Not everyone has a high intelligence though - and a wizard needs to be really smart, or their spells are easy to resist.
additionally dnd rangers also have access to spells, and strength score is pretty silly in an of it self.
all these stats and most of DnD are abstractions - so i keep getting confused when suddenly reality is important, when all skills and damage is an abstract idea.
The amount of 20 intelligence wizards that don't try a door handle before figuring out how to teleport the door to an alternate dimension are legion.
dnd archers are superhuman. their effectiveness is superhuman. All PCs are basically superhuman murdering machines. and besides, an arrow to the heart of a wizard is a lethal as being rendered asunder to the last of your molecules, but in both cases "I got 1 hit point left guys, i'm fine!" But yeah, its dumb that archers can be competitive with wizards.
That said: I only have my players keep track of special arrows. I assume that amongst normal preparation and with their daily-town-upkeep, they just make sure they have plenty of arrows with them, unless specifically robbed.
Bodkin points are piercing, being long and narrow for, well, piercing armor. Something they're quite good at, btw. Anything short of plate is as good as nonexistent to a longbowman with bodkin arrows. That's why they're assumed as the "standard" combat arrow for the bow's damage. Broadheads cause a much larger wound channel with lots of tissue damage so the animal you're hunting will bleed out quickly, as from a cut. Fowling blunts are usually nonlethal to a human the first time, but can easily break a rib, especially when loosed from a heavy warbow. A second hit could well puncture a lung. Since most targets in-game take more than one hit to kill, it sounds reasonable that my fantasy archer would carry all three types.
Broadheads would still be piercing. Just like a short sword is pirecing. Broadheads arent bigger than short swords and neither of them are reasonably slashing damage. Broadheads are also likely the default arrow both due to the fact that that is the fantasy trope (seriously when was the last time you saw a fantasy archer draw a bodkin? Cut that; when was the last time in any fiction?) and also being the type of arrow depicted in the images in the phb.
Whatever it is that legolas draws in Lotr is far more a bodkin than a broadhead. Game of thrones typically uses bodkins, heck even katniss everdeen uses bodkins when hunting. (though not in the actual hunger games for some reason)
One of the player characters in my D&D setting is a gnomish UA Beastmaster ranger, with a pet badger named rufflestuff, he has a familiar as well, an owl named PAM. They can hold their own on the battlefield.
Also the arcane archer's arcane shot feature doesn't eat their bonus action. They can't nova 2 in the same round, but arcane shot is decided upon as part of the attack action when an attack hits.
They're of moderate use, and the most part you are just an archer. With a couple of bits of flash. However being able to regularly pop a 25ft by 25ft by 25ft cube with 2d6 of unavoidable damage is a pretty dope bit of flash you can pull off twice a short rest.
The arcane archer is a little bit more someone that knows the basics and maybe some advanced arcane theory but only uses arcane powers in a very specific way. Essentially you're following a specific manual to enhance your archery a little. You clear your mind visualize and think, maybe just whisper a small incantation as you loose your arrow, and boom.
The Eldritch Knight with a bow is much more someone wielding spell and bow at the same time. They are preparing spells and doing full arcane works to leverage spells with full vocal somatic and material components every turn along side their attacks. They have a spell book and study the arcane arts.
Both are fighters, and can pretty unquestioningly wreck shit in combat as a baseline.
On the arcane archer if you're looking for a little bit more magic in your life the magic initiate feat can be used to great effect, either to net some kind of utility, or to increase offensive capability.
The martial adept feat can also get you a couple more options in combat.
Sharpshooter is a pretty standard feat grab for the arcane archer as well.
The artificer is much more a guy with all the arcane machinery you could think of, they are on a crossbow that they enchant.
I would totally play an arcane archer with the magic initiate feat into artificer. Get that arcane weapon spell once per day, take mending so I don't care about broken arrows, and maybe resistance to regularly have a leg up on my saves. Martial adept on top of that for distracting strike and goading attack, and then sharp shooter and we're pretty much rockin. ASI from there out if we make it much past 6. Maybe grab crossbow expert simply so I can shoot in melee
Also the arcane archer's arcane shot feature doesn't eat their bonus action. They can't nova 2 in the same round, but arcane shot is decided upon as part of the attack action when an attack hits.
