Tomb of annihilation game, party got around to Dungrunglung, at level 10 so foregone conclusion
The book covers a lot of eventualities, what happened was a party member altering self into being the grung goddess and mating with the grung king in a disgusting public display of frog sex
Nothing in the book about how to handle that
I informed the party that they were all grossed out, except the warlock who was taking notes. This worked and the king was satisfied he’d pleased his goddess and now they have marvelous pigments so they can create giant volumetric dicks or whatever
Also they had a magic item that would do a thing and didn’t know what, it unleashed a yochlol and gave them the true name, they told it to go eliminate the pterrorfolk... looking at its stat block, yes the pterrorfolk are pterrorfucked
A++ session, confronted the ranger about his metagaming at the start and the others backed me up, hopefully that helps
It's also why Sacred flame is such a good spell for a ranger if you're looking to do some damage to an enemy you can't quite reach with your melee; the spell runs off of your wisdom (which should be decent), doesn't require a roll to hit (oppenents have to do a dex save which can be pretty god damn hard for some) and it does radiant damage which basically nothing that you're going to fight will have resistance to barring extremely remote encounters.
Nangalore went over very well, but my party politely declined a confrontation with Zalkore.
The monk met a bad end at the Wreck of Star Goddess from a Girallon ripping him to shreds with 5 attacks vs his death saves. Luckily the wreck managed to carry a sole survivor!
That's two for the dead book.
In the Valley of Lost Honour they were saved from Firenwets by both Musharib and Hew Hackingstone and some dwarves. My dwarf cleric player had previously promised his kin that he'd help with the dragon, so Tinder hunting we were going!
The party scouted the top floor and make quick work of the kobolds, but cockily demanded that the NPC dwarf party (that they occ asked for to help with the dragon) go first and take care of the first set of rooms. Not wanting to support this bullshit.... 6 dwarves entered, sounds of talking and then fighting spectres ensued. And before the party could do anything. 4 dwarves returned at Hew was wearing the mithril breastplate as his own loot. The party (well. That one friend of mine) got the idea and they took the lead for the rest of dungeon.
Rolling carts and dropping boulders later, the fight with Tinder began! It suitably epic. They party was level 6 with 4 npcs so I gave Tinder 240hp, one tail slap, only forgot lair actions once and got my breath weapon back mid fight.
Musharib, and one dwarf were immolated in the first round of combat, and two of the party were badly burned. The rest got to spread out a bit. Walloping ensues for a few turns and I get the breath weapon back. Every member of this fight is down 0 hp except the new sorcerer guy they found at the Wreck. He pops around the corner after the fire goes down and unloads with a level 3 magic missile and lands the final blow on Tinder! It was pretty epic you guys. If Tinder had not promised that the dwarf cleric was next at one point near the end there, the ko'd barbarian at her feet would have been the 3rd character in my dead book.
My RL game met again today, after a long hiatus! We all got promoted to level 4 since the last time, and we'd just finished repairing a small ship and took it out along the coast to turn a weeks-long hike into a days-long sea voyage.
It seemed that our GM was looking for ways to get us off the boat to slow our roll in the adventure a little (stopping to repair it had surprised him), so over the next few days we were attacked by giant octopi, a wild-necromatic animated Yuan-ti sketal abomination, a foursome of eel-people who tried to sabotage the ship, and eventually a fucking manticore flew out and destroyed the mast. This final one wasn't really a surprise; we'd been hearing roars from something huge from the coast every time we stopped for the night, but all it was really doing was making us more determined to stay in the water as long as possible to hopefully pass whatever the heck was making that noise.
Anyway, the manticore swoops in and perches on the mast, destroying the sail in the process, and we roll for initiative.
GM rolls a 1.
In the very first round, our team does over 60 damage to the thing. It gets in one multi-attack with its tail before we hammer it again, and with its next turn tries to flee, and our ranged users bring it down with their parting shots.
The experience has made me a little leery of my Cleric's damage output, since people are putting super arrow shots and Eldritch Blasts out into everything, and the best my guy can do without spending spell slots is 1d8 melee or Sacred Flame cantrips. I'd heard Clerics were supposed to be really tanky, but I'm not seeing it so far.
Look at it this way: your team already has tons of damage dealing, but they probably otherwise lack the ability to do thinks like remove curses. Clerics don't deal much damage, even when optimized for it, but they can compete with Wizards in terms of spells that will trivialize encounters. A well-placed Hold Person or Banishment can turn a nearly impossible fight into a cakewalk.
That said, you can boost your damage a bit. Use Spiritual Weapon and you get a second attack every turn without Concentration, for the low cost of a second level spell.
EDIT: Didn't mention you also get tons of Divination spells that can really break open non-combat problems. And if Geas had some bigger teeth it'd be amazing. In short, Cleric isn't a Bowie knife, it's a Swiss Army knife.
My RL game met again today, after a long hiatus! We all got promoted to level 4 since the last time, and we'd just finished repairing a small ship and took it out along the coast to turn a weeks-long hike into a days-long sea voyage.
