on it and we DID end up "killing" the pool after a few turns of it after things got under control.Absolutely was not worth it, though. Lost more than half the party's money, a bunch of magic items, high level spell scrolls, etc. Also my fucking spellbook with all my ritual spells.Fucking fuckass acid pool.
Again, too much metal.
Welcome to modern D&D
>>98877367It's like people haven't been paying attention for the last decade.
>>98861957>>98867480>>98877157I got nana banana to do weird kairi sane edits. It randomly added ronald mcdonald. I also remember nana banana and claude refusing to edit a mumei thumbnail that said>you can say the v wordto >you can say the n word
>>98877367I don't have to like it. In fact I would prefer them to stop.
>Warlock >Feats: Familiar Friend and Otherworldly Familiar>Pact of the Chain + Gaze of Two Minds>Imp Familiar>You now have a familiar with 46+ HP, flies 60 feet,is permanently invisible, can fly through walls, and is constantly taking the Stealth action (+5 Stealth or +8 if Sprite instead of Imp) or moving in and out of walls after you cast your spells.>While you are within 60 feet of it, behind cover, you cast spells through its space. This doesn't break the familair's invisibility nor does anyone see components because the familiar isn't casting the spell.>Bonus: Genie Warlock can put the party in their vessel and the familiar can fly the party around a dungeon while doing all of the above.Drone warfare!!
>>98877338There's 5e ToEE?
>>98878056No, my DM just adapted the module to 5e.
>be me>barbarian>npc old man, hero of some bullshit, has sword I want>tell him to give me the sword so I can slay evil shit in mountain>he says no>I grapple him>he uses dominate person on me and tells me to go sit on a bench, then runs>i break cc, dash, catch up to him, kill him, take sword>party rogue is now saying he wants to take me to fucking fantasy court and charge me with murder>rest of the party just wants to kill shit and have funWhy are moralfags the worst dnd players?
>>98878404>I just wanted to be a murder hoboThere's a new game coming out that might be more your style.
>>98878392I've ran a bunch of 1e adventures for my group. It doesn't take a 1000 IQ DM to see that Gygax put in a bunch of stirges/trolls etc and just use the 5e versions.
>>98878531>I just want to dictate everyone else's character's choices because I'm a moralfag who needs people to be goodie two shoesHe's literally saying he's probably going to quit to the DM because "this campaign isn't my style" and were going to be down a skillmonkey. He's the one pulling the "do as I say or else" card.
>>98878542If I was that player I would have left after you killed a retired hero for his sword. If I was the DM I would have had you killed by a level 20 fighter. You are a munchkin.
>>98878546But youre not.
>>98878552And that's something I am very thankful for
>>98878542Why are you throwing a bitchfit that your playstyle doesn't jive with his?It's better for both you and the rogue player to split>but muh skillmonkeyAh so your party members are just tools for you?
>>98878585Team game mother fuckerYou'd be shit at WoW
>>98878626>D&D is WoWI can see where the issues are coming from. You're treating NPCs like they're just piñatas to kill for loot. You are a disgrace to the game. Go play 4e.
>>98878626Team game doesn't mean everyone else if your tool
>>98878648>>98878652You guys wouldn't be there for your boy if he needed you, and would snitch.
Would any domain of dread be okay to vacation in for a week or two?
>>98878696>says while not being there for the rogue while snitching on him in 5eggs
>>98878782I think he's just trolling at this point. We can ignore him now.
Any advice for running a duo campaign? I'm DMing and running one character, my other player is running one full character and possibly a sidekick later.
>>98878888>Don't have a DMPC>Give him max HP>Fast level ups>Make his character the absolute star of the show, no other PCs to worry about>Be generous with magic items but not too generous, at least one legendary item early goes a long way in a solo game>Lots of healing potions and make quaffing a bonus action or standard actionThe last solo game I ran was Iron Heroes to give you a sense of how long it's been. I quite enjoy solo games. They have a different feel to them that feels more like a story with a genuine protagonist instead of four protagonists.
>>98878771Kartakass would probably be your best bet. Just try not to be there during the full moon.
>>98874945That artist didn't get the memo and he gave their safe horny muscle mommy giant tits.
>>98875763>I have the new Warcraft book its watermarked to shit but its good.So it's a digital copy? You got it very early then.
>>98879069Probably one of the>in crowdWho get everything early to review. I'm surprised they're posting on this dead general on a dying Mongolian basket weaving forum.
>>98879059>he gave their safe horny muscle mommy giant tits.Yikes! That is extremely problematic and I'm surprised that cover art got signed off by the sensitivity readers.
>>98879059>safe horny muscle mommyThat's literally just a man. They put tits on a man. Need I say more about why?
>>98878888I ran a short solo game recently that evolved into duo, I gave the players' gestalt and a second action every turn. It was pretty cool though not necessarily viable for something that would be a lengthier campaign.
