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[DnD 5E] You can't triple stamp a double stamp!

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Posts

  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Nealneal wrote: »
    I turned my player's copper dragon wyrmling contact into a Spellcaster (healer bard) sidekick and it has worked beautifully. He has enough spells that they don't have to spend their paladin's or ranger's spell slots on party survival and can use them for fun stuff like Hunter's Mark or Smiting. The rules are light enough that I feel like any guests or the players themselves can easily pick up the sidekick and run him but at the same time, it has enough fun choices that the party has been able to really engage with Ceciliax as a member of their group.

    'Ciliax, you need to mend wounds
    Don't be afraid to spend your dailies.
    Oh, Ceciliax, I'm down on HPs
    I'm begging you please, Cure Light Wounds.

    'Ciliax, you need to mend wounds
    Don't be afraid to spend your dailies.
    Oh, Ceciliax, I'm down on HPs
    I'm begging you please, Cure Light Wounds.

    Cure Light Wounds.

    Fighting gobs in the dungeon rooms with Ceciliax
    Searching for some gold (fighting gobs!)
    I ran in to fight the horde
    But on their turn, they crit
    Now I'm down on the floor.

    'Ciliax, you need to mend wounds
    Don't be afraid to spend your dailies.
    Oh, Ceciliax, I'm down on HPs
    I'm begging you please, Cure Light Wounds.

    Cure Light Wounds.

    Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-ohhhhhhhhhhhh

    Jubiliation!
    I'm fighting again.
    I'm up off the floor and I'm swinging.
    Jubiliation!
    I'm fighting again.
    I'm up off the floor and I'm swinging.

    Woah-oh-oh, oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. oh-oh, oh-oh
    Etc.

    Elvenshae on
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    @Terrendos : Thanks for the Warlock suggestion. I did a deeper look at the class and it looks like a great chassis for a wide range of magic users if you split off the Lovecraftian flavour elements. I can see some great ways to create a Howl type character (from Howl's Moving Castle) and over at www.5esrd.com there's some neat 3rd party patrons that expand what the class can be in some neat ways (I like the Beloved in particular).

  • ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    I've been invited to a 5E game at some point in the nearish future with a group of RL friends. I'm planning on discussing character options with the group, but I was hoping to get some pointers from people more experienced with the system as to what classes/builds work well and what to shy away from. I have a bit of 1st/2nd edition experience, a smattering of Pathfinder experience and no 5E experience. I am hoping to be able to play a well rounded character that is able to participate in most parts of the game. I'm looking for a class/build that gets some narrative powers. This is important to me, because it the 2 Pathfinder shorts I played I first created a fighter who basically couldn't do anything useful when it wasn't combat and got weaker as I leveled up, and then in the second game created a druid who could participate in pretty much all aspects of the game. I'd like something that doesn't rely on free-form roleplaying or GM permission to do cool things out of combat.

    I've been told that the group already has people who are interested in playing Druid, Berserker (Barbarian?), Wizard, Thief. The group is probably going to be 6 people, but most of them are new and the GM is pretty experienced. I'm not sure how combat-heavy things are going to be. Based on what I've been told, there's a fair bit of roleplaying.

    Hey @Caedwyr, if I can offer another suggestion to you.

    You want a character that can contribute in combat via fighting, spellcasting, and/or healing in addition to having out-of-combat versatility while also being able to craft things in shorts amount of time?

    A Forge Cleric will satisfy all of those points.

    -- You can charge into combat and swing a hammer into a goblin's face.
    -- You can throw out buffs, healing spells, and fire magic to damage opponents.
    -- You can, in one-hour, create something that is worth no more than 100 gp as long as it includes some metal (and you lay out enough metal [or coins] to equal its market value).

    I think it's exactly what you're looking for, so if you have access to Xanathar's Guide to Everything, I'd give it a peak.

    Zonugal on
    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    Thanks. I'll check out the option.

  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    I got a magic glowing coin from Master of Coin from my DM.

    Am I screwed?

  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    I got a magic glowing coin from Master of Coin from my DM.

    Am I screwed?

    Heads yes, tails no.

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    So Today was awesome because a plot I'd gotten going months ago finally fired in my store game in the most glorious way possible.

    After trying and failing to capture and dissapear a gnome wizard who was causing problems for the party, my bloated 8 man party split with 5 following a request from the city's archmage to investigate the source of intellect devourers that had been accosting the citizens for some time, while the other three ran off to talk with her about the gnome wizard. This pleased me because putting aside how the party had split into a more manageable size, it meant that they were blithely marching into FUN.

    The party ( consisting of a kobold monk, a goblin thief, half orc paladin, elven bladesinger and orcish priest of lathander) took steps to try and sneak into the area as well as they could (the paladin hung back owing to his chainmail making him really loud and unstealthy though to be fair the goblin and kobold were god awful at stealthing) though the priest did something unusual: striding directly into the center of the room to talk to the mind flayer and his pet intellect devourer.

    Stunned, the others at first thought the cleric was turning traitor, but then realized that for the past two months they'd been playing with someone who'd been possessed by a devourer and acting as a spy and saboteur.