It seemed that our GM was looking for ways to get us off the boat to slow our roll in the adventure a little (stopping to repair it had surprised him), so over the next few days we were attacked by giant octopi, a wild-necromatic animated Yuan-ti sketal abomination, a foursome of eel-people who tried to sabotage the ship, and eventually a fucking manticore flew out and destroyed the mast. This final one wasn't really a surprise; we'd been hearing roars from something huge from the coast every time we stopped for the night, but all it was really doing was making us more determined to stay in the water as long as possible to hopefully pass whatever the heck was making that noise.
Anyway, the manticore swoops in and perches on the mast, destroying the sail in the process, and we roll for initiative.
GM rolls a 1.
In the very first round, our team does over 60 damage to the thing. It gets in one multi-attack with its tail before we hammer it again, and with its next turn tries to flee, and our ranged users bring it down with their parting shots.
The experience has made me a little leery of my Cleric's damage output, since people are putting super arrow shots and Eldritch Blasts out into everything, and the best my guy can do without spending spell slots is 1d8 melee or Sacred Flame cantrips. I'd heard Clerics were supposed to be really tanky, but I'm not seeing it so far.
Look at it this way: your team already has tons of damage dealing, but they probably otherwise lack the ability to do thinks like remove curses. Clerics don't deal much damage, even when optimized for it, but they can compete with Wizards in terms of spells that will trivialize encounters. A well-placed Hold Person or Banishment can turn a nearly impossible fight into a cakewalk.
That said, you can boost your damage a bit. Use Spiritual Weapon and you get a second attack every turn without Concentration, for the low cost of a second level spell.
EDIT: Didn't mention you also get tons of Divination spells that can really break open non-combat problems. And if Geas had some bigger teeth it'd be amazing. In short, Cleric isn't a Bowie knife, it's a Swiss Army knife.
I'd agree whole heartedly with all this, with the addition of:
If you compare Spirit Guardians + a Maul / Warhammer damage output, you actually are pretty close to most martial DPS classes. The main issue is that if you focus at all on your melee damage output, something is likely going to have to be sacrificed in the name of multiple ability score dependencies. Which usually means you have to specialize a bit, which leads the "main" classes of each type to do more damage or have more utility than you. Which is a good thing, I think.
Cleric with 16 STR, 14 CON, 14 WIS:
Can wear plate, and if you attack at 5th level, with Spirit Guardians up, you do:
1d10+3 + 3d8 damage. This averages to ~22 damage. That spirit guardian might actually end up doing more than just 3d8 to one target, but it all depends on saving throws. Some rounds you might only end up doing your base weapon swing. Some rounds you might get to catch multiple foes in spirit guardians and end up trivializing mobs of enemies.
Compared to a 5th level Barbarian swinging a great axe:
2x (1d12+6 damage (assuming they went to 18 strength and are raging, which is also a bonus action to set up): Average of ~25 damage.
I went with Barbarian because I honestly feel like Barb is the best actual tank in the base game. Their AC can be decent, but probably significantly lower than the Cleric, but the fact that they take half damage means that often times, the Barbarian lasts a really long time of being focused on.
If you're only doing 1d8 melee - are you forgetting to add your strength to your damage? Because you should have at least 13 strength to wear basic heavy armor, and likely 15 strength to wear plate (which usually means you should probably go with 16).
The above cleric still has a spell save DC of 13, which is only about ~1 lower than a "pure" spell caster. So, often, your control effects will be equally likely to be effective. Try to prepare spells that target a wide variety of spell save DCs, so you can capitalize on what you might end up facing that day.
Cleric with 14 STR, 14 CON, 16 WIS:
Average damage drops to 21. Spell save DC increases to 14. Can't wear full plate here, so max AC (barring magic items) of 16 + 2 (shield).
Cleric with 16 STR, 10 CON, 16 WIS:
Sacrifices 2 HP/level. Might not hurt too badly initially, but by level 8, you're down 16 max HP. So, compared to the 14 CON cleric, assuming you took the average every level, max HP difference is 59 vs 43. That's a pretty big sacrifice. Of course, by level 8, you'll get another shot at an ability score increase, so then you might want to bump up STR or WIS a modifier level, and get yourself +1 average damage or +1 to your Spell Save DC.
Shrug.
I think being forced to focus on what you want your cleric to be good at is a good thing, as it allows other characters to shine a bit. Though, wading into a crowd of mooks as a cleric will almost always end up being a bad time for the mooks, as they have half speed and take a ton of omnipresent damage. Better than the equivalent Barbarian, anyways.
Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
Nangalore went over very well, but my party politely declined a confrontation with Zalkore.
The monk met a bad end at the Wreck of Star Goddess from a Girallon ripping him to shreds with 5 attacks vs his death saves. Luckily the wreck managed to carry a sole survivor!
That's two for the dead book.
In the Valley of Lost Honour they were saved from Firenwets by both Musharib and Hew Hackingstone and some dwarves. My dwarf cleric player had previously promised his kin that he'd help with the dragon, so Tinder hunting we were going!
The party scouted the top floor and make quick work of the kobolds, but cockily demanded that the NPC dwarf party (that they occ asked for to help with the dragon) go first and take care of the first set of rooms. Not wanting to support this bullshit.... 6 dwarves entered, sounds of talking and then fighting spectres ensued. And before the party could do anything. 4 dwarves returned at Hew was wearing the mithril breastplate as his own loot. The party (well. That one friend of mine) got the idea and they took the lead for the rest of dungeon.