Is there an updated or eratta version? Because the one i am looking at lets you
“Once as a bonus action on your turn” create a magic arrow. And then “whenever you create an arrow”. And all the arcane shot features say “if you hit with this arrow” and not “you may do x when you hit”
You can buy arrows and bolts just about anywhere civilized and many places not civilized, or craft your own from materials plentiful in the wilds. They are cheap to buy. You can use as many as you have on you, and they are so light, even low strength users can carry hundreds. If you have special items (magic quivers or a bag of holding) that hundreds turns into infinity.
This was my point, you're not limited to carrying a quiver's worth, they're dirt cheap and very light, even if you WERE to just carry them on your person at all times (which, why would you? Do your adventurers walk everywhere?).
And using Fireball as a damage metric for magic damage in general is broken, because 5E designers have gone on record saying that Fireball does too much damage for its level, on purpose, because it's an iconic D&D spell and they wanted it to feel special. Unless you're literally just throwing fireballs all day, in which case I guess we're also assuming spellcasters are worthless in team fights or indoor fights.
Fireball shouldn't really ever be outdoing your martials against single targets consistently, it exists to clear groups and make the spellcaster feel like a force of nature
Which is fine, the spellcaster is going to feel a lot less like a force of nature when you're fighting an iron golem and they might as well be throwing wads of tissue paper, meanwhile the barbarian they put haste on is executing a rapid disassembly of the construct
I feel like if the martials are undervalued, the DM is failing the party, frankly, for not building encounters
Also the arcane archer's arcane shot feature doesn't eat their bonus action. They can't nova 2 in the same round, but arcane shot is decided upon as part of the attack action when an attack hits.
Is there an updated or eratta version? Because the one i am looking at lets you
“Once as a bonus action on your turn” create a magic arrow. And then “whenever you create an arrow”. And all the arcane shot features say “if you hit with this arrow” and not “you may do x when you hit”
Im looking at d&d beyond
You're possibly looking at the 7th level ability to reroll a missed attack against a new target. That eats a bonus action.
Arcane Shot
At 3rd level, you learn to unleash special magical effects with some of your shots. When you gain this feature, you learn two Arcane Shot options of your choice (see “Arcane Shot Options” below).
Once per turn when you fire an arrow from a shortbow or longbow as part of the Attack action, you can apply one of your Arcane Shot options to that arrow. You decide to use the option when the arrow hits a creature, unless the option doesn’t involve an attack roll. You have two uses of this ability, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest.
So my players have decided on their new characters for the next campaign arc. I'm going to be enjoying a Bugbear Storm Herald Barbarian, a Changeling Wild Magic Sorcerer, and a Protector Aasimar Vengeance Paladin.
So my players have decided on their new characters for the next campaign arc. I'm going to be enjoying a Bugbear Storm Herald Barbarian, a Changeling Wild Magic Sorcerer, and a Protector Aasimar Vengeance Paladin.
This should be interesting.
This party is just gonna totally melt combat encounters.
So my players have decided on their new characters for the next campaign arc. I'm going to be enjoying a Bugbear Storm Herald Barbarian, a Changeling Wild Magic Sorcerer, and a Protector Aasimar Vengeance Paladin.
This should be interesting.
This party is just gonna totally melt combat encounters.
... until an errant Wild Magic surge accidentally melts them.
I don't need to be top in class for damage, but I want to feel useful.
We recently played a high level game, and my level 17 rouge did terrible damage unless I got to sneak attack. Most other characters seemed to do as much damage as my sneak attack with out conditional modifies.
Hence why I asked about Archers. The only class I've really only played as is a Wizard, which seems to have a pretty clear power curve. All the other classes seem to get is a slight bump in power once they hit the teens.
I don't need to be top in class for damage, but I want to feel useful.
We recently played a high level game, and my level 17 rouge did terrible damage unless I got to sneak attack. Most other characters seemed to do as much damage as my sneak attack with out conditional modifies.
Hence why I asked about Archers. The only class I've really only played as is a Wizard, which seems to have a pretty clear power curve. All the other classes seem to get is a slight bump in power once they hit the teens.
Your rogue should be able to come by sneak attack damage rather easily. So long as you have an ally in melee with the enemy you're hitting you get your sneak attack damage.
I don't need to be top in class for damage, but I want to feel useful.
We recently played a high level game, and my level 17 rouge did terrible damage unless I got to sneak attack. Most other characters seemed to do as much damage as my sneak attack with out conditional modifies.
Hence why I asked about Archers. The only class I've really only played as is a Wizard, which seems to have a pretty clear power curve. All the other classes seem to get is a slight bump in power once they hit the teens.