    And now they were facing him, a mind flayer and an intellect devourer.

    For it's part, the devourer died pretty quickly after getting blasted with a lightning bolt, but the mindflayer was able to wreck at least two players with it's psionic blast... and that's about as far as I go before we had to pause the fight due to the store closing for the night.

    The best part of this?

    I have a potential out now by having the players who are downed in this fight come back with intellect devourers in their heads to run through to the end of the module :snap:

  • NealnealNealneal Registered User regular
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Nealneal wrote: »
    I turned my player's copper dragon wyrmling contact into a Spellcaster (healer bard) sidekick and it has worked beautifully. He has enough spells that they don't have to spend their paladin's or ranger's spell slots on party survival and can use them for fun stuff like Hunter's Mark or Smiting. The rules are light enough that I feel like any guests or the players themselves can easily pick up the sidekick and run him but at the same time, it has enough fun choices that the party has been able to really engage with Ceciliax as a member of their group.

    'Ciliax, you need to mend wounds
    Don't be afraid to spend your dailies.
    Oh, Ceciliax, I'm down on HPs
    I'm begging you please, Cure Light Wounds.

    'Ciliax, you need to mend wounds
    Don't be afraid to spend your dailies.
    Oh, Ceciliax, I'm down on HPs
    I'm begging you please, Cure Light Wounds.

    Cure Light Wounds.

    Fighting gobs in the dungeon rooms with Ceciliax
    Searching for some gold (fighting gobs!)
    I ran in to fight the horde
    But on their turn, they crit
    Now I'm down on the floor.

    'Ciliax, you need to mend wounds
    Don't be afraid to spend your dailies.
    Oh, Ceciliax, I'm down on HPs
    I'm begging you please, Cure Light Wounds.

    Cure Light Wounds.

    Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-ohhhhhhhhhhhh

    Jubiliation!
    I'm fighting again.
    I'm up off the floor and I'm swinging.
    Jubiliation!
    I'm fighting again.
    I'm up off the floor and I'm swinging.

    Woah-oh-oh, oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. oh-oh, oh-oh
    Etc.

    That's awesome and I love you. Have my DnD babies!

  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    Semi-historical campaign continues (spoiler: we are the worst).
    After a less historically correct intermission last time (which left our evil paladin with a cursed bishop's hat), our party arrived at the city of Acre. We stayed out at sea, opting for a barricade with our ships. Two land armies were supposed to arrive at the same time, but with no method of communication, we decided that the main party (plus our hero-worshipping NPC Alfonse) would infiltrate the city. We would wait for the land armies to attack, then signal the fleet to attack at the same time.

    That was the original plan.

    Things escalated quickly. Our Paladin impressed the non-professional defenders of the city with his martial prowess and was promoted to one of the officers of the defending army. Our cleric (who decided to dress as a woman for .. not really clear reasons) and my scout (pretending to be her servant) went to the local guards to give them fresh water and find out more. Our barbarian also enlisted in the local army but stayed with the ground troops.
    My scout's original plan to set fire to the army's barracks was a non-starter when we found the city only had an improvised army and no real central point.

    Then our (evil) paladin decided that he would convince the generals that they needed to hold a speech in the local temple to encourage the defenders. A plan that was originally meant as a distraction, quickly became "how can we turn a stone temple into the most flammable thing ever". The paladin held the speech and left the building, pretending to be sick. Leaving was the signal for my scout, hiding in the rafters, to throw an improvised Molatov cocktail at the high command of the opposing armies gathered in front of the the crowd and the cleric to throw a fire spell. My quiet dim scout was horrified when the (at that point still lawful good) cleric threw an actual level 4 fireball into a temple full of basically civilians. The evil paladin blocked the door the generals would use to escape (understandable). Horror grew when the (chaotic neutral) barbarian, the (good) NPC and lawful good decide to block the main entrance as well. My scout escaped through a window (this was his planned escape from the start, already tied an escape rope to it before the events started). The barbarian, cleric (now lawful neutral and on his way to evil) and NPC killed two guards that came to intervene. My scout (chaotic neutral), feeling guilt (he was hoping for chaos, mayhem and some cough... moderate amount of death as a signal to invade instead of a fullblown massacre, opened a window in the temple and helped save 11 people. 40 other people managed to escape, leaving about some 250-300 people to die in the fire.

    The paladin managed to open the city gates by convincing the guards to help put out the fire (a natural 20 on a persuasion check that really didn't require that at that point) and now we are heroes of the invasion which cost hardly any lives to our own soldiers. My scout has started drinking and lost all faith, our NPC is completely shell-shocked. Barbarian who was the most active in taking care to block the main doors is now evil. The cleric actually is going to a crisis of conscience and may be working on his redemption, hoping to find it in our final mission. Our evil paladin is just going "Y'all did this to yourself."

    Out of Character, there was much hilarity how some rather non-violent initial plans immediately turned more and more murderous to ridiculous levels (infiltration+information> infiltration+information+sabotage > sabotage+assassination > massacre). My impressions of the fleet's admiral high-fiving his entire crew in response to the sieged city basically going up in flames also cracked up our DM. She did say that she was amazed how the rogue was now the moral backbone of the party.