>>98878534Well, yeah, I've converted a bunch of adventures between various systems, I was just curious to see if/how WotC butchered ToEE.
What's the most dastardly thing you've seen a Mimic used for? I'm toying with the idea of having a Mimic disguise itself as a potion then as it travels with the group it sneakily quaffs the other potions and then leaves when there's no more potions to steal.
>>98877278>>98877287They're totally going to do 'Athas was once a technological marvel before all the bad shit happened' won't they?
>>98881944It could be even funnier.Athas could have gotten unfucked since the last time we saw it, advanced technologically, and then gotten re-fucked by the defilers waking up or some shit.
>>98881944It was. It's called the Blue Age.
>>98881944They already did that with 5e Dragonlance, IIRC. Except with magic shit before the whole kingpriest debacle.
>>98881944>White men/Elon did it>Fight the patriarchy>Ugly women good you chud>Assassinate Charlie KalackThis will be the message
>>98881881Funniest thing I remember doing was leaving some hints that there's a mimic out there and then after a bending corridor there was an elaborate door with a bunch of furniture/loot around. As the party carefully investigated the items and the door, the wall behind them - a giant mimic - suddenly grew teeth and attacked
>>98882704Don't forget Orange Dragon Bad
>>98882844Oohh, the sodium spewing one, I do like throwing the dragons with the weirder breath weapons into my campaigns.
>>98882951Orange dragon bad though anon. He just is okay!
I've been over Dark Sun. When's Greyhawk?
>>98883259>GreyhawkMy favorite is Mystara. They're not going to revisit Mystara either because many factions are based on historical cultures. Which would be problematic, or cultural appropriation, or racist or some such bullshit. Apparently everything must be modern LA or else it's racist. God I fucking hate the modern world so fucking much!
>>98883248Must be opposed by yellow dragons the way they being salty....Hmm, that's an idea actually. Yellow dragon parent clashing with their orange offspring.
It is so funny watching people choose impotent rage over getting on with their lives
>>98883382
>>98881881My party did encounter a mimic suit of armour once, nearly lost a PC to it. Ended up being a hostage situation because killing it would also kill the PC at the point we realized what was going on and we had to feed it so it wouldn't continue munching on the PC who was wearing it instead.
>>98883331Running a homebrew Mystara campaign right now. love the setting. Does not get talked about enough.
>>98881881>party rolls up to a curio shop in a port city filled with expensive msgic items>is about to leave without buying anything when the proprietor convinces us to buy a treasure map that was left with an executed pirate's belongings>sail to the island depicted on the map and make our way to the X marking the spot of the treasure>it's a small cave, inside of which is a pile of coins, jewels, and other baubles with a greatsword sticking out of the top, point down>fighter goes to grab the sword>it's a fucking Hoard MimicAfter we killed it and our Barbarian found the proprietor of the curio shop sneaking into the cave that night, it came out that the mimic and the proprietor had struck a bargain where the latter would send adventurers and other parties to the mimic's lair for fresh meat in exchange for the former giving the latter the magic items from the now dead adventurers
>>98883760I hope the Proprietor learned a valuable lesson from the barbarian once you found out.
>>98877269I also just remembered to scrounge up another starter set art I did. Dragon's of Stormwreck Isle. It features in this module only a new elemental with zero art: Fume Drakes. Described as legless dragons. Which arent dragons or drakes. No wonder there's no art! So I used the fire snake art, and applied green fume logic for this piece. Hopefully it's cohesive and thematic with "steam mephits" and "water weirds" as style loans. Enjoy!
>>98878981>>Don't have a DMPCMy other player wants me to have one, but I let her know that he's more or less just going along for the ride.>>Give him max HPWill do.>>Fast level upsI'm running a campaign based out of Candlekeep using a mix of the prewritten adventures from Candlekeep Adventures and my own scenarios based on my player's backstory, so I figure each little adventure can serve as a milestone for leveling purposes.>>Make his character the absolute star of the show, no other PCs to worry aboutSee above, that's the plan.>>Be generous with magic items but not too generous, at least one legendary item early goes a long way in a solo gameI'm usually generous with magic items so this shouldn't be a problem.>>Lots of healing potions and make quaffing a bonus action or standard actionLike this idea a lot, thanks.>>98879786I really dig the concept of gestalt, will make things a little easier on my player only having to RP the one character. Thanks.
I'm going to start running a 5e game again after a couple years and want to ask anons' opinions on a couple house rules I usually run.Firstly, if a player can get access to a skill from two sources (e.g. class and background) then they can get expertise in the skill like a rogue and double their proficiency bonus.Secondly, a critical hit will always deal max damage plus a dice roll (e.g. a longsword will do 8+STR+1d8). This is so that a crit always feels worthwhile by making it do more damage than usual, but still gives the player an opportunity to roll a dice, which is more fun than just max damage with no roll. The flipside being that monster attacks will also crit like this.Do either of rules break the game in some way I may not be aware of?
