So it all goes back to trying to emulate a character? Well, that explains why Ranger is all over the place.
I was just thinking exactly that: why does this class have spells at all? Or, if they absolutely have to, crank Ranger's spells all the way down to only Rituals, along the lines of something akin to Goodberry and Speak with Animals - maybe with ritual points to keep uses per day reasonable and scalable.
Beast Master is just all fucked. Anybody can TWF, anybody...but not if you're a Beast Master! I don't see a single CR1/4 that hits harder than a light weapon. Why don't they allow Beast Master to attack, then command their Beast to attack as a Bonus (without the beast's special ability)? Or even let them swap around attacks between them and their beast - alternatively, the beast takes the Attack Action (w/ special ability) and the BM gets to attack with a light melee or light crossbow or shortbow as a Bonus (there's already a precedent for limiting weapons w/ ability use). Something like that should be the very base...unless I'm reading it wrong and the BM can already off-hand attack after his beast...
I'm inclined to agree - the man/beast combo should probably be the niche they lean toward, or, to boil it down further, the Ranger niche should be two threats so the way is open for some static, ranged option, like, I dunno, a bolt firing trap or thorn shooting plant or something.
The beastmaster is actually not bad past level 5, when the Ranger can attack once and give up an attack to let the pet attack. And there are actually some really good pets they can take. The damage output of a lot of the pets is actually much better than the Ranger could do with his own attack.
The problems really lie in the fact that prior to level 5, nobody wants to just not attack so the pet can attack as that's not really fun, and also that the pets have pretty bad HP, so if the GM focuses on them they're very easy to kill and without the pet a beastmaster is really crappy until he can get a new one.
The bonus action economy problem I fixed in my game because I changed the TWF rules so that when you take the fighting style for TWF, the offhand attack is a free action attack once per attack action. There is absolutely no reason why TWF should require the bonus action to match the same damage as GWF gets without using their bonus action. They're both just offensive styles, and should be balanced, and me and a couple of my friends worked out a better system that balances the damage, doesn't require the bonus action to TWF once you've taken the style, and also fixes the scalability problem because in ours it's tied to attack action so action surging fighters get a 2nd offhand attack, etc.
Not related to Ranger, but we also fixed how terrible the GWF style is RAW. Rerolling 1s and 2s while wielding a 2 handed weapon is a piece of trash benefit, because it gives only 1.32 average damage per attack to a greatsword user, 0.40 damage per attack to a Halberd user, and 0.33 per attack to a Greataxe user. Just ridiculous and nonsensical, when duelling lets people who use shields just get a flat +2 damage with their longswords or whatever.
Turns out, just changing GWF style to roll an extra weapon die and drop the lowest balances it nearly perfectly. So Greatsword rolls 3d6 drop the lowest, Greataxe is 2d12 drop lowest, etc. It means the style is worth a flat 2 damage to both greatsword and greataxe(wow, same as duelling) and while it's only worth about 1.65 to 1d10 2 handers like Halberds, those get a great feat(Polearm Master) to equalize it, and they're still better off than they were with the original style.
I playtested it the other day, and let me tell you that my Halberd wielder with GWF style feels much more satisfying when my average damage is 7.15 instead of the 5.90 it was with the original GWF style(Halberd is of course 5.5 average without a style.)
As far as seeing rangers in action goes, my last campaign had a ranger in it, all the way up to level 18 or 19.
The player enjoyed himself, but wasn't nearly as effective as the other damage dealers, and didn't have even remotely enough additional fun tools to make up for it. Spells don't fit rangers at all, IMO. I'd rather see (if anything) them use a warlock-like system where they get some specific ranger-only abilities and can use them more regularly.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
edited August 2015
The archer Hunter Ranger in my game earns his keep with Colossus Slayer, since it can proc once per turn (rather than once per round), meaning that it combos very well with the Battlemaster Fighter's Commander's Strike. Of course this party has no rogue; the rogue's Sneak Attack would totally outclass Colossus Slayer.
The archer Hunter Ranger in my game earns his keep with Colossus Slayer, since it can proc once per turn (rather than once per round), meaning that it combos very well with the Battlemaster Fighter's Commander's Strike. Of course this party has no rogue; the rogue's Sneak Attack would totally outclass Colossus Slayer.
Yeah, that's what happened in our game. Between the rogue and the sorcerer, the ranger looked like a chump.
The ranger in our party at my local comic book shop was an utter nightmare; dude rolled as a human starting with sharpshooter and archer fighting style and just *owned* fights due to power shot (which gives him a +10 to hit for -5 to hit, offset by archery) and ignoring cover, and has only gotten up to even more terrifying shenanigans by switching from hunter to beastmaster and getting a flying snake to mix things up.
Problem with that is, outside of the companion, a Fighter does what you described just as well, except at level 3 when he gets battlemaster maneuvers he does it even better because he can either add superiority to hit to offset sharpshooter's -5, or add superiority dice to his damage plus other effects.
And Beastmaster is just lame because until level 5 you have to give up your entire chance to attack to fight with the pet, and even after that you still have to share your attacks with it.
If a Ranger was going to focus on sharpshooter, they should really go Hunter because giving up half your attacks per round to a pet means giving up half your opportunities to use sharpshooter in the first place.
The thing I've noticed about the flying snake that makes it interesting is that it gives access to poison damage which, while not great due to the sheer number of things that flat out ignore it, still provides extra damage that can bypass resistances to weapon type damage. EDIT: also the snake has blind sight so it cares not for your invisibility or cover.
Further, the rangers spell list offers opportunities for some pretty nasty tricks that the fighter can't do for damage (Hunters mark and hail of thorns are pretty deadly) while providing utility with support and tracking magic.
Like, they aren't what they were in 4th where they were multi attacking all the time, but they aren't exactly worthless for their ability to churn out damage either.
The biggest problem Ranger has is that the class itself is confused. In order to keep pace on damage at all, they need Hunter's Mark running. But to have Hunter's Mark running, you can't be using any of your other concentration spells that would be really nice to be able to cast, like Hail of Thorns, Lightning Arrow, etc.
Early on they can hang, but having to use your concentration and spell slots to have Hunter's Mark up just so you can compete with a Fighter who has a bunch of superiority dice every short rest to do free damage plus other effects is a bit lame. You can find the math pretty easily, but the Ranger gets dominated by a Fighter in DPS both over time and especially when it comes to being able to nova with action surge.