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
  • jammujammu 2020 is now. Registered User regular
    Beware of the Min-maxing. Some times it will bite you in the ass.

    Spoilers for Curse of Strahd:
    There is no natural sunlight on Ravenloft, so one of the players decided to roll Drow Paladin. No disadvantage to attacks and skills for this guy.
    Except we found the Sunsword-artifact on crossroads graveyard, immediately after we visited the Gypsie seer.
    One of its powers is that it emits real sunlight.

    He got to enjoy no sunlight for few random encounters and single haunted house adventure.

    Ww8FAMg.jpg
  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Talk about a lucky card draw though.

    In other CoS news, the group I'm DMing it for walked last session into the Amber Temple all cocky like and within 20 feet in was reminded that this is Barovia and almost had a TPW. Next session will be interesting and properly tense.

    Smrtnik on
    steam_sig.png
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    My fighter picked up Lightbringer, the mace imbued with powers of Lethander. I wanted to give it to our cleric of Zeus, but she refused for OC reasons: she didn't want to be a standard cleric. So it was a dpr upgrade for my fighter, but our DM didn't expect this at all, he figured it would be a nice hook to give a cleric an item for the wrong god. I decided to lean into it, my fighter is from a village and still quite young so he really likes this mace and has become religious because of it.

    This session we had downtime, so I went looking for a priest of Lethander to ask for advice on what Lethander expected of me. Luck has it that the only priest in Triboar is a fuck up passed out in the worst inn in town. He mostly just felt bad and seeing Lightbringer did encourage him a bit to move back to his temple in Redlarch. I paid his debts and interpreted his low effort confirmation that Lethander is great and that my mace should be used as a tool of Lethander. I reasoned that when I slam it i to an orc, then it is Lethander's will that his mace is used for that.

    I went back to my party as a convinced Lethanderist and will continue adventuring to bring the light of the Morninglord to all the people who need it.

    DM seemed to enjoy it, and I handed him enough knives for the next few years.

  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    The best story I have about running CoS was how the very first thing that the party did after completing a long rest at the wizard tower was investigate a gypsy wagon, note that it had a trap door on the bottom along with a sign on the front door that said "do not open" and then proceeded to do so anyways while everyone was clustered around the front door, where they got to see 100 vials of alchemist fire go off simultaneously.

  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Aldo wrote: »
    My fighter picked up Lightbringer, the mace imbued with powers of Lethander. I wanted to give it to our cleric of Zeus, but she refused for OC reasons: she didn't want to be a standard cleric. So it was a dpr upgrade for my fighter, but our DM didn't expect this at all, he figured it would be a nice hook to give a cleric an item for the wrong god. I decided to lean into it, my fighter is from a village and still quite young so he really likes this mace and has become religious because of it.

    This session we had downtime, so I went looking for a priest of Lethander to ask for advice on what Lethander expected of me. Luck has it that the only priest in Triboar is a fuck up passed out in the worst inn in town. He mostly just felt bad and seeing Lightbringer did encourage him a bit to move back to his temple in Redlarch. I paid his debts and interpreted his low effort confirmation that Lethander is great and that my mace should be used as a tool of Lethander. I reasoned that when I slam it i to an orc, then it is Lethander's will that his mace is used for that.

    I went back to my party as a convinced Lethanderist and will continue adventuring to bring the light of the Morninglord to all the people who need it.

    DM seemed to enjoy it, and I handed him enough knives for the next few years.

    Lathander is the best D&D deity, all glory to the Morninglord

    you should see if your character can find some members of the Order of Aster and see about joining. they're an order or Paladins and Fighters sponsored directly by the church of Lathander and they're all badasses

    Anzekay on
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Anzekay wrote: »
    Aldo wrote: »
    My fighter picked up Lightbringer, the mace imbued with powers of Lethander. I wanted to give it to our cleric of Zeus, but she refused for OC reasons: she didn't want to be a standard cleric. So it was a dpr upgrade for my fighter, but our DM didn't expect this at all, he figured it would be a nice hook to give a cleric an item for the wrong god. I decided to lean into it, my fighter is from a village and still quite young so he really likes this mace and has become religious because of it.

    This session we had downtime, so I went looking for a priest of Lethander to ask for advice on what Lethander expected of me. Luck has it that the only priest in Triboar is a fuck up passed out in the worst inn in town. He mostly just felt bad and seeing Lightbringer did encourage him a bit to move back to his temple in Redlarch. I paid his debts and interpreted his low effort confirmation that Lethander is great and that my mace should be used as a tool of Lethander. I reasoned that when I slam it i to an orc, then it is Lethander's will that his mace is used for that.

    I went back to my party as a convinced Lethanderist and will continue adventuring to bring the light of the Morninglord to all the people who need it.

    DM seemed to enjoy it, and I handed him enough knives for the next few years.

