dnd-discussion

[blissful ibex]

Assumes you actually prepped it XD

[severe fox]

one of the dark marks give it to you for free

[blissful ibex]

and they could have it in a lead lined bottle

[severe fox]

i highly doubt it

can still detect thoughts

[sudden hollow]

I have never used detect poison before. Never even prepped it

[blissful ibex]

Yeah but you need to be close for that and they need to be thinking about it

[severe fox]

you can dig dipper into its thoughts

and i feel like murder is something that looms large in its mind

[blissful ibex]

Which only works on a single creature per casting; causes them to instantly know you're doing it; and is a wild thing to be doing to random people if you don't know they're the killer

it's a mureder mystery; there's likely several possible suspects

[severe fox]

it only ends if they pass the wisdom save

[blissful ibex]

and the vast majority of civilized places have laws against doing exactly that

[blissful ibex]

read it again; in both 5e and 5.5e, pass or fail, they know you cast it on them if you delve deeper

[severe fox]

im saying that you can dig deeper on mutiple creatures

[blissful ibex]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2619099-detect-thoughts

On a failed save, you discern the target’s reasoning, emotions, and something that looms large in its mind (such as a worry, love, or hate). On a successful save, the spell ends. Either way, the target knows that you are probing into its mind..., a

[severe fox]

On a successful save, the spell ends.

you can do it more then once

[sudden hollow]

You can always use force

[keen valve]

What class is Dolly Dimpley in D&D?

[severe fox]

monk

or pugilist

[sudden hollow]

Break bones works good on anyone

[sudden hollow]

I wanna play oneee

[severe fox]

doesnt mena they will tell you the truth

also i feel like if your trying to solve a murder then detect thoughts being illegal should be allowed

[keen valve]

Logical, she does punch Charlie.

[sudden hollow]

Pugilist is banned for "balance" reasons

Even if we did try 5.5e

[severe fox]

i mean it is decntly strong but it has a lot going against it as well

[sudden hollow]

It may be my new fave class

[severe fox]

imo the school of hard knocks and the haymaker are the strongest they get and thats about it

[sudden hollow]

Idk have to play a bit and see

Piss and vinegar?!?!

[severe fox]

it only goes down from there

P and S is a c tier sub clas

[blissful ibex]

for incredibly good reason
the class is pushed as hell, even for #third-party

[sudden hollow]

I LOVE it

[severe fox]

its alright

it looks broken on paper but it really isnt

[blissful ibex]

basically every 'downside' the class has is solved by another of its features

[sudden hollow]

Yup

[severe fox]

it doesnt have a way to rid all exhastion levels

[blissful ibex]

i legit will not play at a table it's being run in

[sudden hollow]

It ignores thrm

[woven flint]

So, my Drow is about to have to interact with his kind once more after a few hundred years of escaping Menzo... :]

[sudden hollow]

Them*

[severe fox]

thats only while its 4th level ability is active

[blissful ibex]

doesnt matter if it can just straight up ignore them in combat
then you have to drag them around outside of combat which is a massive pain

[sudden hollow]

Any why wouldnt it be?

[woven flint]

Worst part

It might be a Drow Matron Mother 😭

[severe fox]

cause now you have to deal with exhastion out of combat

[sudden hollow]

Out of combat? You mean resting?

[odd valley]

no like literally anything else

[severe fox]

yeah its a strong class but again its pretty limited in what it can do

[odd valley]

ie exploring and social interaction

[severe fox]

you can only get 1 long rest

[blissful ibex]

no, now the party has to deal with a useless anchor that can move maybe 5~10 feet per turn and has -8~10 to all skill checks and saving throws

[noble tusk]

Ah yes the two states of D&D initiative and long rest lmao literally nothing else exists

[sudden hollow]

Yup pretty much

[severe fox]

plus you have to eat and drink to remove the exhastion level

unless

[sudden hollow]

Warforged

But we also font do food and drink 😅

[blissful ibex]

or spam Greater Restoration at exhorbinant cost

[woven flint]

Clanker...

[severe fox]

and if you have 2 or 3 levels of exhastion?

[sudden hollow]

Just wait till next combat and use the ability

[feral fulcrum]

You've got big problems if you're getting Exhaustion that high.

[noble tusk]

Its accumulative problems as well because you can recover the ability for a extra exhaustion level but then that makes you suffer for longer after combat. Which is a pretty steep cost.

[severe fox]

spamming a 5th makes a class op 🇸🇧

[blissful ibex]

problem is getting there when you move half as quickly as the party and are stranded in the middle of the woods

[severe fox]

who would have guessed

[sudden hollow]

Its what that class does

[sudden hollow]

🤷‍♂️

[noble tusk]

They're a solid class but I don't think ban worthy, still considerably weaker than like insert any caster name.

[severe fox]

i still dont know why people still say pugilist is broken

[sudden hollow]

It is and thats why I love it

[severe fox]

how through?

its just a slightly better monk that doesnt have to roll dice

at level 5

[sudden hollow]

Every subclass of pugilist can replace a full class

[feral fulcrum]

Max Damage is an inherently busted mechanic, is usualy why.

[blissful ibex]

because it's all in on one pillar of play and then burdens the rest of the party with lugging them around for the other 2/3rds of the game; has three times the resources of every other class; and has no downside in combat

[severe fox]

i guess? but there max damage is mainly

[sudden hollow]

2/3rds?

[feral fulcrum]

Mainly what?

[severe fox]

other then that its just kinda of a decent class

[severe fox]

on to hits

[noble tusk]

I don't think its even better than monk honestly. Subclass to subclass more than anything. Max damage is cool for sure but you're risking some of your very limited resource to attempt that and if you fail you end up going into the exhaustion looping.

[sudden hollow]

Our sessions are basically talk for a few minutes, combat

[meager pike]

i am looking to make my first paladin is devoition really seen that much better and more fun than the other subclasses?

[paper portal]

yeah pugilist rly isnt allat especially in terms of combat

[blissful ibex]

the three pillars of play are Combat, Exploration, and Social

[paper portal]

play what you think would be fun

[sudden hollow]

Oh yeah we basically just combat

One or 2 playes do the social

[meager pike]

I tried that with a divination wizard and didn't have fun so now I wanna see what people say about the class

[feral fulcrum]

It sounds like a terribly unfun game you're in Plague

[blissful ibex]

the problem is keeping you alive and slowing all travel down for days due to exhaustion levels

[sudden hollow]

Weeee dont really do travel time

[paper portal]

ah that's valid, personally i'm not a big fan of devotion tbh, oathbreaker and conquest are my favourites

[feral fulcrum]

Especially as you've already said you've mentally checked out of it completely

[sudden hollow]

Its just okay you left at sunrise and its roughly noon now

[noble tusk]

Pretty much every control caster is leagues better imo if we're talking just direct combat effectiveness honestly. I love martial classes though aesthetic wise

[severe fox]

puglist compared to most isnt even the strongest marital imo

[sudden hollow]

No its amazing. I love it

[paper portal]

the main reason i like martials more is cus of how they interact with multiclassing, i think its really cool

[sudden hollow]

Combat is my fave part

[blissful ibex]

yet another reason DMs handwaving one of the three foundational pillars of the game utterly breaks class balance

[meager pike]

damn I was looking a devotion and glory lol

[odd valley]

yeah because ranged martials exist

[severe fox]

glory is meh cause its old

its just really good at punching

[knotty pasture]

Its definitely top 3 imo, has excellent damage output too

Technically top 2, as Oathbreaker often gets the ban

[sudden hollow]

Bonk will be an oath of the watchers paladin

[noble tusk]

I'd agree, I think it's probably fighter for me.

[severe fox]

why does oath breaker get banned?

[feral fulcrum]

Oathbreaker gets a ban because it's Edgy and often ill-fitting

[severe fox]

you know you can break your oath for a good reason

[sudden hollow]

Its pretty busted from my understanding

[feral fulcrum]

It'll be even worse in 2024 going by the UA

[severe fox]

like the oath breaker from bg3

[meager pike]

why does it get banned? also whats the other 1?

[paper portal]

yeah i like them but thats 100% justified ngl

[severe fox]

i mean it is called an evil subclass

[sudden hollow]

I havnt even hear of the pillars before now lol

[severe fox]

like from the book its in

[sudden hollow]

Heard*

[noble tusk]

Ancients is such a strong subclass in 2024

[knotty pasture]

By dnd rules you need to be evil to be an Oathbreaker, tables are not so comfortable with an evil character

#1 is Watchers

[severe fox]

i feel like genie is pretty strong too

[sudden hollow]

Oh yeah we arent allowed to be evil

[severe fox]

thats not true

[knotty pasture]

You can be evil but imo its usually cuz people roleplay evil wrong

[noble tusk]

Oh yeah 100% genie is fantastic

[knotty pasture]

We expect people like Astarion or Minthara, not a Bhaalist murder hobo

[severe fox]

5e removed aliment restrictions

[sudden hollow]

Okay gtg guys have fun, I have an hour drive ahead of me...yay

[odd valley]

genielocks are genuinely one of my most favorite patron options

[severe fox]

aliment is just kinda a useless thing now

[feral fulcrum]

It's not mechancially required, but it is pretty baked into the class from the word go that it's capital E Evil.