I really wanted to like this Ranger because they utterly nailed the half caster who has unique spells on their list with Paladin, but that's mostly because Paladin gets spells like Aura of Vitality and Divine Smite is a wonderful addition to their niche. Ranger has no niche. They're just a Fighter who does less damage but who has some nice spells they can use. Nothing unique. It's what Mearls brought up in the podcast where he said that they're going to do a full level redesign of the class with no spells. They have to give the class its own thing.
I've said it before, I think the Ranger's thing should be the animal companion. I think it should be core to the class, not share actions with the Ranger because that's awful, and I think the whole class should be built around fighting alongside your animal and doing fun maneuvers together.
I definitely disagree that the animal companion belongs with Barbarian. Barbarians have a niche. They rage and become very hard to kill, unstoppable offensive machines.
Once they re-design it with no spells and give the class an actual mechanical niche nobody else can fill, Ranger will be good. I don't know what it'll be, but I suspect it'll probably involve the animal companion.
They don't even have to give up the Ranger's focus on being a natural explorer and what not. They gave them a lot of non-combat utility that is interesting, but it's not enough to be the class' defining niche. It has to just be part of it.
It's not even like the 5E Ranger is really bad. It's just everybody else can do almost everything they can do equally well or better, and they have no defining mechanics. They're just an okay martial half caster right now.
Again: I disagree with your comparison to the Fighter, since you are pointedly ignoring that Supperiority dice are a resource that runs out after at most 7 uses and is only native to one specific archetype.
By comparison, the Rangers abilities can last a heck of longer then 7 attacks.
Action surge and superiority dice come back on a short rest, which should be getting twice between long rests, so everything a Fighter has that matters will be used 3 times as often as everything a Ranger has, because the Ranger has to wait for a long rest to get his spell slots back. You can find the math on enworld showing the short round burst and also per day damage output of a Fighter and a Ranger, and it's really not that close. It just is what it is.
Of course I'm only comparing the Battlemaster, because it's by far the best Fighter archetype, and the only one anybody would choose when building a martial character. Champion is garbage tier, and Eldritch Knight is a 1/3rd casting gish, not chosen by people who want to focus on the fighting ability of the fighter.
Like I said, the Ranger is not a terrible class, it's just outclassed by other people who do the same job. And the things it does do well don't make it stand apart from other classes in any meaningful way. That's why the lead designer of D&D is already planning on doing a full 20 level redesign of the class.
The thing that I think would help the ranger the most is for some of their spell mechanics to be rejigged; hunters mark should give a mild bonus to hit, spells like lighning arrow and hail of thorns shouldn't be concentration since they're instant effects ect.
On top of that, I think them having access to more spells for tracking and/or movement effects (to them and their enemies) would be a huge boon.
For the beast master I can't help but think that having either the pet gaining feats or some advantage for chaining attacks with it (maybe the pet grants the ranger advantage on his next attack and vice versa?).
Action surge and superiority dice come back on a short rest, which should be getting twice between long rests, so everything a Fighter has that matters will be used 3 times as often as everything a Ranger has, because the Ranger has to wait for a long rest to get his spell slots back. You can find the math on enworld showing the short round burst and also per day damage output of a Fighter and a Ranger, and it's really not that close. It just is what it is.
Of course I'm only comparing the Battlemaster, because it's by far the best Fighter archetype, and the only one anybody would choose when building a martial character. Champion is garbage tier, and Eldritch Knight is a 1/3rd casting gish, not chosen by people who want to focus on the fighting ability of the fighter.
Like I said, the Ranger is not a terrible class, it's just outclassed by other people who do the same job. And the things it does do well don't make it stand apart from other classes in any meaningful way. That's why the lead designer of D&D is already planning on doing a full 20 level redesign of the class.
Also, because the fighter can choose to dump his superiority dice when he gets a crit(you can use more than 1 per action) he can super dump on the hurt if/when he gets a crit.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
On Thursday night I'm playing through an AD&D 2e one-shot of the 2e version of the original Ravenloft module. I haven't played AD&D2e since high school, and arguably never actually played AD&D2e when you factor in all the house rules. So I'm very curious to see how this goes.
On Thursday night I'm playing through an AD&D 2e one-shot of the 2e version of the original Ravenloft module. I haven't played AD&D2e since high school, and arguably never actually played AD&D2e when you factor in all the house rules. So I'm very curious to see how this goes.
Ravenloft when it's done right should scare you; fights should be intimidating and/or blatently unfair, NPC's have their own objectives that rarely involve the players being well off and the lords (like strahd) are signifigantly more then you'd expect.
On Thursday night I'm playing through an AD&D 2e one-shot of the 2e version of the original Ravenloft module. I haven't played AD&D2e since high school, and arguably never actually played AD&D2e when you factor in all the house rules. So I'm very curious to see how this goes.
Enjoy declaring your actions for a round and then fifteen minutes later doing nothing when you try and resolve them because they have been invalidated by other people who rolled better than you.
On Thursday night I'm playing through an AD&D 2e one-shot of the 2e version of the original Ravenloft module. I haven't played AD&D2e since high school, and arguably never actually played AD&D2e when you factor in all the house rules. So I'm very curious to see how this goes.
Ravenloft when it's done right should scare you; fights should be intimidating and/or blatently unfair, NPC's have their own objectives that rarely involve the players being well off and the lords (like strahd) are signifigantly more then you'd expect.
That is true of Ravenloft the setting. Ravenloft the original adventure module is really just a dungeon crawl with a Dracula gloss.
Action surge and superiority dice come back on a short rest, which should be getting twice between long rests, so everything a Fighter has that matters will be used 3 times as often as everything a Ranger has, because the Ranger has to wait for a long rest to get his spell slots back. You can find the math on enworld showing the short round burst and also per day damage output of a Fighter and a Ranger, and it's really not that close. It just is what it is.
Of course I'm only comparing the Battlemaster, because it's by far the best Fighter archetype, and the only one anybody would choose when building a martial character. Champion is garbage tier, and Eldritch Knight is a 1/3rd casting gish, not chosen by people who want to focus on the fighting ability of the fighter.
Like I said, the Ranger is not a terrible class, it's just outclassed by other people who do the same job. And the things it does do well don't make it stand apart from other classes in any meaningful way. That's why the lead designer of D&D is already planning on doing a full 20 level redesign of the class.
Also, because the fighter can choose to dump his superiority dice when he gets a crit(you can use more than 1 per action) he can super dump on the hurt if/when he gets a crit.