>>98884094No, my group uses the second rule. I don't like the expertise one, if for no other reason then I prefer a proficiency in a different skill. Neither are broken though, and are just fine.
>>98883331>MystaraThey will happily rape your favorite setting, anon.
>>98884094Like >>98884105 I also simply give PCs proficiency in a different skill/tool/language of their choice if they happen to run into an overlap. I tend to find that works out well since it's a relatively minor upside that still maintains the total number of different skills. For expertise, I'd mostly be worried about players picking Rogue less when they can just grab expertise at the cost of a single skill.The change to critical hits I'd say would largely be positive. In a lot of cases it's just going to be 4 or 5 extra damage on average, and the only point of the game where that'd really be dangerous is level 1, where that higher average runs more risk of instant death.
>>988840941 probably devalues rogue expertise, on the other hand classes having expertise with their main thing should be2 is fun. Technically it can get dumb with an Half-Orc assassin with Piercer and sneak attack, but that is a very specific build.I have used 2 for most campaigns, prefigure out if damage adding effect like from Enlarge/Reduce, Flame tongue, or Smite are maxed as well.It really doesn't break much.
Idk, I’m excited for it. Seems like fun if you keep it separated
>>98860467"Make up your own rules faggot" makes up like, 80% of 5e's books.
>>98874945What the FUCK is that art
>>98875414God NuBorys looks so fucking lame
>>98877278>From the people who watched the Dune movies
>>98884094>Firstly, if a player can get access to a skill from two sources (e.g. class and background) then they can get expertise in the skill like a rogue and double their proficiency bonus.It's fine I guess. If you don't want to be such a faggot just let them pick a different skill of their choice.>Secondly, a critical hit will always deal max damage plus a dice roll (e.g. a longsword will do 8+STR+1d8). This is so that a crit always feels worthwhile by making it do more damage than usual, but still gives the player an opportunity to roll a dice, which is more fun than just max damage with no roll. The flipside being that monster attacks will also crit like this.Yes I have used this rule for years. It makes crits much more interesting. It does mean some classes are especially good like Paladin especially if they can choose to add the damage dice after knowing if they crit or not. Champion fighter is also a bit better but only chads plays that class so idm.Here's another houserule I like to use:>Initiative lowering. You may choose to lower your initiative at the start of your turn to take your turn later in the order. If you do so your new initiative number is permanent for the rest of the combat.I've been in some combats where the turn order just completely fucks the party or the monsters. It's more fun being able to lower your initiative.I also like to use the taking 20 rule from 3.5
We are fighting in the ebberon equivalent of the faywild and this hag just banished one of our characters and after rolling for what grid he'd land on he's in the mornland now while we are still in the encounter
Red dragons.Why are they such idiots?
Might join both of these campaigns. What class/subclass should I look at to round out the comp? I’ve always been a filler.
>>98885696Pride
>>98885696They're the jocks of dragons, but you can knock some sense into them. White dragons on the other hand, no amount of beatings will fix their retardation.
>>98885789Adventure's Guild: Any caster but I'd lean ClericMad Mage: Paladin
>>98885696They copy Smaug without actually realising why he acted that way, so they just come off as cartoonishly arrogant and stupidAlso love how their lore states that they primarily fight grounded in melee, when any DM worth his salt will tell you that it's the number 1 way of having a shitty anticlimactic dragon fight that ends before it even began
>>98886438>They copy Smaug without actually realising why he acted that way, so they just come off as cartoonishly arrogant and stupidDid Smaug have a motive?
>>98885106I'll always let them pick another skill if they so choose. The point is to basically give them two 'ranks' per skill as an option to further specialise their character. For example, a Barbarian could put two points into athletics if they truly wanted to focus on going full grug rather than going for something like Animal Handling just because they've got a spare skill to pick. >>98884220 As for devaluing rogue expertise I think just changing the official Expertise rogue feature to be 3 free skill points would be enough for them to still fill the skill monkey niche.Also in regards to the crit roll, having just had a cursory glance at the CR1 Bugbear, the rule should be max WEAPON damage plus any other rolls like sneak attack ect. I want the crit rule to be consistent for and against players but I wouldn't want a level 1 monster to get a lucky crit and instantly deal 30 damage on a single attack. Just out of interest, what kind of player character build could even survive that much damage without being one-shotted into death saves? And what is the lowest level they would have to be to survive it?
>>98887012Level 2 barbarian with a decent constitution and a good roll for new hp, variant human for toughness is optional.Though a wizard with a constitution of 10 and perfectly average rolls (except for first obviously) has 30 hp at level 9 and 33 at 10
>>98887097A barb without toughness would need a max roll at level 2 and 18+ con to survive, with toughness its still a max roll on 16 con. So it is technically survivable before level 3 if you have close the max hp possible at that level. I just realise I didn't even take into account the +2d8 roll for that bugbear's attack earlier. Now I see why I was killing more players than other DMs back in the day.