Rolling carts and dropping boulders later, the fight with Tinder began! It suitably epic. They party was level 6 with 4 npcs so I gave Tinder 240hp, one tail slap, only forgot lair actions once and got my breath weapon back mid fight.
Musharib, and one dwarf were immolated in the first round of combat, and two of the party were badly burned. The rest got to spread out a bit. Walloping ensues for a few turns and I get the breath weapon back. Every member of this fight is down 0 hp except the new sorcerer guy they found at the Wreck. He pops around the corner after the fire goes down and unloads with a level 3 magic missile and lands the final blow on Tinder! It was pretty epic you guys. If Tinder had not promised that the dwarf cleric was next at one point near the end there, the ko'd barbarian at her feet would have been the 3rd character in my dead book.
This D&D is a good game.
I really look forward to the Tinder fight because the party promised another red dragon that they wouldn't kill her, just humiliate her and force her from her lair in exchange for a reward - and trying to take even a young red dragon alive is going to be quite a challenge (given the party's level though I miiiiight make her an adult)
They rolled up through nangalore and Greater Restorationed to cure Zakalore's madness after the druid realized that the spell said it cured madness
She was still a bitch, because that's what kind of queen she was, but nonetheless thankful for fixing her noggin. They really wanted to repair as many petrified people as they could so I went with it, and had Zakalore say that she is a skilled alchemist and would work towards a way to free any petrified subjects en masse, the party sent a bunch of living omuans they have collected from Kir Sabal to Nangalore, so now the medusa queen (in full possession of her faculties) gets to be a shitty queen again, but the omuans were happy enough to rebuild something of their fallen empire, especially since they convinced Zakalore that Mwaxanare is most certainly the current monarch. Zakalore reluctantly admitted that her time as queen was done, but she still was the ruler of Nangalore goddamnit and she gets to to lord her narcissism over these people as long as they're here (and they're going to rebuild the place while they're at it)
Paying for the use of the admittedly awesome character sheets on DnDBeyond is too much, IMO.
I REALLY like the sheets and it is likely the only thing I'd use (although maybe the hi-res maps if I had them). However for a Master tier subscription at $55/yr (to share the content with my group), plus the cost of said content (say $200 for the core 3, xanathars and a few others?) that is over $50 per person in a standard sized party. Just to get to use a really fuckin' cool character sheet?
I'd love to, but its too much and its too much to get my group to chip in also.
Paying for the use of the admittedly awesome character sheets on DnDBeyond is too much, IMO.
I REALLY like the sheets and it is likely the only thing I'd use (although maybe the hi-res maps if I had them). However for a Master tier subscription at $55/yr (to share the content with my group), plus the cost of said content (say $200 for the core 3, xanathars and a few others?) that is over $50 per person in a standard sized party. Just to get to use a really fuckin' cool character sheet?
I'd love to, but its too much and its too much to get my group to chip in also.
you can share all content with up to 12 people, and you absolutely dont need to spend that much if you just occasionally google sales, I got the legendary for $180 which is all of the books
all my players have to use it and it really helps managing all their characters whenever i want to give them something, also I can keep track of all their HP in real time in different tabs
my one gripe is that WOTC has put in place absolutely no way get a discount if you own the hardcovers, I understand figuring it out would be difficult, but gdamnit wizards
You can share all content with up to 36 people, technically. It's up to 12 people per "campaign" and you can have three of them.
As for the cost of the content, there are so often big amazing coupon codes especially through Critical Role that chop off nice 25% and even 50% chunks off of purchases. There may even still be a coupon to take 25% off of the Legendary Collection.
You are not in any way just paying for a character sheet since you can just use that for freebies 100%. And between being able to make your own custom content, you can effectively have all the content you already own from a physical book for private use, it just takes a little bit of effort on your part to input what you'll be using.
Beyond(hah) that the only other restriction is only 6 characters without a subscription which is fine if you aren't a madman like me.
I actually also like the exported PDF sheet that DnDBeyond spits out and if I ever had to use them again, or happen to make premades or something, I'll probably use that.
Paying for the use of the admittedly awesome character sheets on DnDBeyond is too much, IMO.
I REALLY like the sheets and it is likely the only thing I'd use (although maybe the hi-res maps if I had them). However for a Master tier subscription at $55/yr (to share the content with my group), plus the cost of said content (say $200 for the core 3, xanathars and a few others?) that is over $50 per person in a standard sized party. Just to get to use a really fuckin' cool character sheet?
I'd love to, but its too much and its too much to get my group to chip in also.
you can share all content with up to 12 people, and you absolutely dont need to spend that much if you just occasionally google sales, I got the legendary for $180 which is all of the books
all my players have to use it and it really helps managing all their characters whenever i want to give them something, also I can keep track of all their HP in real time in different tabs
my one gripe is that WOTC has put in place absolutely no way get a discount if you own the hardcovers, I understand figuring it out would be difficult, but gdamnit wizards
Include a rebate code in the book. Or hell, do the copy protection schtick from the old gold box games where they tell you to look up a specific word on a page.