    Lathander is the best D&D deity, all glory to the Morninglord

    you should see if your character can find some members of the Order of Aster and see about joining. they're an order or Paladins and Fighters sponsored directly by the church of Lathander and they're all badasses

    I see your lathander and raise you Sune, goddess of love and beauty.

    Because there is nothing like the expression on that horde of bandit's faces when you channel your passion into a fireball that decimates the lot of them.

    Praise the Sune.

  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Anzekay wrote: »
    Aldo wrote: »
    My fighter picked up Lightbringer, the mace imbued with powers of Lethander. I wanted to give it to our cleric of Zeus, but she refused for OC reasons: she didn't want to be a standard cleric. So it was a dpr upgrade for my fighter, but our DM didn't expect this at all, he figured it would be a nice hook to give a cleric an item for the wrong god. I decided to lean into it, my fighter is from a village and still quite young so he really likes this mace and has become religious because of it.

    This session we had downtime, so I went looking for a priest of Lethander to ask for advice on what Lethander expected of me. Luck has it that the only priest in Triboar is a fuck up passed out in the worst inn in town. He mostly just felt bad and seeing Lightbringer did encourage him a bit to move back to his temple in Redlarch. I paid his debts and interpreted his low effort confirmation that Lethander is great and that my mace should be used as a tool of Lethander. I reasoned that when I slam it i to an orc, then it is Lethander's will that his mace is used for that.

    I went back to my party as a convinced Lethanderist and will continue adventuring to bring the light of the Morninglord to all the people who need it.

    DM seemed to enjoy it, and I handed him enough knives for the next few years.

    Lathander is the best D&D deity, all glory to the Morninglord

    you should see if your character can find some members of the Order of Aster and see about joining. they're an order or Paladins and Fighters sponsored directly by the church of Lathander and they're all badasses

    I see your lathander and raise you Sune, goddess of love and beauty.

    Because there is nothing like the expression on that horde of bandit's faces when you channel your passion into a fireball that decimates the lot of them.

    Praise the Sune.

    It's a beautiful fireball, the best fireball. Bigly.

    steam_sig.png
  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    I'll ask this over here too:

    Can you guys think of a good glass cannon build? I want to trade all my survivability away for some kind of utility (dps or anything else really). Just something spectacular to fit in between running around ducking away from danger. Thoughts?

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Ringo wrote: »
    I'll ask this over here too:

    Can you guys think of a good glass cannon build? I want to trade all my survivability away for some kind of utility (dps or anything else really). Just something spectacular to fit in between running around ducking away from danger. Thoughts?

    I mean anything with low CON and high primary stat.

    steam_sig.png
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Ringo wrote: »
    I'll ask this over here too:

    Can you guys think of a good glass cannon build? I want to trade all my survivability away for some kind of utility (dps or anything else really). Just something spectacular to fit in between running around ducking away from danger. Thoughts?

    Kobold mastermind rogue. You just endlessly spam out help actions and cower grovel and beg. I did it for almost an entire campaign and I can best describe it as:
    94f.png
    Zero offense. Pure support. All your companions becoming ubermench because you know what the fuck needs to be done.

    Gaddez on
  • ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    Ringo wrote: »
    I'll ask this over here too:

    Can you guys think of a good glass cannon build? I want to trade all my survivability away for some kind of utility (dps or anything else really). Just something spectacular to fit in between running around ducking away from danger. Thoughts?

    I'm going to cross-post my suggestion because I want it to happen so much.
    Zonugal wrote:
    Wait, Ringo, I might have another idea regarding a glass cannon.

    You could go full villain and utilize Animate Object.

    With a fifth-level slot, you'll get 10 tiny objects [+8 to hit, 1d4+4 damage] for one minute.

    That comes around to 60 average points of damage per round, so potentially 600 points of damage once the spell concludes.

    Come on, become the Magneto.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD32P4L4g4A

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Ringo wrote: »
    I'll ask this over here too:

    Can you guys think of a good glass cannon build? I want to trade all my survivability away for some kind of utility (dps or anything else really). Just something spectacular to fit in between running around ducking away from danger. Thoughts?

    Kobold mastermind rogue. You just endlessly spam out help actions and cower grovel and beg. I did it for almost an entire campaign and I can best describe it as:

    Zero offense. Pure support. All your companions becoming ubermench because you know what the fuck needs to be done.

    You have my attention!

    So did you stick with Mastermind the whole way, or did you multiclass into something to continue grabbing support abilities? I'm thinking Mastermind for 4 maybe 5 levels, but then jumping into something else if the game lasts long enough. Not sure what would really work from a no offense, pure support perspective. Lore Bard?

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    Ringo wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Ringo wrote: »
    I'll ask this over here too:

    Can you guys think of a good glass cannon build? I want to trade all my survivability away for some kind of utility (dps or anything else really). Just something spectacular to fit in between running around ducking away from danger. Thoughts?

    Kobold mastermind rogue. You just endlessly spam out help actions and cower grovel and beg. I did it for almost an entire campaign and I can best describe it as:

    Zero offense. Pure support. All your companions becoming ubermench because you know what the fuck needs to be done.