>>98887012>>98887241Technically a Barbarian can also survive 30 damage at level 1. Toughness and +3 Con gets you to 17 HP. Then as long as you're raging, you would survive the crit on 2 HP. To survive 30 damage without raging, you certainly need to be a higher level. Being a Dwarf can give you a little more leeway there in terms of what you need to roll.It does depend on which version of Bugbear you're using as well, since the new Bugbear Warrior is set up with a Light Hammer and without the bonus damage to ambushing to make it less dangerous at low levels. That said, the houserule doesn't make it that much of a difference. The Morningstar does 27 on average even without the sneak attack on a crit, while the Light Hammer brings it down to 21.5. Still more than enough to bring any level 1 character to 0.The case where this really matters is with the rules around massive damage. If you hit 0 and the remaining damage is more than your HP, you die without even getting into death saves. So the worry with Bugbear crits is usually less that they'll instantly bring someone to 0 (because most monsters can do that to level 1 characters), but that even a Fighter with 12 HP can take 24 damage at max HP and just die out of nowhere.As far as the crit rule goes, I'd mostly consider how this applies to Rogues again, since they're impacted the most by how you decide to treat any extra damage dice. Personally, I would suggest the rule being that the player maxes out the damage dice, and then gets to roll the base weapon damage as a bonus. That achieves the result of crits being more consistent while still letting them roll some dice, but it keeps the result of critical hits rather consistent as slightly more damage than the maximum. Ultimately if you're worried about Bugbears critting low level players, the answer is probably to just not include as many Bugbears as enemies.
>>98887362>even a Fighter with 12 HP can take 24 damage at max HP and just die out of nowhereThis happened when we played Lost Mines! Our Fighter got crit and took I believe 31 damage, getting killed instantly from full health. All four d8s were rolled, too – this DM doesn't use that crit house rule.The bard cast Silvery Barbs and the reroll was also a crit, which was kind of great.
>>98887362Rogues don't deal that much damage. Because they only make one weapon attack, maximising weapon damage dice but not sneak attack would pull them further behind because their vase damage is boosted less than anyone who makes multiple attacks, including EB warlocks.
Rogues also use weapons with smaller damage dice unless they somehow invest for martial weapons or I guess use firearms.
How do I get out of the habit of only playing casters? I genuinely find them so much more engaging and fun to use and act with than I do with a martial where all my feats need to go to making my weapons work the way they should. The closest I've gotten to those levels of satisfaction were with fey ranger and soulknife rogue but even with them I just felt like a bad caster who happened to have a reasonable ranged attack to throw out instead of cantrips, still nothing for general rp and exploration
>>98888046>>98888065Yeah, that was pretty much my concern with pointing that out. A Rogue getting to max the damage of a d4 dagger isn't really impressive compared to a Fighter getting the full damage of a 2d6 greatsword.All the more reason to let Sneak Attack max out the damage as well, rather than removing it from the houserule just for the sake of a random CR 1 monster that the DM can simply avoid using.
>>98887362Thanks for taking the time to break it down. After much consideration and comparing a dagger wielding rogue vs. a greataxe wielding fighter both with +3 modifiers, I think max weapon damage plus bonus damage rolled rather than maximising bonus dice is better. With maximised dice, the rogue would outpace the fighter at level 3 and with rolled dice the rogue would outpace the fighter at level 7.Fighters may have ways to catch up such as feats/magical weapons/class features but rogues will get similar bonuses as the level up so the fighter will inevitably start falling off.Also, if I want to keep the rule consistent on both sides of the DM screen, it means the bugbear from earlier (just a convenient example of a monster when cracking open the MM at a random page, any monster will do for the sake of discussion) will do slightly less average damage when not maximising bonus dice, leading to slightly less massive damage deaths
>>98888046Yeah I only just looked it up and fighters get extra attack and rogues don't. Like I said, it has been a while since I ran a game. In that case, and considering action surge, maximising bonus damage would likely be better.I also considered EB would be a problem and didn't have a solution for it. My solution used to be a flat 'spells don't crit' rule, since casters are generally considered more powerful than martials that seemed a fair compromise.
>>98888080In 5e casters play very differently to martials. If you don't enjoy playing a martial don't force yourself. There are ways to play something that's more of a gish. An old player of mine was a wizard/artificer/warlock which was surprisingly strong as a frontliner.
How much better/worse would warlocks be multeclassing-wise if they used INT instead of CHA and shared a primary ability score with wizards and artificers instead of sorcerers and paladins (and bards)?