You can actually only use one maneuver per attack unfortunately. It's called out at the very beginning of the Battlemaster archetype info in the PHB. You can still drop as many of them per turn as you have attacks though, so they can definitely spike hard.
Action surge and superiority dice come back on a short rest, which should be getting twice between long rests, so everything a Fighter has that matters will be used 3 times as often as everything a Ranger has, because the Ranger has to wait for a long rest to get his spell slots back. You can find the math on enworld showing the short round burst and also per day damage output of a Fighter and a Ranger, and it's really not that close. It just is what it is.
Of course I'm only comparing the Battlemaster, because it's by far the best Fighter archetype, and the only one anybody would choose when building a martial character. Champion is garbage tier, and Eldritch Knight is a 1/3rd casting gish, not chosen by people who want to focus on the fighting ability of the fighter.
Like I said, the Ranger is not a terrible class, it's just outclassed by other people who do the same job. And the things it does do well don't make it stand apart from other classes in any meaningful way. That's why the lead designer of D&D is already planning on doing a full 20 level redesign of the class.
Also, because the fighter can choose to dump his superiority dice when he gets a crit(you can use more than 1 per action) he can super dump on the hurt if/when he gets a crit.
You can actually only use one maneuver per attack unfortunately. It's called out at the very beginning of the Battlemaster archetype info in the PHB. You can still drop as many of them per turn as you have attacks though, so they can definitely spike hard.
right, but the fact that you can chose to use it AFTER critting (meaning you don't have to use it on precision strike), and that since it's weapon damage it gets doubled along with all the other dice, and GWF works on it, too, means that manuevers are simply some of the best mechanics in the game.
in other news I finally built an Awaken mystic. My god that's some OP stuff. Order of the imortal to 5 battle master past that. Concentrate on celerity to gain adv on initiative extra speed and be able to spend a psi point to negate suprise (barbarian level 7 level stuff there). Then spend a bonus action to give yourself a magic weapon that can switch to a save vs an attack, and bond with it (EK) Or go defense and give yourself +1ac and a possible +6 reaction bonus.
Or, you know, stay in celerity and give yourself up to 5 extra actions per combat.
Maneuvers are good, sure, but if you're looking for the guy who can wait until he knows he got a crit and do a ton of damage you're looking for the Paladin. Fighter gets to add a single superiority die to his crit. Paladin gets to double 5d8 divine smite.
Played a city wall defense type encounter last night. My sneaky archer rogue only took two damage all night! The rest of the party was lest impressed. Also I needed a backup for if my rogue gets murdered somehow, so here's my Disney Princess. Constructive criticism please! Once I figure out how the heck spellcasting works entirely for a SorLock I'll put that on page two so I don't have to reference any other documents in play.
HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
edited August 2015
My regular gaming group will be ending it summer hiatus in a week or two, and they are going to finish the Temple of the Crashing Wave from Princes of the Apocalypse. I've been using the hiatus as a chance to improve on that dungeon.
The heavy melee attackers of the Crashing Wave cult are the Dark Tide Knights, who are bound to aquatic creatures like sharks (or other things), which serve as mounts.
I guess that's kinda cool. You know what's cooler, though? Knights who voluntarily become hosts to giant parasitic lampreys from the Elemental Plane of Water.
LAMPREY KNIGHT Medium humanoid (goliath), chaotic evil
Armor Class 18 (plate) Hit Points 145 (15d8 + 75) Speed 30 ft. Proficiency Bonus +3
Parasitic Host. The knight is the living host of a lamprey-like parasite native to the Elemental Plane of Water. When the knight is reduced to half hit points (72), it means that one of its arms has been severed at the shoulder. A horrifically strong tentacle (actually the parasite’s tail) bursts from the wound. The knight can no longer use its halberd effectively in this state, but can attack with the tentacle. When a creature has been grabbed by the tentacle, the parasite will push its tooth-lined, jawless head out the knight’s mouth, allowing it to make a bloodsucking bite attack on the knight’s turn.
A remove curse or greater restoration spell will destroy the parasite. The knight will be overcome with a feeling of indescribable loss.
ACTIONS Multiattack. The lamprey knight makes two halberd attacks.
Halberd (when tentacle is hidden). Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) piercing damage
Halberd Sweep (when tentacle is hidden).Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., up to 3 targets in reach. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) slashing damage and the target must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.
Grab (when tentacle is exposed).Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 28 (4d10 + 6) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 15).
Suck Blood. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature grappled by the lamprey knight. Hit: The target takes 18 (4d10) piercing damage, and its maximum hit points are reduced by the same amount.
REACTIONS Thirsty Reflex. When the lamprey knight’s tentacle is first revealed, the knight can use its reaction to make a grab attack with the tentacle.
Meant to be a one night session for whoemever can attend (i'll have 3 PCs tonight). Game premise is each player is conscripted Global Frequency, MiB, power Rangers style to fight off demon incursions in the realm.
Hoping to squeeze in: Intro, Bandit fight, Demon fight. I've got about 3 hours to work with.
Played a city wall defense type encounter last night. My sneaky archer rogue only took two damage all night! The rest of the party was lest impressed. Also I needed a backup for if my rogue gets murdered somehow, so here's my Disney Princess. Constructive criticism please! Once I figure out how the heck spellcasting works entirely for a SorLock I'll put that on page two so I don't have to reference any other documents in play.
Just a heads up, you have too many spells known on your char sheet. You don't automatically know your Fey Warlock spells. They just become options you can choose for the number of spells known that you do have. They just expand your list of spells from which you can know, you don't automatically know them.
It's not like Paladin oath spells or Cleric domain spells where they're just always ready for you.
As for Sorcerer/Warlock multiclass spellcasting, it's pretty simple. You get full spellcasting slot progression for however many sorcerer levels you have, and then you get your pact magic separate. But you can use all your slots to cast all your spells, assuming the levels match up. So if your Warlock slots are level 2, you can cast any of your spells from those slots, even sorc ones as long as they're level 2 or below. And your Sorc slots likewise can cast all your warlock spells the same way. The warlock slots just come back on a short rest.
Played a city wall defense type encounter last night. My sneaky archer rogue only took two damage all night! The rest of the party was lest impressed. Also I needed a backup for if my rogue gets murdered somehow, so here's my Disney Princess. Constructive criticism please! Once I figure out how the heck spellcasting works entirely for a SorLock I'll put that on page two so I don't have to reference any other documents in play.
Just a heads up, you have too many spells known on your char sheet. You don't automatically know your Fey Warlock spells. They just become options you can choose for the number of spells known that you do have. They just expand your list of spells from which you can know, you don't automatically know them.