You might consider Warlock? Eldritch Blast (Agonizing Blast and/or Hex) is an easy, consistent way to apply competitive damage, and then you're free to grab all kinds of utility from your other Inscriptions, spells known, and pact.
I don't need to be top in class for damage, but I want to feel useful.
We recently played a high level game, and my level 17 rouge did terrible damage unless I got to sneak attack. Most other characters seemed to do as much damage as my sneak attack with out conditional modifies.
Hence why I asked about Archers. The only class I've really only played as is a Wizard, which seems to have a pretty clear power curve. All the other classes seem to get is a slight bump in power once they hit the teens.
Your rogue should be able to come by sneak attack damage rather easily. So long as you have an ally in melee with the enemy you're hitting you get your sneak attack damage.
It was a combination of moving targets (disengage), other characters not getting in melee range, and me just plain ole forgetting.
I don't need to be top in class for damage, but I want to feel useful.
We recently played a high level game, and my level 17 rouge did terrible damage unless I got to sneak attack. Most other characters seemed to do as much damage as my sneak attack with out conditional modifies.
Hence why I asked about Archers. The only class I've really only played as is a Wizard, which seems to have a pretty clear power curve. All the other classes seem to get is a slight bump in power once they hit the teens.
You might consider Warlock? Eldritch Blast (Agonizing Blast and/or Hex) is an easy, consistent way to apply competitive damage, and then you're free to grab all kinds of utility from your other Inscriptions, spells known, and pact.
Since I played Wizard I wanted to try something different (aka not full magic).
Ended up with a short list of Artificer, Barbarian or Fighter.
Our D&D campaign started up again. DM has moved and settled in and we no longer play biweekly on a Thursday evening after work, we now use the apartment of one of the players and do a monthly session in the weekend.
Semi-historical campaign is done, so we now have a full fantasy campaign. DM has made her own setting (which has a lot of Dark Souls-like influences as far as I can tell, but I know she never played Dark Souls.)
Spoilered for long:
Anyway, currently we have crashed a ship on an island and all woken up with amnesia. Black character sheet and occassionally we remember stuff from our old sheets. We all got blank sheets to fill in as we slowly remembered stuff.
The group:
- Eldritch Knight. Human. Tall and strong. Don't know much about him yet.
- Half-Orc Bard, College of Whispers. Probably evil.
- Divine Sorceress. Aasimar (but thinks/presents herself as a half-elf). Very enthusiastic about saving the world.
- Dwarven Monk, Open Hand style. < me. Very shy and polite.
Monk and Sorceress spend most time burying the bodies of the others on board the ship, Bard went to look for food and Knight climbed a tree to look around the island. He saw some structures in the middle of the island. (DM later told me that she wanted us to explore the remains of the ship more, my Monk even was in the Captain's quarters, but just took the body of the captain to bury him). We set off for the structures. Some statues on the way were interesting (and as a dwarf I finally got some good use out of Stonecunning. I probably did a mistake in what it actually does, still having the other versions of Stonecunning in mind, but the DM went with and during this adventures filled with statues, Stonecunning was actually really useful and gave us some information on the style and period the statues were made in).
We fought a paper dragon that nearly turned our bard to stone, our Sorceress started a deadly rivalry with an inanimate stone statue, the Eldritch Knight abused its rat familiar by tying it to a long rope to have it scout down a deep hole (all for not, but climbing down was pretty easy for all of us.) We saw dozens of dancing ghost and danced among them. Finally we found a statue of an Owl God without a face. We decided that its face needed to be restored and we encountered an Owl Statue earlier, so ... I spend minutes talking about Face/Off. (One status was 12 feet tall, the other was 4 feet tall, so not a workable plan sadly).
The Owl God was restored and turned us all into Brave Undead Tainted. When we die, we come back alive with some severe penalties. Die to much and you become Hollow Foresaken. (She really has never played or knew anything about Dark Souls). Owl God also teleported us to a city and we received a bit of our memory back.
We managed to avoid nearly all possible combat (only the Paper Dragon) by deciding to leave everything alone that was not a direct threat to us.