>>98888238They definitely do, and I'm sure if I were a little better at rping I wouldn't be held back by not having spells to prompt different actions. I've often just taken telekenis just so I have some way to interact with the environment or help allies somehow
>>98888195How are you changing Hexblade's Curse to account for the fact the crit increase is now mostly useless because you're worried about the weakest caster class doing good damage ~5% of the time?
>>98888093>>98888195Rogues tend to trail behind Fighters in terms of damage, so I wouldn't bother trying to tailor the houserule to ensure Rogues aren't pulling a head. If you're worried about Rogues dealing big damage with crits, then you shouldn't be introducing a houserule that makes crits deal more damage.I also wouldn't worry too much about spellcasting here. A Warlock isn't going to be wildly different than your typical archer if they get to deal 10+1d10+Cha with an Eldritch Blast. Or 16+1d10+Cha if they've got a Hex up. I think the only place you'd really have to watch out would be spells like Guiding Bolt and Chromatic Orb where the 'base' damage is technically 4d6 or 3d8. All of this is to say that I think you should focus on consistency and just having the crit rules function as evenly as possible. Is that going to result in some classes dealing wildly more damage than normal? Yes. Is it going to result in some monsters dealing more damage and being more dangerous? Yes.But that's ultimately in the very nature of a houserule that makes crits deal more damage. You're better off just accepting that rather than trying to constrain it so heavily that the players would rather just have the normal crit rules again.
>>98888248Worse. You'd be missing the things that make warlock multiclass great (sorcery points and smite and general paladin-ness) in exchange for... nothing, pretty much. Wizard doesn't really give you anything compared to sorcerer, maybe some specific subclass (Bladesinger?). Artificer in general has worse weapon and armor proficiencies and not much use for the short rest recharge slots (artillerist can summon the turret more often, I guess?), and subclass abilities are mostly derived from artificer level, so warlock is probably a net loss. Int is also a less useful main ability score to work with.
>>98888263Hexblade's Curse isn't in 5.5e. It's compatible if the DM chooses to allow Xanathar's as a source in their game (which is the case for 5e anyway). But also, the solution could just be that the "automatically hits regardless of AC" part still applies. So now your L5 warlock rolling at +7 can hit an AC 27 monster on a natural 19 even though 26 would normally be a miss. Now they're hitting twice as often as a non-Hexblade warlock, which is pretty impactful.
>>98888294Thanks, I think my games will only allow INT-warlocks now.
>>98888354If you weren't a decade ago, you're a fucking retard.
>>98888288The issue with Eldritch Blast is that it becomes 20+2d10, then 30+3d10 etc. as a basic attack under the 'Perkins Crit' rule (as I have since found out it is typically named.)Also yes, Guiding Bolt and Chromatic Orb are other examples of why a flat no crits on spells rule works. Don't casters get enough utility to make up for the weapon users throwing out a big hit once per combat?>>98888263You tell me the best way to deal with it anon. This is why I brought up the topic for discussion, to find out where and how the rule might start to break things. I'm not familiar with Hexblade's Curse but will look at it.
>>98888353Ah, the level 5 warlock can hit the AC 27 monsters he's surely to fight, like... hm... or... uh....Anyway, now they are hitting the non-existing monsters twice as often! Or, I suppose, it may matter if they fight the Tarrasque at level 1, because that's the monster with the highest AC in the game at 25. Of course, the Tarrasque reflects ranged spell attack back at the caster...
To be clear for the sake of discussion;My reasons for changing the crit rule isn't to make crits more deadly, it is to remove the 'feels bad' moments of rolling low damage on a crit. Also, simply making a crit deal max damage robs the player of the tactile pleasure of rolling a dice on a table, which is half the reason any of us play this game.It is mostly a 'fun at the table' rule rather than a purely mechanical fix, but I would like to know where the math might be thrown off that ruins a mechanic elsewhere in the system.
>>98888353>Now they're hitting twice as often as a non-Hexblade warlock, which is pretty impactful.NTA but... What? I mean I understand your logic here, but it's kinda stupid. You are only hitting twice as much against enemies that are completely outside of your bounded accuracy that you could only hit with a crit. Have you actually checked the MM for 5.5e, or even 5e for that matter? Looking at your example let's just go look at how many monsters this would apply to: and it's nothing. Not a single one. The highest AC in the game goes to Tarrasque at a whopping 25. This is so far beyond niche it literally isn't even a real scenario outside of extreme homebrew. And a +7 to hit is easily attainable at level 5. So CR 30 enemies aren't even applicable to this scenario after level 5. You are talking about homebrewed enemies using shield and other AC boosting shenanigans to even make this a possible benefit. I think we can safely say this is not something that needs to be considered or balanced around.