[knotty pasture]

Not in the context of Oathbreaker

[paper portal]

yes!!!!!

[knotty pasture]

"An Oathbreaker is a paladin who breaks his or her sacred oaths to pursue some dark ambition or serve an evil power... A paladin must be evil and at least 3rd level to become an Oathbreaker." -- DMG

[feral fulcrum]

"An oathbreaker is a paladin who breaks their sacred oaths to pursue some dark ambition or serve an evil power. Whatever light burned in the paladin's heart been extinguished. Only darkness remains."

[severe fox]

again you can break your oath for a good reason

[knotty pasture]

RAW a Paladin has to be evil

[noble tusk]

CME being on the genie pally is so nice.

[knotty pasture]

In practice it requires DM approval

[odd valley]

i like the genie bottle thing

[woven flint]

Again Breaking an Oath doesn't ALWAYS make you an Oathbreaker Paladin.

[meager pike]

which are the strongest subclasses?

[odd valley]

2024 or 2014

[meager pike]

2024

[severe fox]

chrono wizard by far

[feral fulcrum]

Strongest subclasses for what?

[knotty pasture]

Which is where the bans come from, because severe oathbreaking procedure usually requires the DM forcing the Paladin to switch class or go Oathbreaker

[meager pike]

for a paly

[severe fox]

genie

[paper portal]

watchers

[meager pike]

2024 paly

[feral fulcrum]

Ancients is up there

[severe fox]

anicent

[humble cairn]

Generally Barbarians focus on Strength, so probably a Barbarian subclass.

[knotty pasture]

Ancient is really fun if you have some form of ranged damage follow up

[severe fox]

genie being able to grapple and restrain someone is still wild to me

[noble tusk]

Genie, ancients, vengeance imo. In terms of just strong

[paper portal]

watchers is the best one by a decent margin

they have a strong cd and the best aura

[severe fox]

its how me and a wizrd killed a lich in a 2v1

[feral fulcrum]

ANyone with arms and a decent strength score can do that?

[knotty pasture]

Venge got done dirty imo for something that sounds this cool

[feral fulcrum]

Ah dang chat moving

[meager pike]

is watchers 2024?

[paper portal]

yeah i gotta bounce gang

[knotty pasture]

I wish the aura was nicer

[severe fox]

it is now

[paper portal]

it's 2014 but its allowed to be ported, same as ancients (unless that got added and i forgot lol)

[humble cairn]

Genie Paladin can grapple and restrain using the earth, and do it at range, too!

[severe fox]

since watchers is consdiered 3rd partyish content

[severe fox]

again its how me and a wizard killed a lich

[paper portal]

it's in tce what

[humble cairn]

Since 2024 Paladins can Divine Smite with a thrown Trident or Javelin.

[noble tusk]

Watchers is cool but its not my favorite in terms of power, it always felt more supportive heavy.

[paper portal]

yeah it is, thats what makes it the strongest one

[humble cairn]

Support is also power and strength.

[severe fox]

oh wait im thinking of open sea

[knotty pasture]

The initiative is big for a class that has to dump dex and work with -1 initiative

[paper portal]

the channel divinity also gives you a diet aop for tier 1

[severe fox]

aura of protection is still one of paladins strongest features

[noble tusk]

Sure, of a different kind though. There is a distinction

[knotty pasture]

If damage output is the goal I think Oathbreaker or Devotion fits the bill better

[woven flint]

Watchers is my favorite Paladin subclasses

[paper portal]

best aura combined with arguably the best cd makes it pretty cleanly the best

[severe fox]

aura pretty much fixes your -1 to a +4 in dex if you have a +5 in chrisma

[woven flint]

Watcher is who you truly play if you want to b the Doomslayer

[paper portal]

same as how all of chron's features are top tier

[meager pike]

watchers spells are kinda boring

[woven flint]

I mean, yeah.. but they're still good lol

Watchers is pretty damn strong if you know you're dealing with Extraplanar threats

[noble tusk]

I think genie has my favorite aura, but that might just be because the games I'm a player in the DM really likes his elemental themed monsters

[crisp orbit]

Being a new dm is tough

[knotty pasture]

There's some value spells in there at least, who doesn't love detect magic, counterspell, see invis

[meager pike]

valuable but not very exciting

is great weapon master still the move in 2024?
to take at 4

[empty thicket]

yeah, but kinda worth ngl.
im going to run a COS someday to learn a bit

doing modules and oneshots for trying mechanics and finally doing the campaign i want.
Some sort of The Long Dark + DnD

[river vector]

Yes but can be creative and play villains lol

[crisp orbit]

Ohhhu that sounds fun

[crisp orbit]

That too but sometimes I realize i run on improv a lot lol

[river vector]

me when the players pour holy water on the flaming rapier, revealing it to be a lich king in disguise

[kindred solar]

With how many High fantasy tropes originate from DND I am honestly surprised that the game doesn’t operate based off of play mana system for spells

That makes me wonder where did the mana system originate from? My guess is Diablo or Warcraft or something.

[rotund thunder]

DND uses spell slots, which I believe were based on some spell systems made by Jack Vance which is why it's called Vancian magic. IIRC the vancian magic system also used to rely on the idea that mages forget their spells every time they cast them and have to relearn them each day, explaining DND's extremely weird and confusing spell slots system where you memorize spells each day

Though DND did invent the beholder, which is weird to me cause it feels like a much more classic monster than that

[feral fulcrum]

You get lower highs from it, but you no longer suffere the penalty to hit. So depends on how much you craved the big numbers.

It's not bad, but the added damage is...less then impressive, vastly more consistent though.

[rotund thunder]

It's also a half feat

[barren badger]

Do people actually enjoy rolled stats?

[rotund thunder]

like all feats now

[kindred solar]

Do people enjoy the other ways of making stats?

[rotund thunder]

I personally don't love it myself, but every game I've ever been in uses them, and I always take it simply because rolled stats on average give you better results than point buy

[paper portal]

i do!

[paper portal]

thats how the majority of people do it afaik

[limber trail]

I see a pretty even mix of point buy vs rolled

[meager pike]

is polearm master better now?

[kindred solar]

an owl House fan? In this economy?

[limber trail]

Polearm master technically functions pretty similarly but it no longer pairs with sentinel (which is a good thing imo)

[paper portal]

im watching it rn :3

[limber trail]

it is technically not as good as it was though

[barren badger]

For me it’s just like, imbalance between players that causes issues.

It just feels bad when one player starts with 18-20 and another has 16 in their highest stat

[kindred solar]

My current character has 3 18’s with his lowest stat being a 10

[limber trail]

Although to be fair, it now adds a +1 to your strength which is very nice

[blissful ibex]

despise rolled stats
much rather Standard Array or Point Buy

[rotund thunder]

Most DMs I know also allow people with really terrible rolls to reroll, or make a rolling system that gaurantees everyone at least a few high stats. My issue with that is that it seems like we should've just been using a higher level point buy instead of insisting on rolling dice for it if the only goal was to all be stronger than intended

[meager pike]

so what do most palys take for lvl 4?

[barren badger]

Yeah, if the goal is just higher stats, just use a higher level point buy.

[limber trail]

I do think a rolled stat system does need a couple of things to work well:

1. Some kind of rule to invalidate really bad rolls (I use a minimum total system)
2. Some a choice to just use point buy instead

[rotund thunder]

People love dice, and I have to roll with it. A lot of my players seemed a little surprised at me asking them to use point buy, people assume rolling is the default

[blissful ibex]

I generally just ask to use standard array at rolled tables and it tends to be approved XD

[feral fulcrum]

Whatever they feel like.

[limber trail]

it varies from player to player. There's no one must-take feat, it varies based on your loadout and stats.

[rotund thunder]

My problem is if the stats of rolling are always gonna be better, and statistically they almost always will be, taking point buy instead for myself while the others roll is active self sabotage

[feral fulcrum]

5E is a game that works perfectly fine without having to worry about min-maxing everything.

[limber trail]

Generally I'd say try to

1. Round out your strength to an even number
2. If it's already even, round your charisma to an even number
3. If both are already even, then take any feat that increases your strength, or take an ASI to bump strength
4. If both are odd, take an ASI to round both off

[barren badger]

I think people just like gambling. I don’t think it’s actually more fun to play with rolled stats

[limber trail]

Especially at level 4, I can't discount the value in bumping charisma for the not-so-distant aura of protection

[barren badger]

In early dnd characters died a LOT. So you made new characters a LOT.