I highly recommend an "arcane archer" hexblade/pact of the blade at some point in a one shot or whatever, it's actually a shitload of fun, use your spell slots on smites or things like shadow of moil, flavor your eldritch blasts as magic arrows, you can see through darkness or jump really high, its great - the actual arcane archer class doesn't feel nearly as strong to me until you get your third attack, the lack of scaling on their damaging shots is kind of sad by comparison (a 9th level hexblade's smite arrow with a longbow will do 7d8+cha damage, and if they want to blow both spells at once, banishing smite at the same time for +5d10)
as for rogues, yeah you should basically always have sneak attack... if you're at range and have no allies near by, get distance and Bonus Action Hide to gain advantage, or use your attacks on creatures with an adjacent ally, or play as a rogue like a swashbuckler that just gets sneak attack
To be "optimal" if you're going to be a melee rogue, you need allies nearby, a source of advantage, or to be a swashbuckler or inquisitor - and build around a mechanic for using your Reaction to hit things if possible (a short jaunt into Battlemaster for riposte, also lets you use a shield is always great), if you can hit an enemy and fulfill the conditions outside of your turn, its another sneak attack
My group that play over internet for about 2.5hours/ week with myself as DM didnt enjoy Mad Mage that much. After reading some adventure books I picked Curse of Strahd and basicly had them teleported to Barovia from a strange mist. Its a really good adventure! The group really liked Tomb of Annihilation but I think we all enjoy this more. We even have a live session planned for tomorrow :biggrin:
I've spent a lot of time trying to make sense of alignment, with mixed results.
My biggest questions at the moment are "what would be the alignment of someone who is willing to do evil (or at least not get in evils way) for the greater good" and "what would be the alignment of someone unwilling to do evil for the greater good, even if it is likely refusal to do so will result in greater evil".
The Blood War sets up a good scenario for these questions. On the one hand, the Blood War keeps demons and devils focused on fighting one another and distracts them from working their designs on the mortal world. Additionally, by letting the forces of evil fight one another the forces of good have more resources free to do good (as opposed to having their hands full fighting against fiends). However, the Blood War sometimes spills out into other sections of the cosmos, and the need for a population of devils large enough and strong enough to hold their own against the more numerous demons means that devils not only need to recruit mortals, but that too much opposition by the celestials against the devils' recruitment attempts could weaken the Infernal forces enough that the Abyssal hordes triumph.
Based on this scenario, how would characters of the various alignments view the supposed necessity of the Blood War?
I think one could make the argument that to be made that the good-evil axis is about ends and the law-chaos axis is about means.
Through that lens, a person who wants to achieve the greater good and is morally flexible enough to use arguably-evil means to get there is probably chaotic good; your question is basically a cosmic-scale version of the classic 'is it okay to steal bread to feed orphans' example of the chaotic good alignment.
Likewise, a person who wants to achieve the greater good and has a rigid code about what means are appropriate to achieve goodness and isn't willing to deviate from that code even if doing so could help people is probably lawful good - again, 'how would this person react to the Blood War?' is basically a cosmic-scale equivalent to the idea that a lawful good character would arrest the chaotic good bread-thief for stealing even though he agrees with the end goal of feeding the orphans.
Both of those conclusions, though, are complicated by the classic alignment problem that individuals don't have absolute moral authority or perception and a person who thinks that they're going evil 'for the greater good' could absolutely be evil-aligned if they're wrong about what 'the greater good' actually is.
My biggest questions at the moment are "what would be the alignment of someone who is willing to do evil (or at least not get in evils way) for the greater good" and "what would be the alignment of someone unwilling to do evil for the greater good, even if it is likely refusal to do so will result in greater evil".
For the former I'd say Lawful Evil. It's basically Utilitarianism, you're treating good and evil like they're scales and the sum is all that matters, when doing good doesn't in fact undo evil. Especially not in the simplified D&D definition.
The latter is described by inaction, which I think isn't specific enough to define alignment. Just because someone doesn't personally try to shoot a murderer dead in the street doesn't make them evil, or good, it just makes them nor a murderer.
Arcane Shot
At 3rd level, you learn to unleash special magical effects with some of your shots. When you gain this feature, you learn two Arcane Shot options of your choice (see “Arcane Shot Options” below).
Once per turn when you fire an arrow from a shortbow or longbow as part of the Attack action, you can apply one of your Arcane Shot options to that arrow. You decide to use the option when the arrow hits a creature, unless the option doesn’t involve an attack roll. You have two uses of this ability, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest.
You gain an additional Arcane Shot option of your choice when you reach certain levels in this class: 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th level. Each option also improves when you become an 18th-level fighter.
Magic Arrow
At 7th level, you gain the ability to infuse arrows with magic. Whenever you fire a nonmagical arrow from a shortbow or longbow, you can make it magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. The magic fades from the arrow immediately after it hits or misses its target.