It's not like Paladin oath spells or Cleric domain spells where they're just always ready for you.
As for Sorcerer/Warlock multiclass spellcasting, it's pretty simple. You get full spellcasting slot progression for however many sorcerer levels you have, and then you get your pact magic separate. But you can use all your slots to cast all your spells, assuming the levels match up. So if your Warlock slots are level 2, you can cast any of your spells from those slots, even sorc ones as long as they're level 2 or below. And your Sorc slots likewise can cast all your warlock spells the same way. The warlock slots just come back on a short rest.
Awesome, thank you for the info! There's no point in playing a fun character if you're not playing them legally.
No problem, I have a guy playing a warlock in my game who made the same mistake. It's an easy one to make, when you're used to some other classes who get auto prepared spells from their class features.
Sorc/Warlock is probably the most powerful multiclass combo in the game, especially if you've taken agonizing blast, because you can use quicken metamagic to cast 2 eldritch blasts per turn. At level 5 with two agonizing eldritch blasts, you'll be doing 4d10+4xCHA damage if you hit with it all, and you have a lot of spell slots to sacrifice for more sorc points to do it over and over. Can be boring, but it's incredibly effective. At higher levels it only gets crazier. Warlock/Sorc with agonizing blast is funny enough the best archer in the game, they just do force damage instead of piercing.
Meant to be a one night session for whoemever can attend (i'll have 3 PCs tonight). Game premise is each player is conscripted Global Frequency, MiB, power Rangers style to fight off demon incursions in the realm.
Hoping to squeeze in: Intro, Bandit fight, Demon fight. I've got about 3 hours to work with.
Any tips for one night sessions?
Two fights is really ambitious for a 3 hour session unless the party is rocking some serious power in comparison to their opposition; while raiding the monastery in the princes of the apocalypse module, my party (2 mages, 2 battlemasters and a paladin all 3rd or 2nd level) wound up spending the better part of two hours fighting a trio of orogs and an ogre (and the ogre was out of most of the fight thanks to a suggestion spell). 3 players is barely a party and at that size one bad dice roll can spell death.
I'd consider carefully either how many bandits you throw at the players (since they tend to be a little flimsy but still dangerous to low level party members) and/or focus on the Demon as a center piece/boss fight (I.E. put something a little bit meaty in there and don't use any minion types to add numbers).
I don't think 2 fights is ambitious for a 3 hour one shot. Considering it's a one shot, there shouldn't be too much setup work. Don't let the players sit around trying to look for a plot hook, etc., you just throw them right into the heat. 5E combat moves quite quickly as long as people understand what they're going to do. Encourage people to figure out what they want to do on their turn before it gets to them. I play at a 5E table that has 7 players, and we've never had a two hour combat, not even close. If we didn't have two or three people at our table who have to spend more time figuring out what to do on their turn than the rest of us, our combats would last 30-45 minutes on the high end.
I have 3 bandits lined up, and the demon is a "Balor" trapped in a painting, but mechanically will just be two reskinned dretches. I'll do a writeup afterwards to let you know how it turns out.
Edit: Oh and hopefully some investigative fluff in between! I've left room for more or less depending.
Nice touch! The balor is big enough and threatening enough that it can get the players excited and does a magnificent job of covering for the fact that you have a comparatively weak pair of demons for mechanics.
Be sure to tell us how it goes
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MrVyngaardLive From New EtoileStraight Outta SosariaRegistered Userregular
edited August 2015
Anyone else in on the Primeval Thule 5e kickstarter? I went in on it for the PDFs, since I like me some Zothique-ish sword and sorcery.
EDIT: If such appeals, that KS is ending rather shortly.
MrVyngaard on
"now I've got this mental image of caucuses as cafeteria tables in prison, and new congressmen having to beat someone up on inauguration day." - Raiden333
I had just written out a long summary of my past open play sessions downtown with the gaming group but realized it wasn't that important. Our DM is leaving town tomorrow and this was our last session of defending Neverwinter from a hobgoblin-led attack and hunting down their source. I played my High Elf Arcane Trickster like a skilled a sneaky sniper with a few perks very well and didn't lose more than ten hit points all night. Eventually we found our way to the lair and began fighting the fire-imbued hobgoblin warlord.
Things were looking pretty bad for the party so my rogue disengaged and was halfway down the hallway leading out of the cave to safety before he remembered (a player yelled it at me) to grab some water barrels so we could kill him. Long story short that tactic work and I played it off like that's what I meant to do the whole time. We were working his HP down when he attacked both of them and downed them in a turn. Despite my miserable strength I chucked the last barrel at the warlord and shot him in the heart with my longbow into victory, but not before the dragonborn fighter failed his last death save and expired before I could get to him.
The Dwarf Cleric, Lord Oskar, was fortunate that I was there to stabilize him. Unfortunately I rolled a one and accidentally slew my brother in arms. My urchin-rogue that was always focused on surviving and not getting hit reached all of his goals...but his comrades lay dead around him.
Now that the DM is leaving the groups will combine again, so my rogue will be back with the guys he met before but not without a hefty bit of survivor's guilt. Now to make a dwarf bard for Oskar's player, to tell everybody about Lord Oskar the Merciless.
So last night was the 2nd session of my "one night sessions" D&D game, and it went ok, but I have some questions (i'll bold them)!
As a recap, the "plot" is that demons are trying to invade the realm on the regular, and the players (whoever can play that night) are conscripted by a powerful NPC to be first responders to whatever the demons or demon sympathizers have cooked up.
The first session involved the PC being conscripted to investigate reports of demon activity outside a small town. Demonic presence had been detected, but the NPC "Zordon"-type character, Elena Goldblade, is still weak from recent battles, and can't pin it down. The players arrived in the town, and were told by a local painter that all caravans in or out of the town had been attacked by demons! They agree to bodyguard for his caravan carrying a rare newly finished triptyche to a nearby church.
The players were attacked by 3 "demons" (bandits who's bodies were wreathed in fire, and wearing demonic masked and wings.) These bandits were using zip lines through the forest loo look like they were flying, but the charade quickly fell apart when the players didn't turn tail and run. They beat the bandits on the road, but not before one could run off with the painter. After a short pursuit, and another battle with the remaining bandits, the players moved on to the church with the paintings.