But when you have the same character for years, rolling feels like a bad idea

[feral fulcrum]

I think it's slightly more fun to play with rolled stats because good and bad stats give me more ideas to work with for charecter creation.

[blissful ibex]

Something that preferably rounds out their primary stat if that started odd and that either lets them do one thing exceptionally well, that mitigates deficiencies, or that adds something new they wern't able to do before that complements their existing kit

[rotund thunder]

Yeah but just recently I roll all bad stats. Sure, you can have fun without minmaxxing, but if my highest stat is a 12 and the other players have 18s at level 3 in a heavily combat focused game like the one I'm in is, I'm gonna suffer

[feral fulcrum]

The thing about having bad stat charecters, is that the DM isn't holding a gun to your head, forcing you to keep that charecter alive for an indetimined period of time. You can play with a death wish.

[rotund thunder]

fortunately, the DM gave me a pity reroll to get a more normal array because my bad rolls were so bad it was a statistical anomaly, but that further proves my point that people just ignore the bad rolls anyways

[feral fulcrum]

My does Rolled stats, and lets their players do three sets of them, and you get to pick which one to take. To mitagate the occasional "Woops all below 10, multiple at 3."

[blissful ibex]

or just retire them; it's not on you that the DM enforces no rerolls or whatever other nonsense they want to add to the randomized stats system

[limber trail]

I think this becomes a failing on the DM's part, for not including proper systems for rolling characters.

When I have my players roll stats, if the total of the roll is less than 72, you scrap the roll and try again. Once you've got a roll of 72 or higher, you still get one free reroll (also that is also higher than 72). It keeps things consistent and means that all players have done pretty well with stats.

[barren badger]

I once had a player like that in the group, but it’s not something they communicated with the rest of the party and nearly got everyone killed.

It created a bad vibe

[rotund thunder]

I feel like a point buy system that just allows a higher and lower stat distribution would be easier than coming up with a mathmetical formula, but I guess both lead to roughly the same outcome

[limber trail]

It leads to a little more randomness and variance, which I always think is fun

[knotty pasture]

Imo resorting back to standard array should be an option as a failsafe

[limber trail]

I just think you need some guard rails to prevent against atrocious rolls

[barren badger]

I don’t think players actually know what they want. I don’t think most players actually want a sandbox. Or to play with variance in their character creation.

They’re things that sound fun, but usually feel bad

[limber trail]

I do agree

[knotty pasture]

Oh no you rolled bad, do you wanna keep your stats or stick with standard array

[blissful ibex]

I've also seen mentioned a funky hybrid system where the whole table rolls and then they do a pointbuy for everyone equal to the highest total rolled

[barren badger]

If there’s no chance of having bad stats, then why even roll?

[limber trail]

I haven't seen this exact system done but I did once see a DM who had everyone roll stats, and then each player can choose from each roll

[knotty pasture]

The "bad" stats is simply not having better stats than your fellow PCs

[forest agate]

How do you get perms to send images?

[blissful ibex]

a lot of Rolled Stat purists see Standard aray as being 'bad stats'

[knotty pasture]

Or like knome said, a failsafe

Standard array is just the simplest way to me

[blissful ibex]

that's the neat part; you don't XD

[forest agate]

Man I wanted to show off my dm screen and ask for feedback

[limber trail]

I also like rolled stats because it can make bad stats. I have two players with 7s in their stats. I think a player for a mini campaign once had a 5. And it was a ton of fun!

[blissful ibex]

upload the image to a reputable image sharing site like imigur and then post the link

[forest agate]

Ok imgur links wont be deleted

[blissful ibex]

you might be able to in #dnd-arts-and-crafts

[barren badger]

I think a lot of this depends on how long the campaign is. I’d play this in a one shot or short campaign, but many of the campaigns I run are over a year long.

[rotund thunder]

My real wish is that the official point buy let me be more of a little min maxxy goblin and allowed me to intentionally lower some stats very low, like having a super low 6 in a stat for example, in exchange for getting to start with a higher number like an 18

Like, lower my barbarian's intelligence down to 6 so I can start with a 17 or 18 in strength

[forest agate]

Chat rate my dm screen https://imgur.com/a/DEfDk94

[limber trail]

I've been running the campaign with 7s for nearly a year now. It hasn't come up as a giant issue for anyone. It of course varies from player to player, but that's why I give players a free reroll

[blissful ibex]

truly spellbind(er)ing

[rotund thunder]

but I assume for the sake of complexity and a fear players would potentially lower their numbers to like, animal level intelligence of 3, they can't let numbers go below a certain threshhold, even though rolling already allows that?

[forest agate]

Lmao i think it works

First time dming

I am not putting 60 dollars into 3 sheets of paper man

[limber trail]

It looks great

[forest agate]

I can spend it on dice minis allat but never 3 sheets of paper

[blissful ibex]

to be fair there's nice wood ones too

[forest agate]

Thats true

[barren badger]

Another interesting thing to consider is how players will use their stats.

I’d be less inclined to give rolled stats to players who min/maxx rather than players who just good around and build creatively

[sudden hollow]

Don't call me out

Look i already told yall how bad my rolls are I need all the bonus I can get my hands on

[rotund thunder]

We minmaxxers have been oppressed for far too long /s

[blissful ibex]

I do both simultaniously
I run a deep Druid/Warlock multiclass

[forest agate]

Chat yall think I’m prepped for my first dm 🙏

My minis otw
My map
My dm screen includes confitions, actions, storytelling components, stats of creatures

[sudden hollow]

Min maxing? I need a +5 to hit min dc checks

[flint ledge]

Honestly rolling stars are just fun to do, but they're simply worse in basically all cases

[blissful ibex]

which is why I don't like them q_q
I like the consistancy and there to be parity between PCs at the table

[rotund thunder]

Statistically they are actually better than standard array or point buy on average

[barren badger]

lol, I’ve seen other people say the opposite here tonight

[forest agate]

Chat yall got any ideas on how to make this map reusable?

https://imgur.com/a/T5kYYLr

[blissful ibex]

laminate it and use dry erase markers or physical tokens
put it in rotation with several other similar maps
do a mix of grid an hex for bonus points, and measures for larger maps/encounters c:

[barren badger]

I wonder if you could draft ability scores.

Like, create 5 sets of each ability score. Each at different levels. And then people take turns choosing one

[sudden hollow]

Average roll of 3 d6 is 10.5 that is a heck of a lot better than having an 8

[flint ledge]

That's funny but, I don't think being able to have a character that has 3 negative stats and a character that has 3 +3 or higher modifiers in the same party can be called better

[forest agate]

Is it worth it to invest into those battlegrids on chessex?

[sudden hollow]

Thats just point buy lol

[blissful ibex]

probs a better question for #dm-discussion

[barren badger]

It’s because many DMs won’t let their players have bad scores. They create a parachute system

[sudden hollow]

I let my players re roll any stat below a 10 unless they want it for thematics

[blissful ibex]

Had someone roll like two 18s and a 17 publically in a campaign I'm in q_q

[barren badger]

That would create very powerful characters

[sudden hollow]

Thats good though

[sudden hollow]

They are the luteral heros of the story? Thats the point?

[blissful ibex]

dude started level 1 with 20 strength and has more wisdom than my druid XD

[barren badger]

The one thing I think is insane is when people roll their stats on their own, alone.

[sudden hollow]

Plus weak players means I have to pull punches

[sudden hollow]

Thats.. good though?

[sudden hollow]

I let my players do it

[vivid pelican]

Imma go to bed now

[blissful ibex]

just feels off when the fighter has better wisdom skill bonuses than the wisdom class >.>

[vivid pelican]

Gn everyone

[sudden hollow]

Hey he is a wise fighter🤷‍♂️. Im a paladin who has the lowest charisma at the table

[vivid pelican]

May nat 20s be many and nat 1's be many few

[flint ledge]

I mean sure great for the Player but once that player is just better in skills than most of the party it gets less fun imo

[sudden hollow]

That happens anyway

Our sorcerer has skilled and a luck stons

Stone*

[blissful ibex]

Like I'm literally worse at the thing my class is supposed to be good in than the fighter so I'm just kind of sitting there for survival checks and things she is literally built around being good in thematically

[barren badger]

Idk, I don’t see the fun in one player ALWAYS being better/stronger because they rolled better at the start of the game.

Everyone should have a chance to shine

[sudden hollow]

We have pur sorcerer do every single check

[blissful ibex]

just subverts like half my character
she's built around the exploration pillar and isn't really being given a chance to do things within it

[sudden hollow]

Oh except stealth. Pur bard does stealth

Our*

[blissful ibex]

and it's hell getting a DM to run exploration in the first place >.>

[sudden hollow]

Mulligan?