Curving Shot
At 7th level, you learn how to direct an errant arrow toward a new target. When you make an attack roll with a magic arrow and miss, you can use a bonus action to reroll the attack roll against a different target within 60 feet of the original target.
My hot take: alignment charts are dumb. People don't consistently act one way all the time. Trying to decide where a really complex action lies on a chart is impossible and subject to interpretation.
The Blood War is a good example. It won't matter if it was all for the greater good if it badly effects you. You'll see it as evil. And that's actually awesome! Great plots can be had where everyone is genuinely fighting for something good, but they all disagree on how.
We got into a real kerfufle about alignment when I got manshoon's black robe
"Well you're chaotic neutral and making active efforts to be a good person"
"How much evil do I have to do to be considered evil"
"Err"
"Is it just murder of the innocent, can I commit a lot of tax evasion, or go rob people?"
the dm deliberated for a few minutes, realized exactly what was going to happen to his campaign if he dignified me with a response, and declared there were no alignment restrictions on magic items, however intelligent magic items might force you to do acts consistent with their alignment
I would have evaded the hell out of those taxes
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
edited June 2019
Alignment is tricky to discuss because it depends on whether you consider it to be a derived characteristic ("actions determine alignment," as a descriptive attribute), versus alignment as an ideology that informs a character's actions. I prefer the former interpretation, and I generally prefer Magic: the Gathering's take on morality to D&D's. As it's implemented, D&D alignment can lead to discussions/arguments where each party is simply talking past each other.
We got into a real kerfufle about alignment when I got manshoon's black robe
"Well you're chaotic neutral and making active efforts to be a good person"
"How much evil do I have to do to be considered evil"
"Err"
"Is it just murder of the innocent, can I commit a lot of tax evasion, or go rob people?"
the dm deliberated for a few minutes, realized exactly what was going to happen to his campaign if he dignified me with a response, and declared there were no alignment restrictions on magic items, however intelligent magic items might force you to do acts consistent with their alignment
I would have evaded the hell out of those taxes
To be fair, you could probably argue that just truthfully announcing your willingness to be as evil as is necessary to gain more power for yourself by attuning to this cool robe would itself constitute an evil alignment. You've even got a clear reason for the alignment shift: I found this cool robe, and I was tempted by its power.
But what if he uses the robe for good then, and only good? Is he to be judged as evil because he would of committed murder, or is that a chaotic good action cause he would of done it for the greater good?
But what if he uses the robe for good then, and only good? Is he to be judged as evil because he would of committed murder, or is that a chaotic good action cause he would of done it for the greater good?
Alignment of unintelligent things is especially stupid.
I used this hammer to build an orphanage, a temple and a hospital. Lots of good right?
Oh no, it was a naughty hammer, none of those things count.
Really this is about applying a genre trope and trying to generalize it to fiction (and non-fiction) outside the genre. Weirdly, the real world doesn't run on heroic sword and sourcery tropes.
Well yeah, if creating undead isn't objectively evil, no exceptions, then there's no logical reason why you don't live in the Necromantic Socialist Republics. Unlimited free labor makes feudalism rather untenable.
I think one could make the argument that to be made that the good-evil axis is about ends and the law-chaos axis is about means.
Through that lens, a person who wants to achieve the greater good and is morally flexible enough to use arguably-evil means to get there is probably chaotic good; your question is basically a cosmic-scale version of the classic 'is it okay to steal bread to feed orphans' example of the chaotic good alignment.
Likewise, a person who wants to achieve the greater good and has a rigid code about what means are appropriate to achieve goodness and isn't willing to deviate from that code even if doing so could help people is probably lawful good - again, 'how would this person react to the Blood War?' is basically a cosmic-scale equivalent to the idea that a lawful good character would arrest the chaotic good bread-thief for stealing even though he agrees with the end goal of feeding the orphans.
Both of those conclusions, though, are complicated by the classic alignment problem that individuals don't have absolute moral authority or perception and a person who thinks that they're going evil 'for the greater good' could absolutely be evil-aligned if they're wrong about what 'the greater good' actually is.
I personally think of the difference between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good as the former valuing stability and predictability while the latter values flexibility and change. The former wants gradual reformation to make sure a change doesn't have negative consequences while the latter wants revolution because the longer you take the more you allow current suffering to continue (that is, worrying about bad things that might happen is less important than stopping bad things that are happening).