Once in the church, the painting grew to an enormous size, stretching to fill the 3 stain glass windows there, and the landscape painting changed to that of an abbysal prison where a Balor was trapped. Said balor began to try and break free! He was still "trapped" in the art, however, and so exerted his will by breathing fire out of the painting, which manifested as noxious gas, and paint splatters all over the floor. Anywhere the paint was, the Balor would manifest as a kind of "painted" version of himself and attack the party. He would keep appearing this way until the paintings themselves were destroyed. The paint was difficult terrain for the players.
The Balor was just a Dretch(3 dretches, actually, one at a time), but I think the overall impression of a trapped demon lord came through well! The PC's had a good time, and we wrapped up just in time. That sessions could have had a bit more for the less combat heavy player, but overall it worked out.
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Last night's session started off with a battle against cultists trying to activate a stonehenge-like portal to the abbys. A head cultist manipulated fallen stone slabs with a device on top of one of the structures. He could move the slabs around and make them float, with the end goal being to match them up into a big flying circle to form the portal. Another player could use a 2nd device to wrest control of the slabs away and either create cover or drop slabs on cultists. 4 other cultists tried to hinder the players down below. If any of them got below 2/3rds health, they would sacrifice themselves to turn into a Manes.
This battle was fun for the players, but the slab interaction never got to the level I had hoped. Overall, the cleric and the barbarian fought the monsters on the ground, and the mage moved slabs and shot at the opposing cultist. Initially I had the cultist making his own arcana checks to move his slabs, but I changed it halfway to auto-success for him(but still with the possibility of failed concentration checks), because things seemed to be going too easily otherwise. I also had to bump up the HP of the Manes, because the power output of the paladin and the barbarian and the mage was HUGE. ANy help here would be greatly appreciated.
Part 2 was trying to find out how the cultists had stolen a book from a holy library. I had planned this to be a kind of mystery, but time was getting short for the evening due to a delay, and the more cerebral player characters I had expected had to cancel. I quickly moved up to the end-reveal-battle, which was two Quasits(they were hiding as toads in the Holy Pond) and a Cultist(posing as a library clerk). This battle only lasted a few rounds, due to the high player damage, but as the deadline for the night loomed, I didn't mind as much.
Again, I think the players had a good time, I just wish there had been more "game" to part 2, and less me having to move the players through what should have been an investigative challenge.
This is a ton of text, wow! If anyone reads this and has some tips, I'd greatly appreciate it. SHould I be padding the HP on these monsters? These PC's were level 2, and are now level 3. Am I not throwing enough enemies at once? The stonehenge battle was 5 cultists, 3 of which turned into Manes, one of which turned into a Dretch. The 1st session, a few PC's almost died (i expected this, based on what people said about level 1 chars), but last night they seemed far more of a match.
First of all, 5E's encounter design rules are not in any way tight mathematically, so you're probably not doing anything wrong. That being said, one thing that most people realize after messing with it for a while is that encounters that are listed as deadly are only "deadly" if they come at the end of a 6-8 encounter day so the party has had to stress its resources. So if you're running one shots where every session they start fully loaded with spells and resources and they're only fighting 2 or 3 fights for the session, you 100% need to make each one of them as a "deadly" encounter if you want it to challenge the PCs at all.
This goes along with the first point, but your Paladin and your Mage(Wizard, Sorc, whatever) are going to be able to blow apart a few encounters if they start with full resources and don't have to worry about when their last rest is. My Paladin in a campaign is level 9 and if I use all my spell slots on smiting I can add 25d8 damage to my melee attacks just by using my spell slots that way, and that includes waiting until I see if I crit to double the dice.
There's nothing wrong with padding the HP of enemies if they're dying more easily than you thought they would. When I'm designing encounters for my larger than average party, that's the first thing I do, is build encounters I like, and then bump the defensive CR of everything up in it by increasing its HP because I know they're going to annihilate it if not. What I don't do is put them up against monsters that are much higher CR than the party, because if you do that the offense of the enemies scales up faster than you might like.
First of all, 5E's encounter design rules are not in any way tight mathematically, so you're probably not doing anything wrong. That being said, one thing that most people realize after messing with it for a while is that encounters that are listed as deadly are only "deadly" if they come at the end of a 6-8 encounter day so the party has had to stress its resources. So if you're running one shots where every session they start fully loaded with spells and resources and they're only fighting 2 or 3 fights for the session, you 100% need to make each one of them as a "deadly" encounter if you want it to challenge the PCs at all.
This goes along with the first point, but your Paladin and your Mage(Wizard, Sorc, whatever) are going to be able to blow apart a few encounters if they start with full resources and don't have to worry about when their last rest is. My Paladin in a campaign is level 9 and if I use all my spell slots on smiting I can add 25d8 damage to my melee attacks just by using my spell slots that way, and that includes waiting until I see if I crit to double the dice.
There's nothing wrong with padding the HP of enemies if they're dying more easily than you thought they would. When I'm designing encounters for my larger than average party, that's the first thing I do, is build encounters I like, and then bump the defensive CR of everything up in it by increasing its HP because I know they're going to annihilate it if not. What I don't do is put them up against monsters that are much higher CR than the party, because if you do that the offense of the enemies scales up faster than you might like.
Great info! Thanks! SO far I haven't given them any monsters above their CR level, but I will keep that in mind. I've been using http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder for encounter building.
The stone moving aspect was meant to try and add difficulty and counterract the characters being at full health/slots, but I don't think it did enough to hold them back. Am I barking up the wrong tree with that type of thing? I mean, i think it was "cool", but I don't know if it succeeds on the "danger" aspect.
I think next session I will try 3 battles in a typical "dungeon" setting. I have an idea for chasing a Fanatic through a temple to try and stop him from stealing a relic.
I think any time you add creative terrain or elements to fights that go beyond just straight up brawling you're probably making more interesting encounters. I like the slab idea, though I'm sure somebody could suggest a way to improve on the idea to make it work more like you'd expected.
The kobold fight club generator is really good, but I'd also suggest checking out donjon at donjon.bin.sh/. The encounter size calculator there is good too, and just in general some of the generators and stuff they have there are super helpful to me.
I think any time you add creative terrain or elements to fights that go beyond just straight up brawling you're probably making more interesting encounters. I like the slab idea, though I'm sure somebody could suggest a way to improve on the idea to make it work more like you'd expected.
The kobold fight club generator is really good, but I'd also suggest checking out donjon at donjon.bin.sh/. The encounter size calculator there is good too, and just in general some of the generators and stuff they have there are super helpful to me.
