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[D&D 5E Discussion] Maybe he's born with it. Nope it's Vampirism.
Denada
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Let’s talk about the fifth (and newest) edition of Dungeons & Dragons. According to Mike Mearls, the game is complete and fully released now. There’s a Starter Set, a Player’s Handbook, a Monster Manual, and a Dungeon Master’s Guide. There’s also some adventures and miniatures and stuff. If you don't want to buy anything, there's also the Basic Rules, which are very limited but are free.
Starting in April of 2015, Wizards of the Coast has licensed the 5E rules to be purchased in Fantasy Grounds, a digital tabletop that has been around for a long time. The player's rules are $50, or you can buy them in chunks. Same with the DM's side of things. Also Fantasy Grounds is on Steam, so there's that.
HEY now there's an official SRD and third-party license and stuff and I guess it's just a skinned DriveThruRPG store? I don't know. It's over here -> DM's Guild.
But wait! Do you even know what D&D is? Here, take a listen to this totally realistic demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px-KLwGEVko
Okay, now that you know how to play D&D correctly, let’s argue about why you're playing it wrong and why 5E is the best/worst/most/least/mediocre/great edition yet!
Suggested Talking Points:
Starting in April of 2015, Wizards of the Coast has licensed the 5E rules to be purchased in Fantasy Grounds, a digital tabletop that has been around for a long time. The player's rules are $50, or you can buy them in chunks. Same with the DM's side of things. Also Fantasy Grounds is on Steam, so there's that.
HEY now there's an official SRD and third-party license and stuff and I guess it's just a skinned DriveThruRPG store? I don't know. It's over here -> DM's Guild.
But wait! Do you even know what D&D is? Here, take a listen to this totally realistic demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px-KLwGEVkoOkay, now that you know how to play D&D correctly, let’s argue about why you're playing it wrong and why 5E is the best/worst/most/least/mediocre/great edition yet!
Suggested Talking Points:
- Tables, and why they suck except when they're great.
- Bounded Accuracy, and why it works except when it doesn't.
- Fluff Text, and why you don't need it except when you do.
- Fighters, and why they're the best at fighting except when they aren't.
- Casters, and why they're not overpowered except when they are.
- Challenge Rating, and why it makes sense except when it doesn't.
- DMs, and why any good DM would do that thing except when they wouldn't.
D&D/d20 Discussion Thread | Bread Space | One Eldritch Summer | I Want to Save the World but I'm Just a Level 1 Skeleton
Denada on
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Posts
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
While you are of course, correct, I guess I didn't think it was necessary to mention rerolling once, since that's the mechanic in the game in question, and there aren't infinite rerolls?
So rerolling a 1d6 infinitely on 1s and 2s would just be 1d4+2 then?
But who the hell wants to roll d4s?
As for the rerolling once, there are things in 4E where you can only reroll once and then have to take it whatever it is. I wouldn't be surprised if down the road something similar pops up in 5E.
There already is something in 5E that let's you reroll once and have to take the new roll. The fighting style for two handed weapons. That's what I was referring to.
Ah, okay. I wasn't paying that close of attention. If that's the case, d6 reroll 1,2, keep second result averages out to a 4.17, so ~+0.57 over a standard d6.
I just ceil(d8/2).
This isn't always the case though. 1d12r1 is 2-12, so is 2d6, but they have vastly different distributions.
For single dice though, this holds up. 1d6r2 is 1d4+2. 1d8r2 is 1d6+2, 1d8r4 is 1d4+4, etc.
Very good for Champion Greatsword fighters. Because they will crit a lot and so roll lots of d6's.