They were doing that back in 1990 for crying out loud.
Yeah, if you can include a rebate code for Xbox gold (or whatever) in every game you sell, you can include a code in every book you sell.
Paying for the content twice really grinds my gears, and since I play 99% of time offline and at the same table as my friends then then being able to monitor the HP of my players is pointless. What few digital maps I do use are plopped into Maptool (which really needs a new version to handle higher resolutions. The buttons and wordings in the menus are really small on my Surface pro 3) and pilfered from the internet, because I ain't paying for Fantasy Grounds either. If your group is solely a roll20 group, then I can understand how that would be very different.
What I really like about the sheets on Beyond are that you can clink on a power or a skill or spell and all the pertinent information pops up there for you to read. No more tedious book flipping. THAT attracts me to Beyond's character sheets.
Thing is, players tend to be creatures of habit, and outside of figuring out some minutia, You usually know everything you need to after the third time you cast it or so.
I tend to write down the pertinent information that is needed on my character sheet beside the powers, all organized and stuff.
I hate it when my players don't and continually have to look shit up. In the 60-70% of the time I am the DM, I would appreciate having everything at the click of mouse so I can keep the action moving. That said, I am really struggling with putting real money towards the problem.
Thing is, players tend to be creatures of habit, and outside of figuring out some minutia, You usually know everything you need to after the third time you cast it or so.
Eh this is not at all true in my experience, Of the 3 games im actively participating in, there's a cleric or druid in each of them and we're always looking up what their shit does because they have a trillion spells
D&D beyond makes summoning and keeping track of creatures easy too because you can, as a player, individually manage their health and see their stats right there.
I was willing to buy all of it for my own use and all my players are just happy to get it for free - i just wish a campaign had more slots or I'd share it with more people online since I still have like 7 available shares
Thing is, players tend to be creatures of habit, and outside of figuring out some minutia, You usually know everything you need to after the third time you cast it or so.
Eh this is not at all true in my experience, Of the 3 games im actively participating in, there's a cleric or druid in each of them and we're always looking up what their shit does because they have a trillion spells
D&D beyond makes summoning and keeping track of creatures easy too because you can, as a player, individually manage their health and see their stats right there.
I was willing to buy all of it for my own use and all my players are just happy to get it for free - i just wish a campaign had more slots or I'd share it with more people online since I still have like 7 available shares
Yeah I'm in my now second game ever and one of the guys has everything unlocked and we're able to use it - I LOVE the interactive sheets as a noob, I can lookup and answer questions quickly without having to constantly interrupt things. Makes leveling up a breeze too, or playing around with the idea of crossclassing.
As much as I'd usually rag on wizard's digital offerings...D&D Beyond is good. If I didn't have someone sharing with me already I'd strongly consider both rebuying my collection digitally and putting all personal purchases there, and ask for the print versions as gifts. Like i love a bunch of big tomes and flipping through pages from a tactile level, but id definitely take a DM screen that's just 3 touch screen panels linking to D&D beyond.
The things I'm really missing from DDB is containers, one of my coworkers is a mod for them and tells me that's due by the end of Jan (which will include shared bags of holding among party members and the like, supposedly), and a complete mobile app, which is in the works (right now the mobile app can just look stuff up)
Tell me what kind of character you want and what the GM seems to have issues with. Maybe I can give you some advice.
First Character was a Warlock with the Fiend
Paladin shot that down.
Seconded was a Changling, which I thought was clever. DM said the party might kill me (which, I don't care about)
So, now I'm looking for a super agreeable guy or some one who needs to be motivated (aka make the DM and the party push me into role-playing, not the other way around)
This party has been really ill motivated. Were a military squad who doesn't follow orders and other nonsense. The city we are in is being invaded but no one else is reacting to it. Also the group with Randy Savage Barbarian.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Tell me what kind of character you want and what the GM seems to have issues with. Maybe I can give you some advice.
First Character was a Warlock with the Fiend
Paladin shot that down.
Seconded was a Changling, which I thought was clever. DM said the party might kill me (which, I don't care about)
So, now I'm looking for a super agreeable guy or some one who needs to be motivated (aka make the DM and the party push me into role-playing, not the other way around)
This party has been really ill motivated. Were a military squad who doesn't follow orders and other nonsense. The city we are in is being invaded but no one else is reacting to it. Also the group with Randy Savage Barbarian.
what kind of character do you want? If it's just a super agreeable guy that needs to be motivated, you could be a benevolent rogue or fighter who is paid muscle and just sort of along for the ride? I played a wrestler strength rogue with a dagger that was mostly good natured and malleable. Could there be a noble whose father demanded he be allowed to participate in the defense but the army shuffled him off to being in charge of this shit unit who doesn't follow orders, and once he gets there he's not sure what he should do and just follows everyone else's lead?
Tell me what kind of character you want and what the GM seems to have issues with. Maybe I can give you some advice.
First Character was a Warlock with the Fiend
Paladin shot that down.