I'm not ashamed to admit that 90% of my encounter design is putting in the party size and level into the donjon generator, and then just stealing a couple "deadly" level encounter ideas and modifying them to suit my campaign.
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I was just thinking exactly that: why does this class have spells at all? Or, if they absolutely have to, crank Ranger's spells all the way down to only Rituals, along the lines of something akin to Goodberry and Speak with Animals - maybe with ritual points to keep uses per day reasonable and scalable.
Beast Master is just all fucked. Anybody can TWF, anybody...but not if you're a Beast Master! I don't see a single CR1/4 that hits harder than a light weapon. Why don't they allow Beast Master to attack, then command their Beast to attack as a Bonus (without the beast's special ability)? Or even let them swap around attacks between them and their beast - alternatively, the beast takes the Attack Action (w/ special ability) and the BM gets to attack with a light melee or light crossbow or shortbow as a Bonus (there's already a precedent for limiting weapons w/ ability use). Something like that should be the very base...unless I'm reading it wrong and the BM can already off-hand attack after his beast...
I'm inclined to agree - the man/beast combo should probably be the niche they lean toward, or, to boil it down further, the Ranger niche should be two threats so the way is open for some static, ranged option, like, I dunno, a bolt firing trap or thorn shooting plant or something.
bradleywaynesebastian.com
The problems really lie in the fact that prior to level 5, nobody wants to just not attack so the pet can attack as that's not really fun, and also that the pets have pretty bad HP, so if the GM focuses on them they're very easy to kill and without the pet a beastmaster is really crappy until he can get a new one.
The bonus action economy problem I fixed in my game because I changed the TWF rules so that when you take the fighting style for TWF, the offhand attack is a free action attack once per attack action. There is absolutely no reason why TWF should require the bonus action to match the same damage as GWF gets without using their bonus action. They're both just offensive styles, and should be balanced, and me and a couple of my friends worked out a better system that balances the damage, doesn't require the bonus action to TWF once you've taken the style, and also fixes the scalability problem because in ours it's tied to attack action so action surging fighters get a 2nd offhand attack, etc.
Not related to Ranger, but we also fixed how terrible the GWF style is RAW. Rerolling 1s and 2s while wielding a 2 handed weapon is a piece of trash benefit, because it gives only 1.32 average damage per attack to a greatsword user, 0.40 damage per attack to a Halberd user, and 0.33 per attack to a Greataxe user. Just ridiculous and nonsensical, when duelling lets people who use shields just get a flat +2 damage with their longswords or whatever.
Turns out, just changing GWF style to roll an extra weapon die and drop the lowest balances it nearly perfectly. So Greatsword rolls 3d6 drop the lowest, Greataxe is 2d12 drop lowest, etc. It means the style is worth a flat 2 damage to both greatsword and greataxe(wow, same as duelling) and while it's only worth about 1.65 to 1d10 2 handers like Halberds, those get a great feat(Polearm Master) to equalize it, and they're still better off than they were with the original style.
I playtested it the other day, and let me tell you that my Halberd wielder with GWF style feels much more satisfying when my average damage is 7.15 instead of the 5.90 it was with the original GWF style(Halberd is of course 5.5 average without a style.)
Also Mearls gave an interview that includes this hilarious bit:
The player enjoyed himself, but wasn't nearly as effective as the other damage dealers, and didn't have even remotely enough additional fun tools to make up for it. Spells don't fit rangers at all, IMO. I'd rather see (if anything) them use a warlock-like system where they get some specific ranger-only abilities and can use them more regularly.
Yeah, that's what happened in our game. Between the rogue and the sorcerer, the ranger looked like a chump.
And Beastmaster is just lame because until level 5 you have to give up your entire chance to attack to fight with the pet, and even after that you still have to share your attacks with it.
If a Ranger was going to focus on sharpshooter, they should really go Hunter because giving up half your attacks per round to a pet means giving up half your opportunities to use sharpshooter in the first place.
Further, the rangers spell list offers opportunities for some pretty nasty tricks that the fighter can't do for damage (Hunters mark and hail of thorns are pretty deadly) while providing utility with support and tracking magic.
Like, they aren't what they were in 4th where they were multi attacking all the time, but they aren't exactly worthless for their ability to churn out damage either.
Early on they can hang, but having to use your concentration and spell slots to have Hunter's Mark up just so you can compete with a Fighter who has a bunch of superiority dice every short rest to do free damage plus other effects is a bit lame. You can find the math pretty easily, but the Ranger gets dominated by a Fighter in DPS both over time and especially when it comes to being able to nova with action surge.
I really wanted to like this Ranger because they utterly nailed the half caster who has unique spells on their list with Paladin, but that's mostly because Paladin gets spells like Aura of Vitality and Divine Smite is a wonderful addition to their niche. Ranger has no niche. They're just a Fighter who does less damage but who has some nice spells they can use. Nothing unique. It's what Mearls brought up in the podcast where he said that they're going to do a full level redesign of the class with no spells. They have to give the class its own thing.
I've said it before, I think the Ranger's thing should be the animal companion. I think it should be core to the class, not share actions with the Ranger because that's awful, and I think the whole class should be built around fighting alongside your animal and doing fun maneuvers together.
Rangers main problem is that the archetype ideal does not deal with combat but ranging/scouting. Which frankly is kind of an NPC territory.
Once they re-design it with no spells and give the class an actual mechanical niche nobody else can fill, Ranger will be good. I don't know what it'll be, but I suspect it'll probably involve the animal companion.
They don't even have to give up the Ranger's focus on being a natural explorer and what not. They gave them a lot of non-combat utility that is interesting, but it's not enough to be the class' defining niche. It has to just be part of it.
It's not even like the 5E Ranger is really bad. It's just everybody else can do almost everything they can do equally well or better, and they have no defining mechanics. They're just an okay martial half caster right now.
By comparison, the Rangers abilities can last a heck of longer then 7 attacks.
Of course I'm only comparing the Battlemaster, because it's by far the best Fighter archetype, and the only one anybody would choose when building a martial character. Champion is garbage tier, and Eldritch Knight is a 1/3rd casting gish, not chosen by people who want to focus on the fighting ability of the fighter.
Like I said, the Ranger is not a terrible class, it's just outclassed by other people who do the same job. And the things it does do well don't make it stand apart from other classes in any meaningful way. That's why the lead designer of D&D is already planning on doing a full 20 level redesign of the class.
On top of that, I think them having access to more spells for tracking and/or movement effects (to them and their enemies) would be a huge boon.