[flint ledge]

I don't think that's a good thing personally but if your group likes it who am I to judge

[sudden hollow]

Why wouldnt we want to pass checks? Lol. We all roll it. But the sorcerer basically never fails

[barren badger]

Just to let other people do things

[blissful ibex]

She will at least once we're higher level and I can actually access her relevant spells
the early game is where most of my fun is rolls based so will just have to wait until tier 2

[sudden hollow]

I have to tell the dm my roll was yet again sub 10.. for the 20th time that session lol

[blissful ibex]

anyway I'm off; need to sleep, have to wake up for muster on a session in like ~7ish hours

[barren badger]

I’ve got two finals tomorrow, I should sleep

[flint ledge]

Yikes, good luck

[sudden hollow]

I technically have the best persuasion and sleight of hand at the table but I have never passed one of those checks. So yeah ima let the sorcerer do it

[barren badger]

I’m a business major. Most of my classes are kind of a joke, loll

[flint ledge]

And goodnight you 2

[sudden hollow]

I actually stopped using action surge because im just gonna miss my attacks anyway🤣

[inner silo]

What does the rest of the party do out of combat?

[sudden hollow]

Uhhhh look for loot?

[inner silo]

Doesn't that also require checks?

[sudden hollow]

Yeah, but if the sorcerer passes it he just points it out to us

[inner silo]

Are your games mainly combat?

[sudden hollow]

Uh yeah normally an hour or 2 of the three hour session is combat

[inner silo]

And the rest is sorcerer doing everything?

[sudden hollow]

Pretty much. I mean sometimes someone just rolls better than him

But between giving himself advantage and having a luckstone he normally outrolls

[inner silo]

So whenever you make a check everyone rolls dice and the highest one is picked?

[sudden hollow]

Yup

Unless someone just chooses not to make the check

[inner silo]

Curious. Never saw anyone play dnd like that

[sudden hollow]

Well the party is all together and after the same goal so... why wouldnt we?

I dont really contribute much. Im basically only good as a punching bag

Highest health and ac in the party and I roll like crap

[inner silo]

First it's kind of like giving you super advantage as you choose like the highest of 4/5 rolls. Also sometimes it can be nice for a player to get to shine and feel important

[sudden hollow]

Well if there are 6 people in the room...why would all 6 check for traps?

[inner silo]

In my games different party members also have their own goals they're trying to achieve but that's not necessarily ig

[sudden hollow]

Or look for hidden paths?, or keep watch for enemies

[sudden hollow]

We all have separate individual goals, it just surviving tends to be a common one

[inner silo]

Perhaps one of them lived almost their entire life in a temple, locked away from the rest of the world and wouldn't even think that a basement could be trapped?

[rotund thunder]

I honestly think the intent of DND is that only the proficient people attempt checks, or even just one person attempt certain checks, but in most campaigns I'm in they let the entire party roll even if a character has no reason to even be able to attempt something and it's basically mega super advantage with 4-6 people rolling until one person inevitably succeeds

[inner silo]

Also letting everyone roll kind of trivialises stuff as you won't fail a check ever

[umbral girder]

I hit my party with 8 AOEs today so thats fun

[sudden hollow]

That is so not true

[rotund thunder]

I have to actively crack down on the whole party wanting to roll every time something is happening

[inner silo]

That's why i wouldn't let it

[sudden hollow]

My character has an 8 in intelligence and I rolled my 8th ever nat 20 on a history check. I was the only one that passed besides the sorcerer

[sudden hollow]

They are a team. Thats called teamwork

[inner silo]

That's great to hear! I'm just saying that if everyone rolls, at least one person will always pass the roll

[rotund thunder]

Why is the 8 int barbarian rolling with everyone else to determine if they recall the arcane lore around this enemy they're facing?

[sudden hollow]

Im not a barbarian

[flint ledge]

That was an example

[rotund thunder]

Just, purely based on odds, if 5 people roll for every check that comes up individually every single time, at least one person will always pass, and sometimes there needs to be an actual chance of failure

[sudden hollow]

And because they also want to see if they remember anything. Maybe in passing or a remore they heard at the bar but didnt think any of at the time

[rotund thunder]

That philosphy is fine too, but I find that gating information behind a check just means one of 5 players is always going to succeed and relay that information to everyone anyways

[sudden hollow]

Well yeah. Thats how a team works? A good party comp should be able to do that

[rotund thunder]

Ok, but sometimes I want the party to have even a chance at failure

[sudden hollow]

Then raise the dc

[inner silo]

Ig everyone can enjoy the game however they want. But from my experience failure in dnd can be as fun as success

[sudden hollow]

As someone who basically always fails... I do not hold this philosophy

[rotund thunder]

Also, another issue I've found is that players always want to roll before the DM has even told them to roll for anything, they call out the specific skill they want to do instead of asking if they can do something and letting the DM determine if it even makes sense for them to be able to attempt it or use the skill they want

[inner silo]

Maybe the team isn't a very good team? Maybe they just started working together? Some party members could still have gripes between eich other. Someone may not care about what's in that book they just found or in picking the pockets of that guy or looking around for an ambush

[inner silo]

There's a different between failing/winning half for half and mostly winning/losing

[sudden hollow]

Well ig we havnt pick pocketed anyone before. Or.. found a book

[inner silo]

I play a sorcerer so i also mostly succeed my rolls but I've had a lot of fun last session partly because i failed some rolls

[inner silo]

Just some examples

[sudden hollow]

Our checks are basically can we find our way to this place, can we sneak, do we notice traps, levers ext, and do we find loot

[rotund thunder]

Perception I'm usually fine with, I just try to avoid letting every single character roll for, say, recognizing a specific faction's insignia that only a few characters would logically have a chance at knowing

[sudden hollow]

Pretty sure that encompasses all the checks we have made in the last 12 sessions

[sudden hollow]

Yeah that hasnt come up

[humble cairn]

For mysteries and other information related plots, having crucial information gated behind skill checks is not good if not getting the information would stall the momentum of the game. I suggest Failing Forward, meaning that gaining the information will happen, even if they fail the roll, but failure just imposes complications, difficulties, and consequences.

[rotund thunder]

Well that's the thing, I just don't gate crucial information behind checks in the first place

If my campaign can't continue if everyone fails a check, that's a pretty big problem

[humble cairn]

Exactly.

[sudden hollow]

Now that I have had be a problem in the past lol. Had a dm quit on us because we failed to progress several session in a row from failing to notice things, or not thinking to look for super specific things... or failing rolls when only one party member thought to look

[humble cairn]

That's more investigation anyway. Perception doesn't tell you the meaning of anything.

[sudden hollow]

The meaning would be history

Or arcana if its magic based

[humble cairn]

Yep, all relevant.

[sudden hollow]

Perception would be noticing they have an insignia to begin with

Investigation would be actively searching for an insignia if it isnt blazenly presented

[humble cairn]

Perception is being able to notice things, but not what any of those things mean. Investigation deduces meaning out of clues, but doesn't help you notice clues in the first place.

Perception has both an active and a passive version, so that's not the difference between it and Investigation. Investigation also has an active and passive version.

Perception will let you notice clues in the crime scene, Investigation pieces together what happened from those clues.

And the passive version of both sets the floor for what "jumps out" at the character without them even trying to look for it.

[barren badger]

I think one of the hardest things to do as a DM is to tell a player they can’t roll for something.

I try to offer alternatives, but sometimes you just have to say no.

Additionally, I think part of being a good team is letting another player have a moment without jumping in.

[rotund thunder]

Yeah, I've had players who are good people, but struggle with the fact they aren't the focus of every scene and have to remind themselves to give the less talkative players the spotlight

[humble cairn]

Point to the RULES about how the game is supposed to be played.

1. DM describes scene
2. Players describe character actions
3. DM narrates result and maybe calls for a roll IF they think it needs one

Players do not call for rolls, only the DM does.

[rotund thunder]

I have honestly had more fun rolling less and more often just telling the players "yeah your character knows what a vampire/werewolf is"

[humble cairn]

Yes, I like this, too. For the mechanics minded people, I often just use the Passive versions of all the Skills. With Advantage (flat +5) for stuff that they should know from their backstory.

[flint ledge]

I mean if your character were to logically know, yeah. And I think most DMs were to accept that if you have good reasoning

[rotund thunder]

Like, the monster hunter dhampir of the group was literally born to a vampire in vampire society, so I just said yeah she would know the usual basic info

[idle flame]

i'm making a serer w sum frens for random D&D like but not so complex more chill stuff

but i neither hav enough experience nor enouh ppl in there

wat should i do?

[humble cairn]

Hang around here and make friends, then when you're close enough with them to direct message, try inviting them to your server. Also #looking-for-community.

[idle flame]

i have like 2 rs on 2 days every week

[barren badger]

Yesssss. This is underutilized.