With the bread thief example I can see the Lawful Good character arresting the Chaotic Good character for stealing. The Lawful Good character cares about a stable society with consistent standards because they believe it is for the greater good. The Chaotic Good character doesn't care about the laws of a stable society if said society allows people to go hungry.
When it comes to the Blood War, the Lawful Good character grudgingly allows it as a necessary evil for cosmic stability and to keep the friends preoccupied so they can do good without having to spend all their time fighting demons and devils. The Chaotic Good character, in contrast, thinks the Lawful Goods are too afraid of what evil might happen to stop what evil is happening, that they'd rather stick with a harmful situation that is stable and predictable than take a risk that might turn out better. So, basically, the Lawful Good viewpoint is "allow the Blood War to continue because things might get a lot worse if it ends" whereas the Chaotic Good perspective is "the forces of good should end the Blood War to stop the evil it causes now rather than do nothing".
I also imagine Chaotic Goods are more likely to be reckless, to pick fights and vocally condemn those who they consider evil, and to say that inaction is itself evil.
I wouldn't even find it surprising if I assumed way more people understood what the "Chaotic/Lawful" axis was actually about instead of what they think it's about.
Posts
additionally dnd rangers also have access to spells, and strength score is pretty silly in an of it self.
all these stats and most of DnD are abstractions - so i keep getting confused when suddenly reality is important, when all skills and damage is an abstract idea.
The amount of 20 intelligence wizards that don't try a door handle before figuring out how to teleport the door to an alternate dimension are legion.
dnd archers are superhuman. their effectiveness is superhuman. All PCs are basically superhuman murdering machines. and besides, an arrow to the heart of a wizard is a lethal as being rendered asunder to the last of your molecules, but in both cases "I got 1 hit point left guys, i'm fine!" But yeah, its dumb that archers can be competitive with wizards.
That said: I only have my players keep track of special arrows. I assume that amongst normal preparation and with their daily-town-upkeep, they just make sure they have plenty of arrows with them, unless specifically robbed.
Broadheads would still be piercing. Just like a short sword is pirecing. Broadheads arent bigger than short swords and neither of them are reasonably slashing damage. Broadheads are also likely the default arrow both due to the fact that that is the fantasy trope (seriously when was the last time you saw a fantasy archer draw a bodkin? Cut that; when was the last time in any fiction?) and also being the type of arrow depicted in the images in the phb.
Also the arcane archer's arcane shot feature doesn't eat their bonus action. They can't nova 2 in the same round, but arcane shot is decided upon as part of the attack action when an attack hits.
They're of moderate use, and the most part you are just an archer. With a couple of bits of flash. However being able to regularly pop a 25ft by 25ft by 25ft cube with 2d6 of unavoidable damage is a pretty dope bit of flash you can pull off twice a short rest.
The arcane archer is a little bit more someone that knows the basics and maybe some advanced arcane theory but only uses arcane powers in a very specific way. Essentially you're following a specific manual to enhance your archery a little. You clear your mind visualize and think, maybe just whisper a small incantation as you loose your arrow, and boom.
The Eldritch Knight with a bow is much more someone wielding spell and bow at the same time. They are preparing spells and doing full arcane works to leverage spells with full vocal somatic and material components every turn along side their attacks. They have a spell book and study the arcane arts.
Both are fighters, and can pretty unquestioningly wreck shit in combat as a baseline.
On the arcane archer if you're looking for a little bit more magic in your life the magic initiate feat can be used to great effect, either to net some kind of utility, or to increase offensive capability.
The martial adept feat can also get you a couple more options in combat.
Sharpshooter is a pretty standard feat grab for the arcane archer as well.
The artificer is much more a guy with all the arcane machinery you could think of, they are on a crossbow that they enchant.
I would totally play an arcane archer with the magic initiate feat into artificer. Get that arcane weapon spell once per day, take mending so I don't care about broken arrows, and maybe resistance to regularly have a leg up on my saves. Martial adept on top of that for distracting strike and goading attack, and then sharp shooter and we're pretty much rockin. ASI from there out if we make it much past 6. Maybe grab crossbow expert simply so I can shoot in melee
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Double nm
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
If anything the fighter is upset that I'm crushing his damage on the reg and im not even level 6 yet
Is there an updated or eratta version? Because the one i am looking at lets you
“Once as a bonus action on your turn” create a magic arrow. And then “whenever you create an arrow”. And all the arcane shot features say “if you hit with this arrow” and not “you may do x when you hit”
Fireball shouldn't really ever be outdoing your martials against single targets consistently, it exists to clear groups and make the spellcaster feel like a force of nature
Which is fine, the spellcaster is going to feel a lot less like a force of nature when you're fighting an iron golem and they might as well be throwing wads of tissue paper, meanwhile the barbarian they put haste on is executing a rapid disassembly of the construct
I feel like if the martials are undervalued, the DM is failing the party, frankly, for not building encounters
Im looking at d&d beyond
You're possibly looking at the 7th level ability to reroll a missed attack against a new target. That eats a bonus action.