>they don't encounter ACs above 25 until T2Not all of us are playing baby D&D
>>98888481>The issue with Eldritch Blast is that it becomes 20+2d10, then 30+3d10 etc.What are you talking about. That isn't remotely how it works. All beams on EB are rolled as separate attacks, so it's 10+1d10 and never more.>Also yes, Guiding Bolt and Chromatic Orb are other examples of why a flat no crits on spells rule works.And this is a problem why? I mean for the first 4ish levels sure, but if a player gets a lucky crit on this congrats you just gave the table a great story they'll tell afterward. And since you are the DM you control if an enemy uses this spell. If you are worried this much about edge cases and perfect balance this game is going to break you once players get into mid or god forbid high level play.
Is there any difference to being burned by acid damage versus being burned by fire?
>>98888616>Not all of us are playing baby D&DI'm way more mature and awesome than you because I want to play my game on hard mode, but I'm also terrified that one particular build of Warlock might be able to hit twice as often in one very specific type of scenario that is extremely unlikely to come up more than a couple of times in an entire campaign. It's too strong you see.Pick a lane buddy...
>>98888481>The issue with Eldritch Blast is that it becomes 20+2d10, then 30+3d10 etc. as a basic attack under the 'Perkins Crit' rule (as I have since found out it is typically named.)That's not how that works. The rule you're misunderstanding states that you only roll damage once if a spell damages multiple targets, but it takes a pretty massive contorting of RAI to apply a crit to every target of individual spell attack rolls. I've seen that mentioned in the context of Magic Missile, but never for spells like EB or Scorching Ray.>Don't casters get enough utility to make up for the weapon users throwing out a big hit once per combat?Almost certainly, but casters also have much better things to do with their time than casting Chromatic Orb if they care about dealing damage. >>98888542If I could make another suggestion, it'd be allowing the PCs to swap out a certain number of results from the dice pool after rolling damage for a crit. For example, say that after a player rolls a crit, they can choose to remove one die from the pool in exchange for maximizing another die. If they crit with a longsword and roll two 1s, they remove one of them in order to turn the other into an 8.That basically always ensures that a Crit is at least close to average, but still allows the initial potential of rolling higher.You could place a potential cap on how many dice can be removed this way. Proficiency Bonus perhaps. Just to ensure a player isn't spending too long swapping around their pool.
>>98884431I just wish they'd gone all-in more with the classes. I keep looking to Lord of the Rings Role Playing, the Free League "The One Ring" 5e conversion as a gold standard but hey. WotC also ain't Free League.
>>98888641>>98888681All fair points. As I look through the book it appears that Firebolt is actually a spell that has the problem I was assuming Eldritch Blast had. I can rule that you get max damage and then only one dice (e.g. at 5th lvl 20+1d10). Or make each bolt a separate attack just like Eldritch Blast. Maybe just 'no crits on cantrips'? If it took a spell slot, I would happily allow it. I agree these are all edge cases but they are worth considering.As for the idea of maximising a certain amount of dice in the pool... That is a good idea and tying the number of dice to equal to proficiency bonus is relatively intuitive and easy to explain. Means the fighter almost always gets max on all their dice, slows down the curve with rogue sneak attacks.
>>98888815>Firebolt is actually a spell that has the problem I was assuming Eldritch Blast hadWhich is what?>(e.g. at 5th lvl 20+1d10)How is a Fire Bolt dealing 21–30 damage? It's 2d10, or 4d10 on a crit, or 2d10+20 on a crit with max base damage.You know the maximum damage doesn't change, right? It's just the minimum and average that increase?>slows down the curve with rogue sneak attacksAnd why do you want to slow down the curve? As discussed earlier, most of a rogue's already lesser power comes from sneak attack, so by buffing crits but not letting the buff apply to sneak attack you're lifting every other martial further above them.
>>98888986The problem of a cantrip critting and dealing way more damage than other basic attacks. A fighter's crit with a greataxe with a +3 damage modifier would be 15+1d12. Given how 5e generally balances magic weapons, a magic weapon at level 5 would reasonably add 6 to this IF bonus damage was also maximised. So 17-29Since the houserule makes a crit max damage PLUS a dice roll, Firebolt could be reasonably expected (by a player at the table) to do 20+2d10, so 22-40. This would only increase at higher levels. A rogue at the same level with the same +3 modifier wielding a dagger would deal 25+1d4, so 26-29. The rogue will also increase in damage as he increases in level.So a fighter and rogue deal comparable damage at this level so long as the fighter has a +damage magic weapon (which is reasonable to assume at level 5.) The rogue will start outpacing the fighter on crits at level 7. This is fine, rogues don't get extra attack and action surge or superiority dice, seems fair. You are right to say that the rogue's curve doesn't really need to be slowed.The wizard however, puts out more damage with his basic attack than both of those dedicated 'kill stuff' classes and can also throw around fireballs at this point. Seems a little strong, which is a problem that people always bring up in D&D balancing. The firebolt also naturally scales up at higher levels while the fighter gets left behind. Again, if firebolt used up a spell slot, the trade would be fairer, the wizard also doesn't get multi-attack after all. Maybe not allowing the cantrip to crit evens this disparity out. As other anons pointed out, Eldritch Blast balances out better because it uses separate attack rolls for each d10 worth of damage.At the risk of just arguing with myself, your counter-argument might be to just load up the fighter with more powerful weapons than the books recommend. Which is what I will probably have to do when using the bigger crits rule.