My Druid does not need to roll for basic Nature Facts

[rotund thunder]

Players enjoy it when their characters just know basic info that they really should. I generally also accept that both in and out of character, people would know what a beholder or a dragon is

and lots of other basic information like that

[vestal mesa]

anyone know a campaign video that start at lvl with a druid in the part i can watch

[tough sandal]

MTG opened my eyes by directly printing a card called "Monster Manual".

[flint ledge]

Honestly why does a beholder seem like common knowledge? Aren't they underdark residents?

[tough sandal]

With one card, it told me:

"Dude, adventurers know about tales of Beholders and Oozes. Leave the Nature and History checks to variant species nobody would've heard of in the world."

[flint ledge]

I mean of course everyone knows dragons, they're kinda hard not to know about. They're pretty grandiose

[knotty pasture]

Chromatic dragons do look pretty

[crisp orbit]

Wait thats so genius 😭

[tough sandal]

If you have a Druid, Ranger, or Wizard in a party, chances are the character gained a passing knowledge about common overworld creatures.
Do you have a Warlock? Think about their patron; they might've picked up a thing or two about their patron's specific creature type.
Is there anything specific in a PC's backstory that would give them expertise in some creature types? Maybe they're an artificer that has heard stories of Constructs, or a subclass provides historical studies in Giants.

That leaves Nature and History checks to respectively tease specific abilities or provide noncombat solutions. :)

[humble cairn]

I like using the passive version of those checks to determine what they just know about the world without even trying.

[inner silo]

Does a druid need to be a part of a circle?

[paper portal]

yep, it's your subclass

[inner silo]

Shit

How does one become a member of a circle?

[paper portal]

that's up to you (and possibly your dm) to decide

most of the time people just do it like any other subclass

[inner silo]

Isn't a circle like a community of druids? I feel like that's a bit different then learning how to be a thief or choosing your favourite school of magic

I'm probably misunderstanding something about circles

[hot gate]

The roleplay aspect can be as simple as "I've gained new insights". The main flavor is a community, sure, but in actual play it's just a subclass like any other.

If you want to play it out more, you can always talk with your DM about it.

[inner silo]

Alrighty, thanks for explaining!

[timber turtle]

what would be a good goob/slime thing to has as a warlock familiar if my patron is the slime god?

Juiblex

[flint ledge]

Did you just answer your own question

[timber turtle]

that was just me clarificating

[flint ledge]

Oh woops I was looking at the weird page and got confused.

Familiar as in a CR 0 or?

[tame kelp]

I wanna play DND 2024 but there are so many things to learn as I only used to play 2014. @_@

bro, why moved abilities score bonus from race to background?

[dim wasp]

Genuine qn

Is dmint expensive

Dming*

[noble tusk]

They wanted your background to be more representative of your skills rather than your genetics probably. Which makes sense for the most part, take two people put one in a manual labor job and one at a desk job for 10 years, manual labor guy is probably gonna be more physically strong.

[dim wasp]

There's a background section?

[lyric viper]

Not any more than being a player if you don't want it to be. You can still make use of free to use content and content sharing with your group.

[flint ledge]

They're going for a more freedom approach in 2024 which honestly I like

[lyric viper]

Same as in '14 like 'Acolyte' or 'Soldier' and so on, but they give you stat boosts.

[dim wasp]

So only about a hundo and 80% of ur sanity

Noted

[noble tusk]

Yeah its part of the character creation process, species, background, class etc.

[dim wasp]

(this assumes each player has 5 dice sets on average )

[lyric viper]

Honestly, Tasha introduced floating ASI anyway, so it was being disconnected fromspecies which makes things more customizable.

[dim wasp]

Asi?

[lyric viper]

Ability Score Increase

[flint ledge]

I don't quite think that's what woke means

[tame kelp]

freedom approach?

Isn't 5e 2014 already got enough of freedom?

I am curious.

[lyric viper]

Honestly complaining that now you can play any species and be able to boost the stats that would benefit your class, rather than pick 'X' because it gives the best boost for your class?

[tame kelp]

So many things changed...

[lyric viper]

It's actually a pretty small change, especially across all the changes like Tasha's and such.

You still get your ASI.

[noble tusk]

It is nice to have the freedom to make a more charismatic orc or a stronger halfling, decoupling it from species was a good move imo.

Also yeah to be fair tashas decoupled it already for the most part.

[flint ledge]

I mean honestly it's like the one change that was really apparent would come

[burnt valley]

Back then backgrounds were just completely for flavor

[noble tusk]

Yeah, later on in 2014 they started adding backgrounds that came with feats like the ones in planescape, glory of giants and the deck of many things book. Now they've got origin feats and asi in 2024.

[humble cairn]

Moving ASI's to backgrounds made total sense because of the multiversal emphasis they were going for meaning that any member of any species could be of any culture rather than illogically having to be tied to one specific kind of culture. The bigger question is if they were going to move ASI's to Backgrounds, why didn't they go all the way and just let you assign stats in a fully custom way instead of restricting you to three stats per Background.

Luckily, fully custom Backgrounds is totally RAW in the free Basic Rules. So you just ask your DM to use those rules and everything's good.

[rough basalt]

My guess is the intent is the basic backgrounds make sense for what they are and if you want something custom you use custom

[humble cairn]

Many many things changed and imo over 90% of the changes were for the better. A handful of the remaining percentage were side grades and I only have a gripe with a few things.

[rough basalt]

Like a fantasy Farmer being strong, healthy, tough and a little wise makes sense to me

Since dnd settings usually don't have modern farming equipment. You got your back and a hoe

[humble cairn]

What if you were the stay at home farmer who crafted and cooked? Skilled or Crafter might make more sense.

[rough basalt]

Then custom, but that wouldnt likely be a normal thing, wouldnt be much of a farmer if you didnt farm tho, you'd be from a farmer's family.

Or you just take the artisan background and say you grew up on a farm and instead of the field work, you learned how to keep the equipment in top shape and helped with the food cooking/processing from nearby town or something.

[humble cairn]

I mean a farm is a whole unit, everyone on the farm contributes to the running of the farm even if you don't do the agricultural work.

But that's details, I suppose. Still I feel like fully custom should really have been the default.

[rough basalt]

Probably isnt so you cant just make the perfect background, or so new players have something easy to use

"Alright, I'm a paladin, but i wanna crit fish so im gonna take Dex, Con, Cha for my abilities, Persuasion and Stealth for my skills, calligraphers tools so i can make smite scrolls, and the lucky feat" as an example of the former

[sturdy tusk]

For a First Level Sorcerer
What Options for Level 1 can I take?

[rough basalt]

But its probably the latter moreso

[dapper cloud]

Have you read the Player’s Handbook?

[sturdy tusk]

By this I mean Level 1 Spells

[rough basalt]

I'd read the players handbook

[sturdy tusk]

What do you suggest tho?

[humble cairn]

Full casters have access to the biggest toolkit in the game, which makes spell choice probably one of the more complex character building exercises in D&D. My guidelines are usually this:

• At least one combat Cantrip
• At least one Utility (non-combat solution) Cantrip
• A handful of powerful Concentration spells targeting more than one enemy Saving Throw
• At least one powerful Concentration Support spell
• A handful of useful non-Concentration spells that you can apply after you get your Concentration spell up (An Attack spell and various defense spells like Shield and Absorb Elements)
  This way you have an answer to a lot of situations you may face. This may not all be possible at level 1, but after a few levels a full caster wants to be a Swiss Army Knife of spells to solve any problem the group may face.

[dapper cloud]

There should be a spell list at the end of the class section.

[sturdy tusk]

Its a Warforged

[hidden spindle]

Reading the free rules

[sturdy tusk]

Ah, Ok!

I'll check again and come back

[dapper cloud]

Idr the Sorcerer spell list off the top of my head but I would highly recommend Magic Missile.

[rough basalt]

Magic Missile i recommend as well

At low levels, automatic damage is very valuable

[dapper cloud]

Mage Armour potentially as well, but with Warforged that might be less of an issue.

[hidden spindle]

There's a beauty in restriction.

[rough basalt]

Also probably to help with a character idea

If you just get given a table of options a lot of new people are gonna be sitting there going "uhhhh" for awhile

[hidden spindle]

Yeah. A quick setup:
Standard Array & here's your bonus. You get three points, & can place in three spots based on your background (cap at 2.)

It'd be over in a minute.

[remote wadi]

I couldn't even watch a supposed "class ranking" video for 5 seconds without being immediately disappointed in Ranger being dead last

Honestly, I don't know if that is more surprising than the fact that Barbarian was ranked FOURTH

[glad arch]

Man with big stick go bonk

[hidden spindle]

I avoid those altogether based on bias and metrics alone.