Even the magic arrow ability is free choice
This should be interesting.
This party is just gonna totally melt combat encounters.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
... until an errant Wild Magic surge accidentally melts them.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
We recently played a high level game, and my level 17 rouge did terrible damage unless I got to sneak attack. Most other characters seemed to do as much damage as my sneak attack with out conditional modifies.
Hence why I asked about Archers. The only class I've really only played as is a Wizard, which seems to have a pretty clear power curve. All the other classes seem to get is a slight bump in power once they hit the teens.
Your rogue should be able to come by sneak attack damage rather easily. So long as you have an ally in melee with the enemy you're hitting you get your sneak attack damage.
You might consider Warlock? Eldritch Blast (Agonizing Blast and/or Hex) is an easy, consistent way to apply competitive damage, and then you're free to grab all kinds of utility from your other Inscriptions, spells known, and pact.
It was a combination of moving targets (disengage), other characters not getting in melee range, and me just plain ole forgetting.
Since I played Wizard I wanted to try something different (aka not full magic).
Ended up with a short list of Artificer, Barbarian or Fighter.
Semi-historical campaign is done, so we now have a full fantasy campaign. DM has made her own setting (which has a lot of Dark Souls-like influences as far as I can tell, but I know she never played Dark Souls.)
Spoilered for long:
The group:
- Eldritch Knight. Human. Tall and strong. Don't know much about him yet.
- Half-Orc Bard, College of Whispers. Probably evil.
- Divine Sorceress. Aasimar (but thinks/presents herself as a half-elf). Very enthusiastic about saving the world.
- Dwarven Monk, Open Hand style. < me. Very shy and polite.
Monk and Sorceress spend most time burying the bodies of the others on board the ship, Bard went to look for food and Knight climbed a tree to look around the island. He saw some structures in the middle of the island. (DM later told me that she wanted us to explore the remains of the ship more, my Monk even was in the Captain's quarters, but just took the body of the captain to bury him). We set off for the structures. Some statues on the way were interesting (and as a dwarf I finally got some good use out of Stonecunning. I probably did a mistake in what it actually does, still having the other versions of Stonecunning in mind, but the DM went with and during this adventures filled with statues, Stonecunning was actually really useful and gave us some information on the style and period the statues were made in).
We fought a paper dragon that nearly turned our bard to stone, our Sorceress started a deadly rivalry with an inanimate stone statue, the Eldritch Knight abused its rat familiar by tying it to a long rope to have it scout down a deep hole (all for not, but climbing down was pretty easy for all of us.) We saw dozens of dancing ghost and danced among them. Finally we found a statue of an Owl God without a face. We decided that its face needed to be restored and we encountered an Owl Statue earlier, so ... I spend minutes talking about Face/Off. (One status was 12 feet tall, the other was 4 feet tall, so not a workable plan sadly).
The Owl God was restored and turned us all into Brave Undead Tainted. When we die, we come back alive with some severe penalties. Die to much and you become Hollow Foresaken. (She really has never played or knew anything about Dark Souls). Owl God also teleported us to a city and we received a bit of our memory back.
We managed to avoid nearly all possible combat (only the Paper Dragon) by deciding to leave everything alone that was not a direct threat to us.
as for rogues, yeah you should basically always have sneak attack... if you're at range and have no allies near by, get distance and Bonus Action Hide to gain advantage, or use your attacks on creatures with an adjacent ally, or play as a rogue like a swashbuckler that just gets sneak attack
To be "optimal" if you're going to be a melee rogue, you need allies nearby, a source of advantage, or to be a swashbuckler or inquisitor - and build around a mechanic for using your Reaction to hit things if possible (a short jaunt into Battlemaster for riposte, also lets you use a shield is always great), if you can hit an enemy and fulfill the conditions outside of your turn, its another sneak attack
I am looking at the fighter arcanum pdf.
I understand how you guys feel now.