>>98888815True, more standard cantrips like Firebolt could end up with 20+2d10 if you just doubled it outright. Though I don't think it's actually that big of an issue when you consider a 5th level martial would have higher odds to crit purely by virtue of making additional attacks.That said, the idea of just maxing out certain dice in the pool sidesteps this issue. A level 5 mage who crits with a firebolt would roll 4d10, and a low roll turns that into a 20 damage floor, rather than the floor being 20 plus whatever else they rolled.I'd also echo what >>98888986 said about there not really being a need to slow down the Rogue. But also, it's basically a non-issue in this context. A level 5 Rogue with a shortbow is rolling 2d6+6d6 on a crit. With +3 proficiency, they could swap out three of those dice to max out three other dice, so only two would have to stay unaffected.In the worst case scenario, you miss out on 4 damage if literally every single dice is a 1, compared to if you could sacrifice as many dice as you wanted.There's a reason I mentioned a cap in the context of game speed rather than as a way to limit power. The method itself already limits the power. The average of 8d6 is 28. If you roll all 1s and sac/max everything, you get 24.
>>98875763>Professions are very well done, probably my favorite part of the book.How so? In a general sense if you don't want to break NDAs or w/e
>>98889174I'm retarded, with the magic weapon, fighter would be dealing 21-33.
>>98889174>The wizard however, puts out more damage with his basic attack than both of those dedicated 'kill stuff' classesYou're also comparing a Fire Bolt crit to a single greatsword crit when it should be two greatsword crits, which is how many a non-champion fighter will score for every Fire Bolt crit a wizard gets, just less likely to be on the same turn. While it's true that a greater percentage of cantrips' damage (i.e. all of it without specific features) come from damage dice, 2d6 is still more than 1d10, so a fighter still wins more.Also, most attacks aren't critical hits anyway.
>>98889174>The firebolt also naturally scales up at higher levels while the fighter gets left behind.The fighter is the most obvious of a class that doesn't get left behind, getting three and later four attacks, all of which add their ability mod to the damage.All other martials scale too: radiant strikes / improved divine smite; brutal strikes and rage bonus scaling; extra flurry attack and martial arts scaling; and don't forget the capstone to end all capstones, Foe Slayer: The damage die of your Hunter's Mark is a d10 rather than a d6.And that's ignoring all of the subclass features and feats that a martial will also pick up.
>>98889174>>98889200>>98889284Even discounting how Fighters are likely to be critting more often, just in terms of action economy, the Wizard crits for 22-40, the Fighter Crits for 21-33, and then the Fighter makes a second attack. Which with a +3 greataxe with +4 strength puts the range up to 29-52. The numbers get even better for a Fighter if instead of the Very Rare +3 weapon you pick a mere Rare weapon like a Flametongue.
>>98889284>>98889343>>98889358Understood, I'm convinced.
Starting at level 3 is mandatory at this point. Level 1 in 5.5e is fucking stupid. Warlocks have no patron. Clerics have no domain. Fucking RUBBISH
>I'm worried the monsters might crit my player and kill them!Grow a pair you little bitch. Combat should be brutal and scary. if you haven't died at level 1 to a random crit have you really played D&D?
Apparently, there is this new Eldritch Invocation in the 5e World of Warcraft book:>Curse of Corruption>Prerequisite: Level 2+ Warlock>When an enemy starts its turn cursed by a Warlock spell you cast (such as Hex), it must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or take Necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier.Okay, well, Hex lasts for hours and offers no initial saving throw. Instead of having the party fight some big bad boss, the warlock instructs the party to just... leave. Then the warlock tags the major enemy with Hex and runs away, maybe with a Dimension Door if the warlock is level 7+.As far as I can tell, this works on the CR 30 tarrasque (the usual punching bag), and even more mystically inclined enemies are out of luck if they lack Dispel Magic or Remove Curse, as is the case with the spellcasting CR 24 dragons in the 2025 Monster Manual.A warlock 2/sorcerer 2 can Subtle Spell this to surreptitiously assassinate people in a town or a city, too.
>>98890261>A warlock 2/sorcerer 2 can Subtle Spell this to surreptitiously assassinate people in a town or a city, too.You don't even need to multiclass, the good ol' bag of rats still works. Hex a rat, sacrifice it for the glory of not-Satan, then move the curse to the real target at your convenience.