    You have my attention!

    So did you stick with Mastermind the whole way, or did you multiclass into something to continue grabbing support abilities? I'm thinking Mastermind for 4 maybe 5 levels, but then jumping into something else if the game lasts long enough. Not sure what would really work from a no offense, pure support perspective. Lore Bard?

    I ran all the way to level 11 with it.

    And the best part of playing lucky ted, was that since I wasn't making any attacks (ted was a straight pacifist) I didn't feel the need to boost his dex and instead focused on interesting options that would further his goals as a socialist spokesmen; lucky, a boost to con and wisdom and inspiring leader all worked well with the character and quickly earned the adoration of my fellow players.

    Of course, being able to help 2 characters per turn at range didn't hurt either.

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Hmmm, now I'm wondering if there's a way to optimize the help action to make a fake Warlord out of the Battlemaster Fighter.

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Tox wrote: »
    Hmmm, now I'm wondering if there's a way to optimize the help action to make a fake Warlord out of the Battlemaster Fighter.

    Battlemastermind fighter/rogue hybrid gets it done quite well actually.

    Though you can also just pull distracting strike followed by commander's strike so solid fighter also still works well for handing out attacks with advantage.

    Sleep on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    jammu wrote: »
    Beware of the Min-maxing. Some times it will bite you in the ass.

    Spoilers for Curse of Strahd:
    There is no natural sunlight on Ravenloft, so one of the players decided to roll Drow Paladin. No disadvantage to attacks and skills for this guy.
    Except we found the Sunsword-artifact on crossroads graveyard, immediately after we visited the Gypsie seer.
    One of its powers is that it emits real sunlight.

    He got to enjoy no sunlight for few random encounters and single haunted house adventure.

    weve been keeping the sunsword under wraps in most encounters, on warning that if strahd knows we have it, he will surely strike

    we got a new DM for curse of strahd, tactfully getting the old one to step down by pointing out that she can't run reliably and it would be best, sidestepping having to tell her that her characters are all just her (even strahd) and dont have different goals or motivations

    new DM lady started off by having strahd fly around tossing fireballs at us after we saved Irena from Barovia, he came down and took one magic item from each wounded player. Later, while I was alone, he kidnapped my aasimar wizard and bit her, telling her that the others in the party are not what they seem and that he's the only one in this land she can trust, that with her help he can make barovia great (character background is as an administrator who has a near unshakable faith in law and order, so despite Strahd being... Strahd... is the most receptive to something so asinine), and gave my stolen items and coin back... but not anyone else in the party. Telling me to consider what good I could bring to the land if I sat at his side (he's clearly just fucking with me, but my character couldn't be sure of that with the insight roll I got)

    this conversation was in private away from the party so they have no idea what we talked about, and their theory is that I'm actually working for strahd and insisted on quarantining me for a day to be sure I wasn't dominated

    One session in with the new DM and the party already frays, yes, yes, delightful

    also the hags are selling dream pastries again, even though we destroyed their tower, they are acting like nothing ever happened. The evil druid the party captured at yester hill that I convinced to turn against strahd was found murdered in Vallaki, "Strahd Lover" carved into her body. THIS is the barovia I wanted

    override367 on
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Hey so can ya'll check this homebrew I came up with and let me know what you think? Mostly does it actually sound fun?

    I've made changes to how hit dice and Healing work.
    1. Hit Dice can now be spent to improve the abilities of your character. A hit dice can be spent many ways. They are listed below. A hit die used once per round.
    a. Spend a hit die and roll it. The result is added to the “To Hit” result of the d20 roll. This can be declared after the roll has been made, but before results are revealed.
    b. Spend a hit die and roll it. The result can be added to the damage after an attack has been dealt. This is declared after the damage dice have been rolled but before the results are revealed.
    c. Spend a hit die and roll it, the result is added to any Save or Check that the chracter is making.
    d. Spend a hit die to generate disadvantage on any Save or Check that the chracter is causing an enemy to make.
    2. Any healing that adds actual hit points outside of a long rest now consumes a hit die when it is performed. When the healing is performed roll the hit die and add it to the healing received. Any healing that goes above your maximum is converted to temporary HP.
    a. Note that the Paladin’s Lay on Hands Cure Disease feature does not consume hit dice.
    3. Healing Potions now only add temporary HP. These do not consume hit dice. The rules about a new source of temporary HP replacing previous temporary HP are still in effect.
    4. Temporary HP go away after a short or long rest.
    5. If a Character runs out of hit dice, any healing will only bring them back to 1HP, and the character will not be able to gain any temp HP.

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  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    My first impression is that it's gonna dramatically increase the value of having a big hit die - adding 1d10 to a save or whatever is a substantially larger bonus than adding 1d6, so classes with large hit dice are going to get much more of a boost out of this than classes with small hit dice, especially if they can reliably avoid taking damage and having to spend their dice that way.