For the beast master I can't help but think that having either the pet gaining feats or some advantage for chaining attacks with it (maybe the pet grants the ranger advantage on his next attack and vice versa?).
Also, because the fighter can choose to dump his superiority dice when he gets a crit(you can use more than 1 per action) he can super dump on the hurt if/when he gets a crit.
Ravenloft when it's done right should scare you; fights should be intimidating and/or blatently unfair, NPC's have their own objectives that rarely involve the players being well off and the lords (like strahd) are signifigantly more then you'd expect.
Enjoy declaring your actions for a round and then fifteen minutes later doing nothing when you try and resolve them because they have been invalidated by other people who rolled better than you.
That is true of Ravenloft the setting. Ravenloft the original adventure module is really just a dungeon crawl with a Dracula gloss.
You can actually only use one maneuver per attack unfortunately. It's called out at the very beginning of the Battlemaster archetype info in the PHB. You can still drop as many of them per turn as you have attacks though, so they can definitely spike hard.
right, but the fact that you can chose to use it AFTER critting (meaning you don't have to use it on precision strike), and that since it's weapon damage it gets doubled along with all the other dice, and GWF works on it, too, means that manuevers are simply some of the best mechanics in the game.
in other news I finally built an Awaken mystic. My god that's some OP stuff. Order of the imortal to 5 battle master past that. Concentrate on celerity to gain adv on initiative extra speed and be able to spend a psi point to negate suprise (barbarian level 7 level stuff there). Then spend a bonus action to give yourself a magic weapon that can switch to a save vs an attack, and bond with it (EK) Or go defense and give yourself +1ac and a possible +6 reaction bonus.
Or, you know, stay in celerity and give yourself up to 5 extra actions per combat.
The heavy melee attackers of the Crashing Wave cult are the Dark Tide Knights, who are bound to aquatic creatures like sharks (or other things), which serve as mounts.
I guess that's kinda cool. You know what's cooler, though? Knights who voluntarily become hosts to giant parasitic lampreys from the Elemental Plane of Water.
LAMPREY KNIGHT
Medium humanoid (goliath), chaotic evil
Armor Class 18 (plate)
Hit Points 145 (15d8 + 75)
Speed 30 ft.
Proficiency Bonus +3
Strength 22 (+6)
Dexterity 12 (+1)
Constitution 20 (+5)
Intelligence 10 (+0)
Wisdom 13 (+1)
Charisma 8 (-1)
Proficient Saving Throws Str +9, Dex +4, Con +8
Skills Athletics +9
Senses passive Perception 11
Languages Common, giant, aquan
Challenge 5 (1,800)
Equipment Goliath-sized plate mail, halberd
Parasitic Host. The knight is the living host of a lamprey-like parasite native to the Elemental Plane of Water. When the knight is reduced to half hit points (72), it means that one of its arms has been severed at the shoulder. A horrifically strong tentacle (actually the parasite’s tail) bursts from the wound. The knight can no longer use its halberd effectively in this state, but can attack with the tentacle. When a creature has been grabbed by the tentacle, the parasite will push its tooth-lined, jawless head out the knight’s mouth, allowing it to make a bloodsucking bite attack on the knight’s turn.
A remove curse or greater restoration spell will destroy the parasite. The knight will be overcome with a feeling of indescribable loss.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The lamprey knight makes two halberd attacks.
Halberd (when tentacle is hidden). Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) piercing damage
Halberd Sweep (when tentacle is hidden). Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., up to 3 targets in reach. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) slashing damage and the target must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.
Grab (when tentacle is exposed). Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 28 (4d10 + 6) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 15).
Suck Blood. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature grappled by the lamprey knight. Hit: The target takes 18 (4d10) piercing damage, and its maximum hit points are reduced by the same amount.
REACTIONS
Thirsty Reflex. When the lamprey knight’s tentacle is first revealed, the knight can use its reaction to make a grab attack with the tentacle.
Meant to be a one night session for whoemever can attend (i'll have 3 PCs tonight). Game premise is each player is conscripted Global Frequency, MiB, power Rangers style to fight off demon incursions in the realm.
Hoping to squeeze in: Intro, Bandit fight, Demon fight. I've got about 3 hours to work with.
Any tips for one night sessions?
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
Just a heads up, you have too many spells known on your char sheet. You don't automatically know your Fey Warlock spells. They just become options you can choose for the number of spells known that you do have. They just expand your list of spells from which you can know, you don't automatically know them.
It's not like Paladin oath spells or Cleric domain spells where they're just always ready for you.
As for Sorcerer/Warlock multiclass spellcasting, it's pretty simple. You get full spellcasting slot progression for however many sorcerer levels you have, and then you get your pact magic separate. But you can use all your slots to cast all your spells, assuming the levels match up. So if your Warlock slots are level 2, you can cast any of your spells from those slots, even sorc ones as long as they're level 2 or below. And your Sorc slots likewise can cast all your warlock spells the same way. The warlock slots just come back on a short rest.
Awesome, thank you for the info! There's no point in playing a fun character if you're not playing them legally.
Sorc/Warlock is probably the most powerful multiclass combo in the game, especially if you've taken agonizing blast, because you can use quicken metamagic to cast 2 eldritch blasts per turn. At level 5 with two agonizing eldritch blasts, you'll be doing 4d10+4xCHA damage if you hit with it all, and you have a lot of spell slots to sacrifice for more sorc points to do it over and over. Can be boring, but it's incredibly effective. At higher levels it only gets crazier. Warlock/Sorc with agonizing blast is funny enough the best archer in the game, they just do force damage instead of piercing.
Two fights is really ambitious for a 3 hour session unless the party is rocking some serious power in comparison to their opposition; while raiding the monastery in the princes of the apocalypse module, my party (2 mages, 2 battlemasters and a paladin all 3rd or 2nd level) wound up spending the better part of two hours fighting a trio of orogs and an ogre (and the ogre was out of most of the fight thanks to a suggestion spell). 3 players is barely a party and at that size one bad dice roll can spell death.
I'd consider carefully either how many bandits you throw at the players (since they tend to be a little flimsy but still dangerous to low level party members) and/or focus on the Demon as a center piece/boss fight (I.E. put something a little bit meaty in there and don't use any minion types to add numbers).
I have 3 bandits lined up, and the demon is a "Balor" trapped in a painting, but mechanically will just be two reskinned dretches. I'll do a writeup afterwards to let you know how it turns out.