Seconded was a Changling, which I thought was clever. DM said the party might kill me (which, I don't care about)
So, now I'm looking for a super agreeable guy or some one who needs to be motivated (aka make the DM and the party push me into role-playing, not the other way around)
This party has been really ill motivated. Were a military squad who doesn't follow orders and other nonsense. The city we are in is being invaded but no one else is reacting to it. Also the group with Randy Savage Barbarian.
Priest of Ilmater IMO. Self flagelate every short rest.
Paying for the use of the admittedly awesome character sheets on DnDBeyond is too much, IMO.
I REALLY like the sheets and it is likely the only thing I'd use (although maybe the hi-res maps if I had them). However for a Master tier subscription at $55/yr (to share the content with my group), plus the cost of said content (say $200 for the core 3, xanathars and a few others?) that is over $50 per person in a standard sized party. Just to get to use a really fuckin' cool character sheet?
I'd love to, but its too much and its too much to get my group to chip in also.
you can share all content with up to 12 people, and you absolutely dont need to spend that much if you just occasionally google sales, I got the legendary for $180 which is all of the books
all my players have to use it and it really helps managing all their characters whenever i want to give them something, also I can keep track of all their HP in real time in different tabs
my one gripe is that WOTC has put in place absolutely no way get a discount if you own the hardcovers, I understand figuring it out would be difficult, but gdamnit wizards
Include a rebate code in the book. Or hell, do the copy protection schtick from the old gold box games where they tell you to look up a specific word on a page.
They were doing that back in 1990 for crying out loud.
No, this cannot work in this case. Distribution is a thing.
DnDBeyond is not owned by WotC, despite some people being under the assumption they are. They are on the same level of delivering the product as your FLGS, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds and Amazon are. The main difference is DnDBeyond is their primary output at the end of the distribution chain, they are afforded certain privileges because of this and you can thank DnDBeyond for getting the cost of digital products lowered on Roll20.
Amazon of course is Amazon... they can sell all of it at a loss and not care. However if WoTC started putting codes for the books you're buying for the digital version on DnDBeyond you would suddenly have every other distributor of the product being extremely unhappy... except for maybe Amazon. Who, by extensive proxy, owns DnDBeyond.
This would be different if it was all 100% run by WoTC, but the simple fact is D&D is the red-headed step child for WotC and Hasbro just isn't gonna pump the money necessary into it to develop all of that. Hell, the D&D side of things is understaffed as it is.
Tell me what kind of character you want and what the GM seems to have issues with. Maybe I can give you some advice.
First Character was a Warlock with the Fiend
Paladin shot that down.
Seconded was a Changling, which I thought was clever. DM said the party might kill me (which, I don't care about)
So, now I'm looking for a super agreeable guy or some one who needs to be motivated (aka make the DM and the party push me into role-playing, not the other way around)
This party has been really ill motivated. Were a military squad who doesn't follow orders and other nonsense. The city we are in is being invaded but no one else is reacting to it. Also the group with Randy Savage Barbarian.
Try a Kobold Monk. Kobolds are highly social by nature (a combination of generally low life expectancy and strength in numbers nescesitates this) and as such would be very much a go with the flow sort.
Also, Kobold monks are fucking terrifying; Pack tactics +buttload of attacks + dex as damage focus = damage out the wazoo (and it just gets stupider if you have a mage that casts enlarge on you).
To be fair it wasn't a hard no, but more of a "yeah that might cause issues"
One of my IRL friends who played more than me said the Paladin is Paladining to hard, which sounds right. So far he's tried to stop and fight every evil, never mind the bigger picture.
To be fair it wasn't a hard no, but more of a "yeah that might cause issues"
One of my IRL friends who played more than me said the Paladin is Paladining to hard, which sounds right. So far he's tried to stop and fight every evil, never mind the bigger picture.
Clearly you should O-Chul his Miko.
Don't actually do this, it is sort of a dick move to that player.
Unless they're down with it. Then it could be a blast.
So at lunch today I was writing up an NPC for my 5e game. It's a goblin they let escape and now he's returned.
I decided that he developed Psychic powers after getting his head smacked by being thrown down some stairs.
I say, "Hey, there's that Mystic class from Unearthed Arcana, I can use that."
So I get him written up and then I start thinking about how I want him to look when they meet him, and since he's not wearing armor, I think a ratty tan robe would be great. Also, he has a short sword that he uses Ethereal Psionic Weapon on to phase through armor and hit really hard and obviously he has Mystic Hand to move stuff around and Delusions to send thoughts into the party's minds to dick with them.
At some point it dawns on me...
I made their recurring NPC into Yoda.
I wish I could play Sir Fabilis, the Beautiful, in a campaign. Just the most Lawful Dumbass paladin, just paladin'ing around with his buddies.
Always wants to hear about that super interesting thing the bard wants to show him while the fighter and rogue stay behind with the captive. Never questions their decision to let him free after he confessed his sins. Never questions why none of his former captives have ever returned his correspondences. Just assumes they're out there attoning their asses off.
e: looks like I could probably do it with Pathfinder 2.0 Hmmmmm
So the party I'm DMing found a large magical tapestry with a dragon inside of it. They took a sword from the tapestry and then folded it up to stop the dragon from getting out. They have been carrying it around for months now.