[remote wadi]

Apparently, it was also based on things like flavor and ease to pick up

[hidden spindle]

I could make a Greatclubbing Sorcerer spamming True Strike & quicken it and be happy.

[rough basalt]

Those are also pretty subjective tbf

[remote wadi]

So then the question arises: how does a class that demands 4 of the 6 stats to not be terrible and has less than ideal subclasses be easier to pick up than fighter?

[rough basalt]

Some people can play a control mage really well out the gate, others cant comprehend how to play a fighter

[pliant sapphire]

Ranking the flavor of a class doesn't have any sense

[glad arch]

Because barbarian is literally just rage and bonk

[still plover]

Does a tier list tell us more about the maker's own preferences or what they think the current zietgeist is, I wonder?

[lyric viper]

It's also pretty subjective. I'd personally put Sorc low down in my list of classes I like to play, but one of my players loves sorcs.

[remote wadi]

Fighter doesn't need as varied of investments and has quite clear cut subclasses without all being underwhelming

[rough basalt]

Probably the only question worth asking when it comes to them

[hidden spindle]

Martials are just nice to play. Less things to worry about.

[remote wadi]

But at the same time... I feel like he didn't know what he was talking about

[rough basalt]

DnDtubers often don't

[severe rampart]

Yes

[remote wadi]

In 2024, does the Rage defenses change?

[rough basalt]

A lot of dndtubers kinda just scream at the camera what they think is right and it works cause they make sure to hit the good algorithm points

[pliant sapphire]

You have the same resistances

[rough basalt]

Such as H*rny bard, Ranger bad, WotC bad, I broke my dm, I broke the game

[hidden spindle]

Not to mention the grabby thumbnails and titles

[rough basalt]

You're more likely to get misinformation from dndtubers than not

[remote wadi]

Because if not, he did mess up pretty badly because the "Three most common types of damage" are non magical only

[severe rampart]

God I hate that stereotype of bards

[remote wadi]

Better or worse than the "wizard/druid who may or may not be stalling out everyone"?

[rough basalt]

Theres even one dude, cant remember his name but he's popped up on my random shorts and he brags that hes never read the rules

At least he's honest tho

[hidden spindle]

Its already a drag when players don't read, like, what do you mean what does your spell do?

[rough basalt]

Some just make mistakes, but a lot of them haven't read the rules and don't care to, and will die on the hill that they're right about whatever they're yapping about

[remote wadi]

I guess what I'm trying to say about Barbarians are that they are easy to pick up, but like

Only level 5 one shot campaigns. The moment it's long term and past tier 2, barb falls off hard

[hidden spindle]

I'd rather everyone just play a human fighter if they don't read the rules.

[severe rampart]

Eldritch Knight

[hidden spindle]

Then they get magic~

[rough basalt]

"I don't need to read the rules, I learned from dndshorts"

[hidden spindle]

Oh gosh

[remote wadi]

...I think that was the channel that did the ranking too

[severe rampart]

cast Power Word Read

[rough basalt]

yeah I wouldnt take those videos seriously

[remote wadi]

Yep... it was,

[rough basalt]

can't say anything about the guy himself but his content is very much the example of "dont listen to whatever he's yapping about"

[burnt valley]

You are legally allowed to focus fire that person for one combat encounter at that point

[remote wadi]

Couldn't they at least have the decency to do a good intro first before jumping on the "Ranger bad" bandwagon?

[humble cairn]

Best way to form your opinions about a class is to play it yourself.

[rough basalt]

Nah algorithms focus on whats said in the first 10 to 30 seconds

so gotta get the keywords out

[burnt valley]

Dndshorts, monkeydm and rpgbot gives the worst advice for classes

[severe rampart]

Glad I never watched those guys

[rough basalt]

Theres a bald dude who does shorts and he will defend the stance that his clearly breaking the rules shorts work in actual play

[remote wadi]

Okay, I get that, but you could have at least done something like "Just to be clear, I rank classes on more than just power. It is also going to be the designs, roleplay potential, and the learning curve"

Ranger being dead last wasn't even FIVE SECONDS

[burnt valley]

Or straight up Rules As I Made Up/homebrew

[hidden spindle]

The game is simple as it is.

[rough basalt]

Like Ginny D at least admits she'll do clickbait for algorithms which is why I like her.

[glad arch]

I dont play by raw or rai, i play railt (rules as i like them)

[flint ledge]

So true

[rough basalt]

I play RAWETA

[lost ice]

RAIRT
rules as I remember them

[rough basalt]

Rules As What Engages The Algorithm

[rough basalt]

RAWMMTM, the ultimate rules

Rules As What My Mom Told Me

Unarguable rules

[glad arch]

Well my mom said it worked this way not your way

[hidden spindle]

RWR (Rules? What rules?)

[glad arch]

Who added rules into my flirting with friends simulator

[lost ice]

For that your mother had to play dnd
I think it's really based to get your kids into the game

[rough basalt]

Wdym theres rules and other players in my freeform power fantasy solo rp

[severe rampart]

I am curious though, what's everyone's favorite house rules here?

[lyric viper]

No joke, when my mum in my game told the party 'We're not allowed to hurt the wolves' that was a rule. Weren't allowed to.

[severe rampart]

Animal lover?

[lyric viper]

Very

[remote wadi]

Even reading this made me cringe from imagining me doing that

[severe rampart]

I have a DM and player just like that, they work with animals so I don't use any animal as an encounter in my games with them

[hidden spindle]

It was animals and children for me, discussed on session zero

[idle oar]

Playing D&D with my kids is a blast - and sometimes the younger ones come up with some amazing or silly things (or both!) that just make it fun for everyone in the game to realize... that yes, this is a game.

[limber trail]

It’s not a rule so much as an option but I love rolling with emphasis. It’s best made with luck checks or bold plays. You roll 2d20, and you take the result that’s further from 10 (and then add any modifiers). The idea is you roll one when the outcome could either be really good or really bad.

[glad arch]

Fair enough, i dont either but its always funny thinking about what youre actually doing if the dm adds a romantic interest to your character

[glad arch]

Favoring high over low? E.g. 15 wins over 5

[severe rampart]

Really? mine's rolling death saving throws in private

[limber trail]

Haven’t had it come up yet but I probably would

[rough basalt]

I don't have any houserules I don't think

If I do it's unintentional

[limber trail]

I don’t mind that one when done well, it’s a cool rule, I’ve sometimes seen some DMs take it too far

[glad arch]

Sounds interesting enough, is it a dm call or can a player decide to roll with emphasis?

[limber trail]

It’s solely something I call for as a DM, and only in very rare cases. It’s for those big campaign-shaping rolls - rolling to convince a king, or to perform a huge ritual, or something similar.

Something where the result of this might shape multiple sessions to come and where success or failure are both interesting, but a mediocre roll isn’t

[severe rampart]

how do you mean?

[hidden spindle]

Telegraphing. Not sure if it's homebrew but it feels more narrative

[severe rampart]

Never heard of that, what is it?

[limber trail]

I often see a lot of DMs get given an inch with that rule, and use it to run a marathon (so to speak). A lot of rules are inspired by that one, but start to verge on unfun for the players.

Some egregious ones see players roll death saves and not get to see what they roll, or even have the DM roll the death save themselves. To me, that goes too far, and it usually stems from DMs who use that rule as a basis

I will say, that rule itself in its execution can be fun! I just sometimes see that rule get extended too far

[still plover]

The dragon rears back, taking a mighty breath you say at the start of the round. Player One, it's your initiative, what do you do?

[hidden spindle]

Like if the Dragon recharged their Breathe Attack, I'd narrative say, "You notice dragon is inhaling a large amount of air and puffing up their chest."

Dragon's next turn, Breathe Attack.

Unless they narrative stop it... somehow

[severe rampart]

Interesting... ✍️ I'm gonna use that

[glad arch]

Is that not just a way of narrating combat?

[glad arch]

Okay like that, makes sense actually

[hidden spindle]

My players typically play MMOs and D&D doesn't have aggro, so we make it ourselves narratively I guess

Implementing Facing Rules

[flint ledge]

I mean as with any rule it should be discussed with the table, completely blind saves can be fun I imagine if the players are into a more extreme playstyle

[still plover]

You're giving the hint ( telegraphing ) that the dragon will do a breath attack, right at the start of the round before it gets a go.

[hidden spindle]

It becomes very reactive that the players can do something about it, though it's how I DM at least, I know it's not the norm

[limber trail]

For sure. I’ll also shout that a lot of my distaste for these rules is that they weren’t discussed in session 0 and some of them were even added halfway through the campaign

[remote wadi]

So, anyways

I heard a few people talking about 3.5e before. A little curious what's so great about it?