Edit: Oh and hopefully some investigative fluff in between! I've left room for more or less depending.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
Be sure to tell us how it goes
EDIT: If such appeals, that KS is ending rather shortly.
Things were looking pretty bad for the party so my rogue disengaged and was halfway down the hallway leading out of the cave to safety before he remembered (a player yelled it at me) to grab some water barrels so we could kill him. Long story short that tactic work and I played it off like that's what I meant to do the whole time. We were working his HP down when he attacked both of them and downed them in a turn. Despite my miserable strength I chucked the last barrel at the warlord and shot him in the heart with my longbow into victory, but not before the dragonborn fighter failed his last death save and expired before I could get to him.
The Dwarf Cleric, Lord Oskar, was fortunate that I was there to stabilize him. Unfortunately I rolled a one and accidentally slew my brother in arms. My urchin-rogue that was always focused on surviving and not getting hit reached all of his goals...but his comrades lay dead around him.
Now that the DM is leaving the groups will combine again, so my rogue will be back with the guys he met before but not without a hefty bit of survivor's guilt. Now to make a dwarf bard for Oskar's player, to tell everybody about Lord Oskar the Merciless.
As a recap, the "plot" is that demons are trying to invade the realm on the regular, and the players (whoever can play that night) are conscripted by a powerful NPC to be first responders to whatever the demons or demon sympathizers have cooked up.
The first session involved the PC being conscripted to investigate reports of demon activity outside a small town. Demonic presence had been detected, but the NPC "Zordon"-type character, Elena Goldblade, is still weak from recent battles, and can't pin it down. The players arrived in the town, and were told by a local painter that all caravans in or out of the town had been attacked by demons! They agree to bodyguard for his caravan carrying a rare newly finished triptyche to a nearby church.
The players were attacked by 3 "demons" (bandits who's bodies were wreathed in fire, and wearing demonic masked and wings.) These bandits were using zip lines through the forest loo look like they were flying, but the charade quickly fell apart when the players didn't turn tail and run. They beat the bandits on the road, but not before one could run off with the painter. After a short pursuit, and another battle with the remaining bandits, the players moved on to the church with the paintings.
Once in the church, the painting grew to an enormous size, stretching to fill the 3 stain glass windows there, and the landscape painting changed to that of an abbysal prison where a Balor was trapped. Said balor began to try and break free! He was still "trapped" in the art, however, and so exerted his will by breathing fire out of the painting, which manifested as noxious gas, and paint splatters all over the floor. Anywhere the paint was, the Balor would manifest as a kind of "painted" version of himself and attack the party. He would keep appearing this way until the paintings themselves were destroyed. The paint was difficult terrain for the players.
The Balor was just a Dretch(3 dretches, actually, one at a time), but I think the overall impression of a trapped demon lord came through well! The PC's had a good time, and we wrapped up just in time. That sessions could have had a bit more for the less combat heavy player, but overall it worked out.
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Last night's session started off with a battle against cultists trying to activate a stonehenge-like portal to the abbys. A head cultist manipulated fallen stone slabs with a device on top of one of the structures. He could move the slabs around and make them float, with the end goal being to match them up into a big flying circle to form the portal. Another player could use a 2nd device to wrest control of the slabs away and either create cover or drop slabs on cultists. 4 other cultists tried to hinder the players down below. If any of them got below 2/3rds health, they would sacrifice themselves to turn into a Manes.
This battle was fun for the players, but the slab interaction never got to the level I had hoped. Overall, the cleric and the barbarian fought the monsters on the ground, and the mage moved slabs and shot at the opposing cultist. Initially I had the cultist making his own arcana checks to move his slabs, but I changed it halfway to auto-success for him(but still with the possibility of failed concentration checks), because things seemed to be going too easily otherwise. I also had to bump up the HP of the Manes, because the power output of the paladin and the barbarian and the mage was HUGE. ANy help here would be greatly appreciated.
Part 2 was trying to find out how the cultists had stolen a book from a holy library. I had planned this to be a kind of mystery, but time was getting short for the evening due to a delay, and the more cerebral player characters I had expected had to cancel. I quickly moved up to the end-reveal-battle, which was two Quasits(they were hiding as toads in the Holy Pond) and a Cultist(posing as a library clerk). This battle only lasted a few rounds, due to the high player damage, but as the deadline for the night loomed, I didn't mind as much.
Again, I think the players had a good time, I just wish there had been more "game" to part 2, and less me having to move the players through what should have been an investigative challenge.
This is a ton of text, wow! If anyone reads this and has some tips, I'd greatly appreciate it. SHould I be padding the HP on these monsters? These PC's were level 2, and are now level 3. Am I not throwing enough enemies at once? The stonehenge battle was 5 cultists, 3 of which turned into Manes, one of which turned into a Dretch. The 1st session, a few PC's almost died (i expected this, based on what people said about level 1 chars), but last night they seemed far more of a match.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
This goes along with the first point, but your Paladin and your Mage(Wizard, Sorc, whatever) are going to be able to blow apart a few encounters if they start with full resources and don't have to worry about when their last rest is. My Paladin in a campaign is level 9 and if I use all my spell slots on smiting I can add 25d8 damage to my melee attacks just by using my spell slots that way, and that includes waiting until I see if I crit to double the dice.
There's nothing wrong with padding the HP of enemies if they're dying more easily than you thought they would. When I'm designing encounters for my larger than average party, that's the first thing I do, is build encounters I like, and then bump the defensive CR of everything up in it by increasing its HP because I know they're going to annihilate it if not. What I don't do is put them up against monsters that are much higher CR than the party, because if you do that the offense of the enemies scales up faster than you might like.
Great info! Thanks! SO far I haven't given them any monsters above their CR level, but I will keep that in mind. I've been using http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder for encounter building.
The stone moving aspect was meant to try and add difficulty and counterract the characters being at full health/slots, but I don't think it did enough to hold them back. Am I barking up the wrong tree with that type of thing? I mean, i think it was "cool", but I don't know if it succeeds on the "danger" aspect.
I think next session I will try 3 battles in a typical "dungeon" setting. I have an idea for chasing a Fanatic through a temple to try and stop him from stealing a relic.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
The kobold fight club generator is really good, but I'd also suggest checking out donjon at donjon.bin.sh/. The encounter size calculator there is good too, and just in general some of the generators and stuff they have there are super helpful to me.
I'm not ashamed to admit that 90% of my encounter design is putting in the party size and level into the donjon generator, and then just stealing a couple "deadly" level encounter ideas and modifying them to suit my campaign.