They also just killed a Witch Queen, her coven, a giant oblivion moss monster and some NPC's.
It was a good fight.
After resting up, they searched the area and found a journal that led them to some specific items of magical import, one of which was the skin of a demon and a sister witch who were plotting behind the WQ's back. She made a cloak out of them.
The party also has a magical anvil that will allow, at great cost, the transfer of some abilities from one magic item, to another.
Indeed, our last session, we spent 6 hours transferring attributes and/or deleting them.
One of the party members has decided he would like to merge the magical tapestry (with the dragon in it) to the Cloak of the Witch Queen.
...
I asked him what he thinks might happen, and he said he doesn't have a clue, he just wants to see what happens, and now I do too.
Any input? EDIT: Like, what might that look like? What special ability might that give? The opportunities are endless and I am a bit overwhelmed.
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The book covers a lot of eventualities, what happened was a party member altering self into being the grung goddess and mating with the grung king in a disgusting public display of frog sex
Nothing in the book about how to handle that
I informed the party that they were all grossed out, except the warlock who was taking notes. This worked and the king was satisfied he’d pleased his goddess and now they have marvelous pigments so they can create giant volumetric dicks or whatever
Also they had a magic item that would do a thing and didn’t know what, it unleashed a yochlol and gave them the true name, they told it to go eliminate the pterrorfolk... looking at its stat block, yes the pterrorfolk are pterrorfucked
A++ session, confronted the ranger about his metagaming at the start and the others backed me up, hopefully that helps
Nangalore went over very well, but my party politely declined a confrontation with Zalkore.
The monk met a bad end at the Wreck of Star Goddess from a Girallon ripping him to shreds with 5 attacks vs his death saves. Luckily the wreck managed to carry a sole survivor!
That's two for the dead book.
In the Valley of Lost Honour they were saved from Firenwets by both Musharib and Hew Hackingstone and some dwarves. My dwarf cleric player had previously promised his kin that he'd help with the dragon, so Tinder hunting we were going!
The party scouted the top floor and make quick work of the kobolds, but cockily demanded that the NPC dwarf party (that they occ asked for to help with the dragon) go first and take care of the first set of rooms. Not wanting to support this bullshit.... 6 dwarves entered, sounds of talking and then fighting spectres ensued. And before the party could do anything. 4 dwarves returned at Hew was wearing the mithril breastplate as his own loot. The party (well. That one friend of mine) got the idea and they took the lead for the rest of dungeon.
Rolling carts and dropping boulders later, the fight with Tinder began! It suitably epic. They party was level 6 with 4 npcs so I gave Tinder 240hp, one tail slap, only forgot lair actions once and got my breath weapon back mid fight.
Musharib, and one dwarf were immolated in the first round of combat, and two of the party were badly burned. The rest got to spread out a bit. Walloping ensues for a few turns and I get the breath weapon back. Every member of this fight is down 0 hp except the new sorcerer guy they found at the Wreck. He pops around the corner after the fire goes down and unloads with a level 3 magic missile and lands the final blow on Tinder! It was pretty epic you guys. If Tinder had not promised that the dwarf cleric was next at one point near the end there, the ko'd barbarian at her feet would have been the 3rd character in my dead book.
This D&D is a good game.
Look at it this way: your team already has tons of damage dealing, but they probably otherwise lack the ability to do thinks like remove curses. Clerics don't deal much damage, even when optimized for it, but they can compete with Wizards in terms of spells that will trivialize encounters. A well-placed Hold Person or Banishment can turn a nearly impossible fight into a cakewalk.
That said, you can boost your damage a bit. Use Spiritual Weapon and you get a second attack every turn without Concentration, for the low cost of a second level spell.
EDIT: Didn't mention you also get tons of Divination spells that can really break open non-combat problems. And if Geas had some bigger teeth it'd be amazing. In short, Cleric isn't a Bowie knife, it's a Swiss Army knife.
I'd agree whole heartedly with all this, with the addition of:
If you compare Spirit Guardians + a Maul / Warhammer damage output, you actually are pretty close to most martial DPS classes. The main issue is that if you focus at all on your melee damage output, something is likely going to have to be sacrificed in the name of multiple ability score dependencies. Which usually means you have to specialize a bit, which leads the "main" classes of each type to do more damage or have more utility than you. Which is a good thing, I think.
Cleric with 16 STR, 14 CON, 14 WIS:
Can wear plate, and if you attack at 5th level, with Spirit Guardians up, you do:
1d10+3 + 3d8 damage. This averages to ~22 damage. That spirit guardian might actually end up doing more than just 3d8 to one target, but it all depends on saving throws. Some rounds you might only end up doing your base weapon swing. Some rounds you might get to catch multiple foes in spirit guardians and end up trivializing mobs of enemies.
Compared to a 5th level Barbarian swinging a great axe:
2x (1d12+6 damage (assuming they went to 18 strength and are raging, which is also a bonus action to set up): Average of ~25 damage.
I went with Barbarian because I honestly feel like Barb is the best actual tank in the base game. Their AC can be decent, but probably significantly lower than the Cleric, but the fact that they take half damage means that often times, the Barbarian lasts a really long time of being focused on.