[hidden spindle]

I try to get the players to role play their actions rather than, I attack, or Attack Action. Give them a little narrative descriptive weight to their actions in response to mines

[severe rampart]

IIRC it was a lot more customizable?

the only person I know who plays 3.5e here is LadyIsLay

[flint ledge]

The leveling system functioned a lot differently, there were basically certain jobs instead of subclasses you needed to fulfill specific requirements for? Something along those lines. I'm unsure

[dapper cloud]

Yeah, more classes, prestige classes and a metric ton of feats, on top of being the first to support the OGL

[remote wadi]

Oh, yeah... she did tell me about that before, didn't she?

[severe rampart]

She invited you to a game then

[still plover]

#dnd-elder-editions can fill you in there.

[dapper cloud]

If you want to look into a modernised version of 3.5, you’re looking at Pathfinder

[remote wadi]

I couldn't really attend at the time. Work like balance was terrible and out of my control

[flint ledge]

I doubt we'll ever get a version similar to 3.5 again

[burnt valley]

Pathfinder fixe-

[flint ledge]

I meant of dnd

[burnt valley]

Yeah true

In my opinion, WOTC peaked at 3.5e

in terms of dnd editions i mean

[dapper cloud]

Tbf, every edition is pretty radically different from the last, even if it still keeps the core of D&D intact.

[severe rampart]

wonder what 6e will be like

[dapper cloud]

I’d like to try 3.5 someday.

And 4e too, actually.

[remote wadi]

Just hope it's not like 2024

[severe rampart]

I like 5.5e

[flint ledge]

Was 4th edition very different? That's like the one Edition I don't hear anything about it

[remote wadi]

2024 always felt like a sidegrade more than an upgrade

[dapper cloud]

Yeah, 4e is vastly different from every other edition.

[flint ledge]

That's literally the direction they're going in though

[remote wadi]

For 6e? I doubt it

[vestal crow]

Can a warlock have someone else as their warlock ?

[burnt valley]

4e is not for me, WOTC errata'd certain jank

[flint ledge]

6e will probably almost entirely move away from the FR if the current stuff is well received

[burnt valley]

I want 6e to be like 3.5e, keeping the same mechanical jank and all

[remote wadi]

Care to elaborate for the uninformed?

[flint ledge]

Unless they were to double down on the FR again which wouldn't make any sense

[humble cairn]

Oh not me, I played 3.5 and I didn't like the amount or the wonkiness of the crunch.

[dapper cloud]

I think there is a fan made subclass where your patron is yourself from the future, but with the core books, no.

[humble cairn]

5E is basically the crunchiest game I can tolerate so if it gets to be a lot of subsystems and tables like 3.5 I won't play it.

[burnt valley]

It has a lot of broken stuff like Illithid Savant which lets you gain the abilities of the creatures you kill, essentially just a milder Pun-Pun

The only problem is that you have to be a Mind Flayer, which they have yuge level penalties

[humble cairn]

3.5 had rules for everything, maybe not quite the level that GURPS could get to, but still quite a lot. I played it and coudl do it, but I didn't like it.

[dapper cloud]

I would like a bit more crunch to make things more consistent, but for the most part 5e strikes the right balance for me.

[humble cairn]

So many different derived stats.

[flint ledge]

Weren't those editions also famous for being absolute character killers?

[dapper cloud]

Not 3.5.

[burnt valley]

No, you are thinking of OSR stuff like 1e or 2e

[humble cairn]

In 3.5 if you knew aaaallll the books you could put together god level characters, but if you didn't know everything you were just as liable to put together a useless character, everything was a trap.

Of course, I didn't know aaalllll the books so I can't say as to what percentage of things were traps.

"Everything" is an exaggeration on my part.

[lyric viper]

I loved 3.5, but there was the 'Timmy Card' design where it intentionally encouraged the 'meta game mastery' similar to MTG's deck building, where you were supposed to figure out which feats/options and so on would be suboptimal. You could accidently build a poor character or lock yourself out of things by not planning ahead.

[burnt valley]

Beholder Mages can have all its spells on its eye stalks be Wish

[dapper cloud]

It also had the biggest martial/caster divide.

[humble cairn]

I find this to be not player friendly. It was more so that people could show their geek mastery of the subject and was a bit pay to win since you had to collect the right books, and there were a lot of books.

[hidden spindle]

I speculate 6e moves into a modular design: Spells in three buckets (Divine, Primal, Arcane) and weapons in three or more categories and two tiers (Simple & Martial).

Then you basically just 'make' your class by the type of magic and weapon. By having a certain amount of Spells, you unlock a rank bonus. Same with weapons.

-# Might as well make my own game...

[flint ledge]

Which is why I doubt 6e will be like 3.5e, they seem to be trying to make themselves much more player friendly

[lyric viper]

I feel like D&D will never move away from Class archetypes because that's sort of what D&D is

[burnt valley]

5/5.5e is even larger, at least 3.5e martials can be strong and has tome of battle

[severe rampart]

the wait between sessions are killing me 😔

[flint ledge]

Or at least if it is there will be major changes

[hidden spindle]

I thought about that as I wrote. Had it never moved away from class?

[humble cairn]

Is there even a hint that they're making another edition? Because I haven't heard it.

[lyric viper]

Nope. 3.5 in someways was the closest you'll get to more modular progression based on more specific classes, feat trees, and skils.

[halcyon forum]

classes and their archetypes are dnd

its baked into the dna

[flint ledge]

I mean unless they're just continously going to bring out the year x rules there will be a new edition

[lyric viper]

D&D at it's creation was emulating popular achetypes in fantasy media.

[humble cairn]

As someone who comes to D&D from classless systems, I don't see D&D ever moving away from classes. Other systems do it better anyway.

[humble cairn]

Hmm, not my question, though?

[flint ledge]

There's not a hint that I know of no. But it's basically expected

[lyric viper]

I think this is more speculative far future stuff, rather than based on any news.

[halcyon forum]

I mean in 8-10 years, maybe there will be a new edition

[lyric viper]

'If D&D made a new edition, what big changes might happen?'

[humble cairn]

Ahh, ok. I guess I'll dip since I don't have any interest in that kind of speculation.

[halcyon forum]

I would hope they would do a complete makeover thats still dnd, like the switch from adnd 2e to 3e.
5e doesnt need two remasters

[lyric viper]

I think classes, d20 system, and the six stat system are kinda baked in there.

Alignment might disappear entirely. Might loose or gain a base class. Magic might split into Primal/Arcane/Divine again instead of the classic Arcane/Divine (Or no split, almost as it is now)

[jolly hound]

Big fan of the boggle very good creature

[flint ledge]

What is the usual time between system releases anyway?

[halcyon forum]

not really a fixed schedule

[hidden spindle]

'Only ⅓ of all classes can use Spells? Half casters gone full martial~ Highest leveled Spells are 4th level'

[halcyon forum]

its based on how well the current edition is selling and player sentiment

[jolly hound]

Honestly I’ve been liking the 2024 stuff

[rough basalt]

5e is the longest running one so far.

[glad arch]

How well can you even theorise 6e, did the people from 3.5e have any ideas what 5e would look like

[flint ledge]

It probably won't end for a few years either

[rough basalt]

Nah 3.5e people probably theorized 4e more

[limber trail]

I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing a little less focus on classes and a little more modularity with features. I doubt it’d happen though

[glad arch]

Ive heard much great stuff about 4e but fair

[rough basalt]

4e was just unfortunate.

Too many screwups at a corporate level and other non-game related events/issues

[paper portal]

my favourite is 5e (ive only played it and 5.5)

[halcyon forum]

I do like the pf2e approach to multi-classing. much easier to balance and to integrate into character progression

[glad arch]

Same lol

[vernal owl]

lmao real

[hidden spindle]

Same

[glad arch]

5e and 5.5e are by default most popular as they were the newest editions out during the dnd boom

[vernal owl]

ive never seen someone mention it i only see postings of 3.5 and 5e games

i thought 4th edition was skipped like the iphone 9

[paper portal]

lmao

[rough basalt]

It's cause people say 4e bad to new people.

[glad arch]

Just like how new people now start with 5.5 instead of 5 usually most new players the last decade probably started with 5e

[lyric viper]

4e had some great monster designs and fun combat.
But it changed a lot of the lore, making it harder for people to convert games across from older editions, and had issues like the GSL (a more restrictive version of the OGL) pushing away 3rd party content creators and their VTT falling through due to very sad circumstances.

[hidden spindle]

Or Windows 9 i think

[halcyon forum]

I think 4e still has a small but active playerbase, but they stick more to their own spaces i think

[rough basalt]

Ye the Forgotten Realms 4e changes were the most egregious

They made one writer quit fantasy writing for good

Their FR novels never finished.

[lyric viper]

I do recommend stealing 4e monster designs though. Very cool.

And 4e inspired other TTRPGs like Draw Steel, which are fun.