>>98853118Anyone tried to make a Blemmyes race? The closest thing I ever saw was a 3.5 Dread Domain “Igor” or half-ghoul (don’t remember) race that had mutations and one of them was having such a short neck they couldn’t be decapitated
>>98856841Rework Oath of the Watchers to be Outsider/Aberration exclusive
>>98890173You know that you can have a patron or domain already, but just haven't gotten any benefits specific to it, right? Of all the retarded decisions Wotc has made this is one of the few I mostly agree with. Standardizing subclass progression is actually a good idea. Of course they still managed to fuck it up in usual Wotc fashion by not actually standardizing it so all classes used the 3/6/10/14 progression.I get the logic behind it, it made dipping way to attractive because of certain subclass effects. Kinda like what >>98888248 said above. Pure Warlock has never been the problem here. It's just that Wotc are put the majority of the class's power budget in the first 2 levels like fucking idiots and so the classes dipping warlock get more out of two levels in Warlock than Warlock gets out of two levels in Warlock. And for 5.5e they actually managed to make this worse than it was before. Fucking incompetence all around.
>>98886981He was one of the last firedrakes alive. He bested Ancient Kings and Elven Lords as a teenager and as an ancient wyrm he took over one of the richest dwarven kingdoms by himself. He rebuked Sauron’s call to arms. He was a living middle finger to all the free people and as a beast of Morgath, he loved every second of it.
>>98886981The reason Smaug never shuts the fuck up is because he could hypnotise with his voice
>>98890466Very good point. Thank you.
>>98890606Hence why Wyrmtongue is a name
>swashbuckler is a rogue, a class that hit once but strong>when fighters get up to 4 attacks on one turnmeanwhile>champion is a subclass that doesn't deal one strong hit but instead several ok hits>sword singer is a wizard that uses swords instead of a fighter that boost itself through magicI'll never understand how wotc choses which subclass goes where
>>98890173I genuinely have to wonder which fucking LLM told those fucking retards at Wotc that having the warlock start without a patron was a good idea, since we all know that the new edition was written at least partially by AI.
>>98890485What would they even have that makes them unique? Besides being immune to decapitation which is done by ONE monster in this edition.Outside of having no head i don't recall them doing anything else
>>98890539>Standardizing subclass progression is actually a good idea.In the abstract, sure. And the correct way to do it was to have subclasses chosen at first level.
>>98886043ty
>>98890686having a face on the chest also means they probably interact with sound in pretty weird ways, since there's no space for ears. But what you could do is borrow from Hellenika and make Blemmyes a catch-all term for all the weird "incomplete bodypart tribes" and you roll a table to see if you lack a foot or have gigantic ears, alongside the lack of a head
>>98891179
>>98890195>Grow a pair.I was killing a player every other session last time I DM'd at this club. I went from a table of tactically minded 20-something guys to a group of more theatre-kid types. The first group needed encounter CR tuned up to maintain a challenge and approached every dungeon like a MGSV mission. I didn't shift my design philosophy to account for the different playstyle of the next table. A lazy manticore sleeping on top of a ruin is a fun challenge for one group but a brutal tpk for the other.I'll happily kill PCs but a meat-grinder week after week isn't really fun for the players or me.
Overwhelming Cultural Victoryhttps://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2255-the-16-species-of-azeroth-come-to-d-d
What's yer stats?STR: Can military press 205lb, so 20 STRINT: 138 IQ. I'ma round and say 14 INTWIS: 3 hours playing DND, probably 1-2 hours prepping a week. 15 WISDEX: Dunno but my cardio is shot so somewhere below 10 DEXCON: Last time I was sick was 3 years ago but I'll just cap it at 20 CONCHA: uh. Once. I appeared once in my high school newspaper. 2 CHAWhat should my class be?
>>98890261Edna, Hex lasts for 1 hour and required concentration.
>>98892573Even one hour will be enough to kill most opposition. Concentration will not be an issue if we retreat immediately, possibly via Dimension Door at level 7+, or if this is an urban setting and it is unclear who the culprit is.We can also cast Hex at a higher-level slot.
>>98891961Where are the racial traits?
>>98891734>and approached every dungeon like a MGSV missionthey just tranq'd and fultoned everyone?
>>98893140In the book, presumably.
>>98892573He said it was a WoW exclusive invocation and the books not out until the 17th so it's not the spell he's talking about
>>98892573>>98893371Upcasting Hex extends the duration. 4 hours for a 2nd level slot, 8 hours for 3rd/4th, 24 hours for 5th plus.Warlocks already automatically upcast their spells using the highest slot available, but even 4 hours is probably overkill.The only real flaw is that you can't cast Hex and then immediately Dimension Door on the same turn, due to the rules about using multiple spell slots. Easiest method there is to use the aforementioned bag of rats trick and simply find a way to kill a rat as a bonus action.More straightforward is just using a magic item. A Helm of Teleportation can be used on the same turn as Hex, and then you don't even need to be in the same country while your target dies miserably.