My biggest questions at the moment are "what would be the alignment of someone who is willing to do evil (or at least not get in evils way) for the greater good" and "what would be the alignment of someone unwilling to do evil for the greater good, even if it is likely refusal to do so will result in greater evil".
The Blood War sets up a good scenario for these questions. On the one hand, the Blood War keeps demons and devils focused on fighting one another and distracts them from working their designs on the mortal world. Additionally, by letting the forces of evil fight one another the forces of good have more resources free to do good (as opposed to having their hands full fighting against fiends). However, the Blood War sometimes spills out into other sections of the cosmos, and the need for a population of devils large enough and strong enough to hold their own against the more numerous demons means that devils not only need to recruit mortals, but that too much opposition by the celestials against the devils' recruitment attempts could weaken the Infernal forces enough that the Abyssal hordes triumph.
Based on this scenario, how would characters of the various alignments view the supposed necessity of the Blood War?
Through that lens, a person who wants to achieve the greater good and is morally flexible enough to use arguably-evil means to get there is probably chaotic good; your question is basically a cosmic-scale version of the classic 'is it okay to steal bread to feed orphans' example of the chaotic good alignment.
Likewise, a person who wants to achieve the greater good and has a rigid code about what means are appropriate to achieve goodness and isn't willing to deviate from that code even if doing so could help people is probably lawful good - again, 'how would this person react to the Blood War?' is basically a cosmic-scale equivalent to the idea that a lawful good character would arrest the chaotic good bread-thief for stealing even though he agrees with the end goal of feeding the orphans.
Both of those conclusions, though, are complicated by the classic alignment problem that individuals don't have absolute moral authority or perception and a person who thinks that they're going evil 'for the greater good' could absolutely be evil-aligned if they're wrong about what 'the greater good' actually is.
The latter is described by inaction, which I think isn't specific enough to define alignment. Just because someone doesn't personally try to shoot a murderer dead in the street doesn't make them evil, or good, it just makes them nor a murderer.
straight from XTGE it reads as follows:
The Blood War is a good example. It won't matter if it was all for the greater good if it badly effects you. You'll see it as evil. And that's actually awesome! Great plots can be had where everyone is genuinely fighting for something good, but they all disagree on how.
"Well you're chaotic neutral and making active efforts to be a good person"
"How much evil do I have to do to be considered evil"
"Err"
"Is it just murder of the innocent, can I commit a lot of tax evasion, or go rob people?"
the dm deliberated for a few minutes, realized exactly what was going to happen to his campaign if he dignified me with a response, and declared there were no alignment restrictions on magic items, however intelligent magic items might force you to do acts consistent with their alignment
I would have evaded the hell out of those taxes
To be fair, you could probably argue that just truthfully announcing your willingness to be as evil as is necessary to gain more power for yourself by attuning to this cool robe would itself constitute an evil alignment. You've even got a clear reason for the alignment shift: I found this cool robe, and I was tempted by its power.
Oh, that's an easy one.
I used this hammer to build an orphanage, a temple and a hospital. Lots of good right?
Oh no, it was a naughty hammer, none of those things count.
I personally think of the difference between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good as the former valuing stability and predictability while the latter values flexibility and change. The former wants gradual reformation to make sure a change doesn't have negative consequences while the latter wants revolution because the longer you take the more you allow current suffering to continue (that is, worrying about bad things that might happen is less important than stopping bad things that are happening).
With the bread thief example I can see the Lawful Good character arresting the Chaotic Good character for stealing. The Lawful Good character cares about a stable society with consistent standards because they believe it is for the greater good. The Chaotic Good character doesn't care about the laws of a stable society if said society allows people to go hungry.
When it comes to the Blood War, the Lawful Good character grudgingly allows it as a necessary evil for cosmic stability and to keep the friends preoccupied so they can do good without having to spend all their time fighting demons and devils. The Chaotic Good character, in contrast, thinks the Lawful Goods are too afraid of what evil might happen to stop what evil is happening, that they'd rather stick with a harmful situation that is stable and predictable than take a risk that might turn out better. So, basically, the Lawful Good viewpoint is "allow the Blood War to continue because things might get a lot worse if it ends" whereas the Chaotic Good perspective is "the forces of good should end the Blood War to stop the evil it causes now rather than do nothing".
I also imagine Chaotic Goods are more likely to be reckless, to pick fights and vocally condemn those who they consider evil, and to say that inaction is itself evil.
I wouldn't even find it surprising if I assumed way more people understood what the "Chaotic/Lawful" axis was actually about instead of what they think it's about.