    It's very probably a net reduction in available healing, for two reasons: firstly, particularly at low levels, you can't keep healing the fighter even if you've got spell slots for it, because he'll run out of dice before you run out of spells, and secondly, players WILL burn up their dice on exciting proactive things like making missed attacks hit or whatever and then go 'oh shit I can't heal' when they start taking damage - so you'll want to be prepared for that, and take it into account when ballparking how much punishment the party can take before they get overwhelmed.

    Spending a hit die to impose disadvantage on an enemy stands out as odd - all the other uses involve rolling the die and adding the result to something. It'd be cleaner and more intuitive if you roll the die and apply the result as a penalty instead (and it'll play nice with whatever other things the players get that let them impose disadvantage).

    It makes large single-packet heals better relative to small heals - if you only get to be healed 3-5 total times per day, for example, you'll be much better off spending those dice by getting healed for 3d8 from an upleveled cure wounds than for 1d4 from a low-level healing word. That's not a bad thing, though - the net effect here is basically to make the good heals worse and the bad heals better, which is interesting and helps corral the utility of stuff like Healing Spirit back down to reasonable levels.

    Turning healing potions into shield potions is probably going to make the players much more willing to use them - the use case for healing potions tends to be 'sandbag them until absolutely necessary because you might need them more later', but under this system you're best-off chugging one to start the day like your morning coffee, since it wards off having to spend your limited dice on being healed. Players are probably going to want healing potions more, since every hit you can soak with a potion is basically an unspent hit die which in turn is a saving throw you can un-fail, etc. Likely turns them into a valued gold sink if you don't want to make a lot of magic gear available for purchase.

    Lay on Hands is probably worth examining specifically if you've got a paladin in the party - these rules are going to incentivize your paladin to dump his whole LoH budget all at once, since it only 'costs' one hit die that way, rather than portioning it out a little at a time. Also, since LoH is an action, the overhealing-as-temp-hp rule is going to prompt your paladin dump LoH while he's at full health right BEFORE tough fights to give himself 40-odd temp HP to start with. Again, not necessarily good or bad, just a likely consequence you should expect and take into consideration.

    You're creating a lot of options for how to spend a limited resource - it makes that resource very powerful, and it's likely to create some amount of decision paralysis (and/or memory issues) for your players unless they're proficient analytical gamers. If they are, go nuts, but if they're more casual you might want to cut the number of options down a little so they don't get overwhelmed.

    Boosting/penalizing a save is a pretty big swing that can also translate into more HP for the player just like healing does (by letting them duck/stick an important spell) - it's possible that your players may conclude that they shouldn't heal at all because they can get more effective healing out of turning failed saves into a successful ones than out of directly changing their HP total. I'm not sure whether that conclusion would be accurate or not (it's probably circumstantial), but if you've got one or more healing-focused characters in the party you might run into an issue where a player wants to heal a party member who doesn't want to be healed, which is probably a feel-bad for a healing-focused character. I'd make sure to make these healing changes available to players before they roll their characters, and if anyone comes back with e.g. a life cleric or whatever, you might want to make sure they understand there will probably be times where they have healing spells available and other players are missing HP but none of them can be/will consent to be healed.

    I'd be interested to see how it plays out - it's probably gameable to some extent if healing potions are freely available, but otherwise my impression is that it makes combat into a riskier, more lethal affair that will probably leave players with more agency over the outcome of their actions at the cost of their ability to heal whatever damage they do take. Fights will feel more tense, players will take more risks, aggressive plays will be more rewarded (because you can force success with dice, mitigating the short-term risk), and things will die faster - both monsters and players. If that's what you're after, you're probably in good shape.

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Thank you for the feedback. It is super helpful.

    It does certainly favor those with bigger hit die, but I figured it's also a greater risk reward for them, as those characters will be much more likely to take hits in general so will have to prioritize healing versus spending the dice other ways. So its working as intended there. Characters with smaller dice are likely to be "safer" in spending them on effects versus needing them to heal.

    I will probably change the last option to the rolled dice, it does stand out like you said.

    Is the Paladin the only class with inherent healing that can be used on others? I was going around with the same things you brought up when I was initially typing this out. They might get houseruled.

    Also certainly i wouldn't spring this sight unseen mid campaign. These kinds of rules need table buy off.

    Thank you again for the look over. I'm still learning how to work this stuff out with balance in mind and knowing I'm not completely off the deep end is nice to know.

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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Anzekay wrote: »
    Aldo wrote: »
    My fighter picked up Lightbringer, the mace imbued with powers of Lethander. I wanted to give it to our cleric of Zeus, but she refused for OC reasons: she didn't want to be a standard cleric. So it was a dpr upgrade for my fighter, but our DM didn't expect this at all, he figured it would be a nice hook to give a cleric an item for the wrong god. I decided to lean into it, my fighter is from a village and still quite young so he really likes this mace and has become religious because of it.

    This session we had downtime, so I went looking for a priest of Lethander to ask for advice on what Lethander expected of me. Luck has it that the only priest in Triboar is a fuck up passed out in the worst inn in town. He mostly just felt bad and seeing Lightbringer did encourage him a bit to move back to his temple in Redlarch. I paid his debts and interpreted his low effort confirmation that Lethander is great and that my mace should be used as a tool of Lethander. I reasoned that when I slam it i to an orc, then it is Lethander's will that his mace is used for that.