For a d6 1,2 -> become a 3.5 average and 3,4,5,6 become a 4.5 average. For a weighted average of 4.16 (or +.66 damage per die). So a greatsword fighter gets +1.32 damage/attack and another +1.32 damage/attack on each crit. Its also decent with the battle master archetype because the rerolls should apply to battlemaster bonus damage die (and you're going to tend to choose those die when you crit, so you will stack the bonus on top of that)
Rerolls on other weapons are not nearly as good even though the effect gets larger as the weapon die increases**. A longsword (1d10) will be 1,2 -> Avg 5.5 and Rest -> Avg 6.5. Total weighted average is now 6.3. Which is only +.8 damage/attack
But its still pretty balls compared to Archery*, Defense, or Protection though
*Especially the hilarity that is stacked archery, crossbow specialist, and sharpshooter.
**The final damage on the die is [(N+1) + ([N+3]/2)*(N-2)]/N which goes to (N+3)/2 as N-> infinity or as the damage die increases you get closer to +1 average damage
It also applies to Smites, and any other effects attached to attacking with the Two-handed weapon. My previously mentioned Oathbreaker would attack with a weapon, smite, divine favor, and use a consumable item. He ended up rolling 1d10+4d8+1d4(+7), so it bumped his average damage up quite a bit. That I rolled terribly, failed to knock down a PC, and saw him blow up over the next round is immaterial.
I'm also planning on doing a custom campaign and trying to not totally fuck my group, but also want it to be a bit challenging once in awhile
I wasn't advocating replacing a single die roll with two dice rolls.
I was adding that for completeness, since you referred to the range.
It doesn't.
To be less flip, the Dungeon Master's Guide has a table for assigning CRs. Creatures have both an offensive CR and defensive CR that depends on their combat statistics. Both defensive and offensive CRs can be modified upward or downward by special abilities. The final CR is determined by finding the average of the offensive and defensive CRs.
It does not work.
Fair enough. You are correct that you can't replace a single die roll with more than that, even if the range is the same, as it does indeed change the PDF.
It's almost like when I pay sixty dollars for a book, I expect it to actually do things that are useful.
Or in this case, if I have to do everything useful myself why buy the book at all? I don't need to buy it to know weapons or armor go to +3. Those are in a free pdf!!!!
Honestly, what is the value of this book when the rules modules are dreadful (all of five seconds of thought when into many of these rules), tables consume the book pagespace wise, the monster creation math flat out doesn't work, the magic items are generally ripped from the past when they do get it right (Apparatus of Kwalish for example) and the only good chapters are things I already know after running DnD for 18 years.
It's very disappointing and nowhere near what Wizards were promising it would be (which wwas that it would have answers to common complaints of 5e). I mean they couldn't even be bothered giving something as basic as a table for expected treasure/magic items by level.
That encounter is a real bastard. I recommend changing the beserkers to veterans or otherwise fudging it in some way.
As for how cr and encounters work, they don't. I am routinely using ludicrous encounters in my game and they work well. But then I also ignore all guidelines on building encounters too and heavily modify monsters. Basically, I do 90% of the effort I expected wizards to do.
Curious how many pcs you have actually.
One of the things I find most intensely interesting about Tolkien's Legendarium is that objects of power accumulate greater power as the legend surrounding them grows (with a couple of exceptions, which are macguffins or, as 13th Age helpfully delineates, minor magical items). This is especially true of the magical arms and armor that litter the Legendarium and puts an interesting spin on what exactly makes them magical. 13th Age moves towards this a bit haphazardly (they don't actually cover the ways in which the actions undertaken with a weapon, or with armor, would directly affect the abilities of those magic items, but they sort of allude that that could be a thing).
As far as where these items come from, well, there is a bunch of pre-gen magic items out there, but that's boring. You should be tailoring magic items to your group anyway.
My party consisted of me, a level 3 warlock who did not get to rest before the fight (I was on lookout in the cave while the others rested to regain HP), a level 3 sorceror whose main move is colorspray, a level 3 monk, and a level 3 cleric that was tempest.
We definitely were the C team when it came to a adventuring group, but the fight did not end well. We were not expecting so much HP soak considering we peacefully dealt with the last encounter and before that it was crappy kobolds.