If you're only doing 1d8 melee - are you forgetting to add your strength to your damage? Because you should have at least 13 strength to wear basic heavy armor, and likely 15 strength to wear plate (which usually means you should probably go with 16).
The above cleric still has a spell save DC of 13, which is only about ~1 lower than a "pure" spell caster. So, often, your control effects will be equally likely to be effective. Try to prepare spells that target a wide variety of spell save DCs, so you can capitalize on what you might end up facing that day.
Cleric with 14 STR, 14 CON, 16 WIS:
Average damage drops to 21. Spell save DC increases to 14. Can't wear full plate here, so max AC (barring magic items) of 16 + 2 (shield).
Cleric with 16 STR, 10 CON, 16 WIS:
Sacrifices 2 HP/level. Might not hurt too badly initially, but by level 8, you're down 16 max HP. So, compared to the 14 CON cleric, assuming you took the average every level, max HP difference is 59 vs 43. That's a pretty big sacrifice. Of course, by level 8, you'll get another shot at an ability score increase, so then you might want to bump up STR or WIS a modifier level, and get yourself +1 average damage or +1 to your Spell Save DC.
Shrug.
I think being forced to focus on what you want your cleric to be good at is a good thing, as it allows other characters to shine a bit. Though, wading into a crowd of mooks as a cleric will almost always end up being a bad time for the mooks, as they have half speed and take a ton of omnipresent damage. Better than the equivalent Barbarian, anyways.
So far 2 of my pitches have been shot down.
Tell me what kind of character you want and what the GM seems to have issues with. Maybe I can give you some advice.
I really look forward to the Tinder fight because the party promised another red dragon that they wouldn't kill her, just humiliate her and force her from her lair in exchange for a reward - and trying to take even a young red dragon alive is going to be quite a challenge (given the party's level though I miiiiight make her an adult)
They rolled up through nangalore and Greater Restorationed to cure Zakalore's madness after the druid realized that the spell said it cured madness
She was still a bitch, because that's what kind of queen she was, but nonetheless thankful for fixing her noggin. They really wanted to repair as many petrified people as they could so I went with it, and had Zakalore say that she is a skilled alchemist and would work towards a way to free any petrified subjects en masse, the party sent a bunch of living omuans they have collected from Kir Sabal to Nangalore, so now the medusa queen (in full possession of her faculties) gets to be a shitty queen again, but the omuans were happy enough to rebuild something of their fallen empire, especially since they convinced Zakalore that Mwaxanare is most certainly the current monarch. Zakalore reluctantly admitted that her time as queen was done, but she still was the ruler of Nangalore goddamnit and she gets to to lord her narcissism over these people as long as they're here (and they're going to rebuild the place while they're at it)
I REALLY like the sheets and it is likely the only thing I'd use (although maybe the hi-res maps if I had them). However for a Master tier subscription at $55/yr (to share the content with my group), plus the cost of said content (say $200 for the core 3, xanathars and a few others?) that is over $50 per person in a standard sized party. Just to get to use a really fuckin' cool character sheet?
I'd love to, but its too much and its too much to get my group to chip in also.
you can share all content with up to 12 people, and you absolutely dont need to spend that much if you just occasionally google sales, I got the legendary for $180 which is all of the books
all my players have to use it and it really helps managing all their characters whenever i want to give them something, also I can keep track of all their HP in real time in different tabs
my one gripe is that WOTC has put in place absolutely no way get a discount if you own the hardcovers, I understand figuring it out would be difficult, but gdamnit wizards
As for the cost of the content, there are so often big amazing coupon codes especially through Critical Role that chop off nice 25% and even 50% chunks off of purchases. There may even still be a coupon to take 25% off of the Legendary Collection.
You are not in any way just paying for a character sheet since you can just use that for freebies 100%. And between being able to make your own custom content, you can effectively have all the content you already own from a physical book for private use, it just takes a little bit of effort on your part to input what you'll be using.
Beyond(hah) that the only other restriction is only 6 characters without a subscription which is fine if you aren't a madman like me.
I actually also like the exported PDF sheet that DnDBeyond spits out and if I ever had to use them again, or happen to make premades or something, I'll probably use that.
Include a rebate code in the book. Or hell, do the copy protection schtick from the old gold box games where they tell you to look up a specific word on a page.
They were doing that back in 1990 for crying out loud.
Paying for the content twice really grinds my gears, and since I play 99% of time offline and at the same table as my friends then then being able to monitor the HP of my players is pointless. What few digital maps I do use are plopped into Maptool (which really needs a new version to handle higher resolutions. The buttons and wordings in the menus are really small on my Surface pro 3) and pilfered from the internet, because I ain't paying for Fantasy Grounds either. If your group is solely a roll20 group, then I can understand how that would be very different.
What I really like about the sheets on Beyond are that you can clink on a power or a skill or spell and all the pertinent information pops up there for you to read. No more tedious book flipping. THAT attracts me to Beyond's character sheets.
I hate it when my players don't and continually have to look shit up. In the 60-70% of the time I am the DM, I would appreciate having everything at the click of mouse so I can keep the action moving. That said, I am really struggling with putting real money towards the problem.