    I went back to my party as a convinced Lethanderist and will continue adventuring to bring the light of the Morninglord to all the people who need it.

    DM seemed to enjoy it, and I handed him enough knives for the next few years.

    Lathander is the best D&D deity, all glory to the Morninglord

    you should see if your character can find some members of the Order of Aster and see about joining. they're an order or Paladins and Fighters sponsored directly by the church of Lathander and they're all badasses

    I see your lathander and raise you Sune, goddess of love and beauty.

    Because there is nothing like the expression on that horde of bandit's faces when you channel your passion into a fireball that decimates the lot of them.

    Praise the Sune.

    One of my friends played a paladin of Sune in a one shot and it was fantastic, there's a subclass for it!

    Oath of Love

    You're basically too pretty to hurt, I love their capstone
    ENDLESS DEVOTION Beginning at 20th level, your love resonates in harmony with all creation, allowing you to tap directly into the empathic connection between all things. As an action, you may gain the following benefits for one minute:
    • You glow with a pink, violet, white, or red dim light that extends from you in a 15-foot radius.
    • When an ally within 60 feet of you (other than yourself) takes damage, you may use your reaction to reduce that damage by half.
    • Enemies that start their turn adjacent to you and that are not immune to charm effects must immediately make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. If the creature fails this save, it drops any weapon it is holding in its hands, and the creature may not attack this turn.

    override367 on
  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Hey so can ya'll check this homebrew I came up with and let me know what you think? Mostly does it actually sound fun?

    I've made changes to how hit dice and Healing work.
    1. Hit Dice can now be spent to improve the abilities of your character. A hit dice can be spent many ways. They are listed below. A hit die used once per round.
    a. Spend a hit die and roll it. The result is added to the “To Hit” result of the d20 roll. This can be declared after the roll has been made, but before results are revealed.
    b. Spend a hit die and roll it. The result can be added to the damage after an attack has been dealt. This is declared after the damage dice have been rolled but before the results are revealed.
    c. Spend a hit die and roll it, the result is added to any Save or Check that the chracter is making.
    d. Spend a hit die to generate disadvantage on any Save or Check that the chracter is causing an enemy to make.
    2. Any healing that adds actual hit points outside of a long rest now consumes a hit die when it is performed. When the healing is performed roll the hit die and add it to the healing received. Any healing that goes above your maximum is converted to temporary HP.
    a. Note that the Paladin’s Lay on Hands Cure Disease feature does not consume hit dice.
    3. Healing Potions now only add temporary HP. These do not consume hit dice. The rules about a new source of temporary HP replacing previous temporary HP are still in effect.
    4. Temporary HP go away after a short or long rest.
    5. If a Character runs out of hit dice, any healing will only bring them back to 1HP, and the character will not be able to gain any temp HP.


    You've basically given everyone a better version of Bardic Inspiration for free, that doesn't rely on the action economy.

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • A duck!A duck! Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited January 2019
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Hey so can ya'll check this homebrew I came up with and let me know what you think? Mostly does it actually sound fun?

    I've made changes to how hit dice and Healing work.
    1. Hit Dice can now be spent to improve the abilities of your character. A hit dice can be spent many ways. They are listed below. A hit die used once per round.
    a. Spend a hit die and roll it. The result is added to the “To Hit” result of the d20 roll. This can be declared after the roll has been made, but before results are revealed.
    b. Spend a hit die and roll it. The result can be added to the damage after an attack has been dealt. This is declared after the damage dice have been rolled but before the results are revealed.
    c. Spend a hit die and roll it, the result is added to any Save or Check that the chracter is making.
    d. Spend a hit die to generate disadvantage on any Save or Check that the chracter is causing an enemy to make.
    2. Any healing that adds actual hit points outside of a long rest now consumes a hit die when it is performed. When the healing is performed roll the hit die and add it to the healing received. Any healing that goes above your maximum is converted to temporary HP.
    a. Note that the Paladin’s Lay on Hands Cure Disease feature does not consume hit dice.
    3. Healing Potions now only add temporary HP. These do not consume hit dice. The rules about a new source of temporary HP replacing previous temporary HP are still in effect.
    4. Temporary HP go away after a short or long rest.
    5. If a Character runs out of hit dice, any healing will only bring them back to 1HP, and the character will not be able to gain any temp HP.


    You've basically given everyone a better version of Bardic Inspiration for free, that doesn't rely on the action economy.

    1d would definitely get me to make a caster will all the "save or suck" spells I could get my hands on. I would gladly trade a hit die to force disadvantage on Hold Person or Hold Monster.

    A duck! on
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Yea i think these rules would definitely have to make the DM run enemy attacks more intelligently because you would want your players to have to think about burning those resources or saving them for healing. You would certainly have to build combats to put more pressure on the casters potentially.

    Also the rules probably work best between levels 5-15 where you have enough hit dice to be able to make decisions but not so many a player feels no pressure from using them. Most campaigns end before 15 though so I don't think it's too much of an issue.