Oddly enough, the fight is too easy if you have 5 or 6 pcs but too hard if you have 4.
Hmmm.
What is a good way to distribute resources to players? Specifically, I want to add the Aasimir, and Eladrin races from the DMG, as well as a Half-Minotaur race requested by one of my players. Just a hand out?
"Jon, I know you saw my 15-page treatise on the Koldam-Silurian trade negotiations surrounding mineral rights in the Moradin's Pass. I uploaded it to Facebook three months ago. You shouldn't need to make a History check for this!"
It was pretty funny. I also use it to keep a record of NPCs they have met, their factional alliances when it becomes relevant and their ships crew/statistics.
I should be angry that they didn't include it in the MM, but it's hard to think with this massive, throbbing erection I've gotten over not having to make it myself.
For a party of four fourth level characters, an encounter of 500xp would be a speed bump, 1000xp is a brisk workout, 1500xp is a 90mph car chase in the rain at night, and 2,000xp is akin to trying to defuse a bomb in a space shuttle that's flying into the sun.
In a sidebar, it spends about three paragraphs explaining why you shouldn't use creatures with a higher CR than party level. I imagine that's their passive aggressive way of saying "Don't fucking do that shit".
The DMG also warns about using multiple monsters, and instructs that you should increase the XP value of each monster. The seems math seems moronic at first (double XP for 3 monsters, quadruple for 15+), but in practice it makes a bell curve. One stirge is 25xp, three are 150xp, and fifteen are 1,500xp. In addition, it adds that monsters that are significantly lower CR than the party (not specifying 'significant'), you should not multiply their XP; unless you think they're going to significantly (there it is again) make the fight harder.
Math in action.
A CR3 Knight at 700xp. He commands a host of eight Stirges with his magical amulet.
Explanation 1: {700+(8*25)=900xp} - The stirges are significantly lower than the average CR of the party, so I did not multiply the XP of any monsters.
Explanation 2: {(700*2.5)+(8*25)=1950xp} - The stirges are significantly lower than the average CR of the party, so I did not multiply the XP of the stirges.
I wish I was still DMing. I need to see if this encounter is a stiff breeze or a TPK waiting to happen.
That's amazing.
In my game, I don't even build encounters using the rules that Wizards gave anymore. The creature I used against my party works out (after legendary and lair actions are considered) to be around CR 7 or 8 (I have five level 4 PCs). It was an intense battle, but in the end they triumphed and it worked exactly to plan. Many of my other encounters have been tense, but more than survivable despite the encounter design rules assuring me they were ludicrous and deadly on a routine basis (they weren't, as my parties current breathing attests).
90% of encounter design in 5E is best thought about as "What do these monsters actually *do*" moreso than what they have actually suggested. An encounter with CR 1 Ghouls or CR 2 Centaurs is not the same as one with a CR 2 (IIRC) Ogre. Likewise, as the skeletons show, some enemies force multiply much faster than Wizards suggested bell curve while others are nowhere near as effective. Any monster with pack tactics or the Sahuagin (who are pretty damn powerful to be frank) who gain advantage on enemies who have anything less than full HP force multiply much harder than say, an Orc.
The more you entirely ignore what Wizards thinks and use judgement - and yes, I know this isn't great advice and relies on experience/instinct - the better things in this will just work out.
We'll see how it goes.
Because our 5th level Monk has taken the shadow casting path or what have you and can cast the Minor Illusion cantrip. However, we could not find where his casting modifier comes from in the class description. So I'm currently assuming it's his Strength mod because he's a +5 Str Monk, and that would be funny.
It'd also be sort of nice if I could go at least one session in this game without accidentally stumbling into another hole in the rules.
edit: The Shadow Arts section describes you as using your Ki to "duplicate the effects of certain spells."
Man, you guys expect your groups to pre-read? If I could get mine to give me an updated character sheet and a wish list I am doing awesome.