Eh this is not at all true in my experience, Of the 3 games im actively participating in, there's a cleric or druid in each of them and we're always looking up what their shit does because they have a trillion spells
D&D beyond makes summoning and keeping track of creatures easy too because you can, as a player, individually manage their health and see their stats right there.
I was willing to buy all of it for my own use and all my players are just happy to get it for free - i just wish a campaign had more slots or I'd share it with more people online since I still have like 7 available shares
Yeah I'm in my now second game ever and one of the guys has everything unlocked and we're able to use it - I LOVE the interactive sheets as a noob, I can lookup and answer questions quickly without having to constantly interrupt things. Makes leveling up a breeze too, or playing around with the idea of crossclassing.
First Character was a Warlock with the Fiend
Paladin shot that down.
Seconded was a Changling, which I thought was clever. DM said the party might kill me (which, I don't care about)
So, now I'm looking for a super agreeable guy or some one who needs to be motivated (aka make the DM and the party push me into role-playing, not the other way around)
This party has been really ill motivated. Were a military squad who doesn't follow orders and other nonsense. The city we are in is being invaded but no one else is reacting to it. Also the group with Randy Savage Barbarian.
what kind of character do you want? If it's just a super agreeable guy that needs to be motivated, you could be a benevolent rogue or fighter who is paid muscle and just sort of along for the ride? I played a wrestler strength rogue with a dagger that was mostly good natured and malleable. Could there be a noble whose father demanded he be allowed to participate in the defense but the army shuffled him off to being in charge of this shit unit who doesn't follow orders, and once he gets there he's not sure what he should do and just follows everyone else's lead?
Priest of Ilmater IMO. Self flagelate every short rest.
No, this cannot work in this case. Distribution is a thing.
DnDBeyond is not owned by WotC, despite some people being under the assumption they are. They are on the same level of delivering the product as your FLGS, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds and Amazon are. The main difference is DnDBeyond is their primary output at the end of the distribution chain, they are afforded certain privileges because of this and you can thank DnDBeyond for getting the cost of digital products lowered on Roll20.
Amazon of course is Amazon... they can sell all of it at a loss and not care. However if WoTC started putting codes for the books you're buying for the digital version on DnDBeyond you would suddenly have every other distributor of the product being extremely unhappy... except for maybe Amazon. Who, by extensive proxy, owns DnDBeyond.
This would be different if it was all 100% run by WoTC, but the simple fact is D&D is the red-headed step child for WotC and Hasbro just isn't gonna pump the money necessary into it to develop all of that. Hell, the D&D side of things is understaffed as it is.
Try a Kobold Monk. Kobolds are highly social by nature (a combination of generally low life expectancy and strength in numbers nescesitates this) and as such would be very much a go with the flow sort.
Also, Kobold monks are fucking terrifying; Pack tactics +buttload of attacks + dex as damage focus = damage out the wazoo (and it just gets stupider if you have a mage that casts enlarge on you).
You know, in character of course.
No, it's another player who is playing a Paladin who is saying he can't do that.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
One of my IRL friends who played more than me said the Paladin is Paladining to hard, which sounds right. So far he's tried to stop and fight every evil, never mind the bigger picture.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Kobolds also have a reputation for being kind of pathetic so having an eager to please little drago is liable to fly under the radar.
Also I'm working on the assumption that the other players aren't assholes.
Clearly you should O-Chul his Miko.
Unless they're down with it. Then it could be a blast.
I decided that he developed Psychic powers after getting his head smacked by being thrown down some stairs.
I say, "Hey, there's that Mystic class from Unearthed Arcana, I can use that."
So I get him written up and then I start thinking about how I want him to look when they meet him, and since he's not wearing armor, I think a ratty tan robe would be great. Also, he has a short sword that he uses Ethereal Psionic Weapon on to phase through armor and hit really hard and obviously he has Mystic Hand to move stuff around and Delusions to send thoughts into the party's minds to dick with them.
At some point it dawns on me...
I made their recurring NPC into Yoda.
Always wants to hear about that super interesting thing the bard wants to show him while the fighter and rogue stay behind with the captive. Never questions their decision to let him free after he confessed his sins. Never questions why none of his former captives have ever returned his correspondences. Just assumes they're out there attoning their asses off.
e: looks like I could probably do it with Pathfinder 2.0 Hmmmmm
They also just killed a Witch Queen, her coven, a giant oblivion moss monster and some NPC's.
It was a good fight.
After resting up, they searched the area and found a journal that led them to some specific items of magical import, one of which was the skin of a demon and a sister witch who were plotting behind the WQ's back. She made a cloak out of them.
The party also has a magical anvil that will allow, at great cost, the transfer of some abilities from one magic item, to another.
Indeed, our last session, we spent 6 hours transferring attributes and/or deleting them.
One of the party members has decided he would like to merge the magical tapestry (with the dragon in it) to the Cloak of the Witch Queen.
...
I asked him what he thinks might happen, and he said he doesn't have a clue, he just wants to see what happens, and now I do too.
Any input? EDIT: Like, what might that look like? What special ability might that give? The opportunities are endless and I am a bit overwhelmed.