    Hopefully the players remember they only get half their hit dice back on a long rest, which would hopefully add another calculation to the decision when burning hit dice.

    webguy20 on
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  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    In my games I've houseruled Hit Dice to work more like Healing Surges and Inspiration to work more like Action Points, so I'm very interested to see how those rules work out.

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Denada wrote: »
    In my games I've houseruled Hit Dice to work more like Healing Surges and Inspiration to work more like Action Points, so I'm very interested to see how those rules work out.

    We always forget about inspiration, players and DMs alike. I do like the idea of making them more like action points.

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  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Denada wrote: »
    In my games I've houseruled Hit Dice to work more like Healing Surges and Inspiration to work more like Action Points, so I'm very interested to see how those rules work out.

    We always forget about inspiration, players and DMs alike. I do like the idea of making them more like action points.

    I've also been fiddling with the idea of making them more like Fate Points from Fate or the Doom Pool from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, but every time I start going down that rabbit trail I end up just wanting to play MHR instead. So I've stuck with just the basic houserule of "You start every session with one point of Inspiration, and you can earn more at the DM's discretion. You can use a point of Inspiration to reroll something if it failed."

    I haven't tried adding the whole extra standard action thing yet, but with a three-person party that doesn't sound too terrible.

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Denada wrote: »
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Denada wrote: »
    In my games I've houseruled Hit Dice to work more like Healing Surges and Inspiration to work more like Action Points, so I'm very interested to see how those rules work out.

    We always forget about inspiration, players and DMs alike. I do like the idea of making them more like action points.

    I've also been fiddling with the idea of making them more like Fate Points from Fate or the Doom Pool from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, but every time I start going down that rabbit trail I end up just wanting to play MHR instead. So I've stuck with just the basic houserule of "You start every session with one point of Inspiration, and you can earn more at the DM's discretion. You can use a point of Inspiration to reroll something if it failed."

    I haven't tried adding the whole extra standard action thing yet, but with a three-person party that doesn't sound too terrible.

    You could try the story points method from genesys. There are x amount of tokens equal to the player count, plus one for the DM. Each group has access to their own pool. Whenever someone spends a point it moves to the other pool. The tokens reset at the beginning of a session.

    You could have the tokens give advantage/disadvantage, move x amount, give an attack action. Whatever.

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  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    Has anyone used Aralyn's Stolen Notes to Velea as a resource for 5E character builds? It is a Pay What you Want document that has a lot of interesting looking modifications to the base classes. I'm thinking of using a couple in an upcoming game because they have some great concepts I can't really build using the core rules, but I was hoping to get some feedback on how well balanced the options are from someone with more experience with 5e. The main one I am looking at is The Beloved patron for Warlocks, but the Mask for Bards and a couple of the cleric options also look interesting.

  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    We made our characters last night. My plan was to take 3 levels of bard and then switch to Warlock. There are 6 players in the group, so I was going to aim for buffing/debuffing as my niche. We built level 1 characters for an intro adventure.

    We did rolled stats and I rolled

    9 10 14 6 9 15. The GM took pity on me and allowed me to reroll the 6 which turned into a 10.

    I put my stats to
    STR 9
    DEX 10
    CON 14
    INT 9
    WIS 10
    CHA 15

    I choose variant human as my race and put my +1 to int and cha since the gm has a rule that if you have an int penalty they may veto plans you come up with/force you to make an int check.

    I grabbed Alert as my Feat and went with an Archaeologist background. Skills went to
    History
    Perception
    Deception
    Intimidation
    Persuasion
    Performance.

    Spells were chosen as
    Vicious Mockery
    Minor Illusion

    Bane
    Discordant Whispers
    Sleep
    Faerie Fire

    We will be starting at level 3 so I was going to go Lore Bard, but we are going to do an intro adventure next session at level 1 since there are a bunch of new players. My intention is to do as little dice rolling as I can.

    My wife who is also new to this made a Forest Gnome Ranger with an entertainer background. One of the more experienced players tried to suggest other races, but she stuck with it. She then rolled a low of 14 for her stats with one 18 and two 17s... so there aren't really many concerns there.

    Caedwyr on
  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »

    I choose variant human as my race and put my +1 to int and cha since the gm has a rule that if you have an int penalty they may veto plans you come up with/force you to make an int check.

    This makes my skin itch...

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I think that ruling got put in place to prevent the GM's boyfriend from dumping his INT as low as he could go on a barbarian and then playing him as dumber than a sack of rocks, yet being a strategic and tactical genius. It seems the GM and the boyfriend are not that used to thinking outside of the box, as they were surprised I was intending that my bard wouldn't sing, but instead would be played as someone who always knew the right words to say and had picked up a few tricks over their life.

    I did suggest that you could potentially rp a low int character as someone who has problems in the skills that use an int check, but normal otherwise. This seemed to be something they hadn't considered, but weren't totally against, so we will see. The GM seems pretty permissive so long as we don't powergame too much.

    Caedwyr on
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