[hidden spindle]

I couldn't imagine a legacy DM with a menagerie of MM of old

[rough basalt]

Flee Mortals is the 4e monster design if you've ever seen or used it

[tawdry sentinel]

Fantastic book

[lyric viper]

You can also thank 4e for making Dragonborn and Tiefling PHB, and Warlock, and ritual spells...

[rough basalt]

Pretty sure a lot of it is legally distinct 4e monsters.
Like the Tarrasque in it.

It has a special name but it's the same statblock adjusted for 5e

With its notably greatest feature to ever grace a tarrasque

[tawdry sentinel]

The definitely not a beholder they have as a named enemy is pretty great.

[glad arch]

Thank you 4e for my hexadin

[rough basalt]

Earthbind Aura.

That they gave it back to a degree in '24

[lyric viper]

Oh and the Feywild and Shadowfell being what they are. 4e had some great feywild stuff.

[glad arch]

Thank you again then for shadar-kai

[rough basalt]

Nothing better than telling players who say they're gonna fly above a tarrasque and shoot it that they're now dropping into its mouth

[limber trail]

I also maintain any self respecting tarrasque will eventually figure out how to use a house as an improvised thrown weapon

[rough basalt]

5.5e did the 2nd best addition which was give it an aoe

[lyric viper]

6e will give the tarrasque a gun.

[rough basalt]

If players won't stop it, have it roar and destroy a neighborhood

[glad arch]

I cast full automatic shotgun

[limber trail]

Writing this down….

[rough basalt]

Have it eat some houses then spit it out like an anti-air cannon

[hidden spindle]

Cast Satellite Ballistic

[lyric viper]

Random anecdote on this topic- Fallout's Deathclaw is the 2e Tarrasque.

[blissful dragon]

The new monster hunting book got me wondering what does kelemvor think of that sort of thing the plant species would do cause it’s technically not necromancy?

[limber trail]

It would also be fun to pair it with maybe a Roc or Dragon or another flying enemy that can take down aerial threats but I also recognize that takes some amount of narrative setup to achieve

[tawdry sentinel]

Godzilla v mothra you say

[remote wadi]

Wanted to ask a quick question

For the spellcasting part of War Caster, is the requirement of them being the only target limited to the spell itself or the target? Like, would Thunderwave work?

[limber trail]

||My campaign is eventually gonna culminate with a pretty technologically savvy nation unleashing the tarrasque to use it as a weapon to win a war, so I can’t wait to pair the tarrasque with some airships|| spoilers my players dearest

[remote wadi]

What was the 2e version like?

[lyric viper]

Well it looked like the Deathclaw. It's bite would also pretty much kill any PC.

[hidden spindle]

Try in #dnd-rules

[rough basalt]

The Tarrasque was something the dm threw at you so you could make new characters /j

[lyric viper]

Reflects most magic spells, fear aura, insane damage, insane HP,- Immune to psionics to nope that powergame.

It was pretty much guaranteed to hit you. I think it could only miss on a nat 1.

[rough basalt]

Tarrasque in older editions was kinda like Atom Smasher in cyberpunk ttrpg

"How do I fight it?"
"You don't."

[paper portal]

the way they did adam smasher dirty in the game makes me mad ngl

[lyric viper]

The numbers won't seem like much now but in 2e, yeah them dealing on average 65+ in a single turn (and more if they charged, and also would cut limbs off on a hit).
It would eat your PCs. Considering the fighter at lvl 20 might have 90hp on average

Meanwhile it had 300hp.

[remote wadi]

If it's looks, maybe. But I beg to differ on it probably being a 1:1 comparison

[pliant sapphire]

Which is the mechanical effect of being without a limb?

[lyric viper]

I'm saying visually:

Was it always a big scaly lizard thing? Nope. My initial design for this terrible creature was a the apex predator of the wasteland, a mix of wolverine and brown bear, mutated by the FEV. It could survive any environment and feared nothing; a legendary force of nature that struck terror into the hearts of men! Unfortunately, the artists took one look at my concept sketch and said, 'Dude, that's way too much hair.' It was true. The Wolverine-bear was very furry, and there was just no way around it. So here's what happened: the newly formed Black Isle started work on what would be Planescape: Torment. One of the first art pieces was a monstrous creature called a Tarrasque. It was sculpted in clay and was then point-by-painstaking-point digitized into a 3D model. As Planescape moved forward, it turned out that the Tarrasque wouldn't actually be featured in its design, leaving that tasty model in disuse. Thus, the furry wolverine-bear became a hairless reptilian biped. (Take a look at page 339 of the D&D second edition Monster Manual. Holy cats! It's a Deathclaw!)”
— Scott Campbell, Origins of Fallout No Mutants Allowed

[flint ledge]

It says specifically must only target that creature

[lyric viper]

You know I'm not sure in 2e. Possibly DM Fiat along with the 'well now you can't weild X' or 'Guess you can't stand anymore'.

[limber trail]

I’ll also add, creatures getting hit in a radius generally aren’t targeting a creature so they aren’t eligible. Fireball isn’t targeting a creature if it hits one creature, it’s targeting an area

[lyric viper]

Also I find it funny that thw swor of sharpness in 2e (which the tarrasque's bite acts as) says it severs extremities like tails, arms,** necks**, legs - but not the head.

[rough basalt]

The neck goes but the head falls and attaches to the torso keeping them alive

[eager marsh]

That's some Norse Loki nonsense when he made that deal with the dwarves that made Mjolnir (and a few others). "I said I'd let you take my head, but not my neck so you cant actually behead me!"

[lyric viper]

Nearly Headless Nick's origin story.

"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?"
"Got hit by a sword of sharpness and rolled neck. After an hour of arguing rules, this was the result."

"I'm still dead."

[eager marsh]

this is axe erasure smh. it was thirty...seven(?) times!

[humble cairn]

This is definitely a #dnd-rules question, but fully RAW, it must have a creature target and only target that creature. Technically targeting an area isn't targeting only that single creature, but I've seem DMs who will let you get away with it if it doesn't hit any other creature.

[remote wadi]

I suppose that would make sense: however, one counterpoint. Trying to take one down early game in DnD is a speed run for your next 4d6k3

For FNV, if my sole purpose for a character was to kill a Deathclaw Mother, I could hypothetically not just kill, but one shot at level 3 with surprising odds (max level for comparison is 30, 50 with DLC)

Damage calculations in that game are funny

[inner silo]

Is being merciless a character flaw?

[vernal owl]

i suppose so, depends on the campaign setting lowkenuinely

[remote wadi]

The same way a character taking lawful good to the extreme is

[inner silo]

I see, thanks!

Is being reserved a bad character flaw?

[eager marsh]

Being reserved and not explaining how your character reacts to things and behaves can just lead to minimal and un engaging roleplay and that’s more a meta issue

[remote wadi]

For those curious, the TLDR is that critical damage is added before multipliers, so it basically comes down to getting a good damage weapon early game and then adding a ton of multipliers (headshot, sneak attack, hollow point, consumables, etc)

[lost ice]

soryy wrong channel 😅

[inner silo]

Yeah that's kinda the issue I'm afraid of

[inner silo]

Could there be a way to make it work?

[eager marsh]

Explaining body language (especially if you aren’t in person to just act it out) can help as well as making sure you know how they’ll act during situations. I have a monk dragonborn that isn’t usually very talkative but he’s a man of action and straightforwardness so he just does things and will speak up when he has an option or question

[inner silo]

That sounds increadible! Thanks a lot for the help!

[humble cairn]

A Flaw should be designed in such a way that it drives narrative conflict in order to forward the story, but not in a way that it disrupts the flow of the game or makes other players (not characters) uncomfortable.

[eager marsh]

A great example was when he fought a whole bunch of yuan ti and they kept using suggestion to make me stop grappling and dragging them all over the fight. Made every save so at each ‘suggested command’ he said no and resumed punching them in the face

[inner silo]

Ik, that's probably the biggest difficulty with making a flaw

Reserved is probably more a personality trait then a flaw

[humble cairn]

There's something called Knife Theory. It's the idea that you want to design your character in such a way to give your DM knives made especially to stab your character.

[eager marsh]

That’s just called ‘giving your character trauma’

[humble cairn]

It doesn't always have to be past trauma either. You can have an especially loved NPC that is also a knife.

[inner silo]

I think of giving my character mercilessness and arachnophobia as i think these could fit a drow escape and both give the dm some tools to push the character and give them something to overcome

[humble cairn]

Ok, but is it something that will be fun for the other players to behold and interact with?

[inner silo]

We have a player who's character essentially never reacts to stuff around unless the dm asks her specifically what her character is doing so i think it'll be fine

But I'll still dwell on it for now

[serene jolt]

I have a campaign going to level 9 at the max, will the 2024 Healer feat as supplemental+emergency healing be good enough? We have 6 people, 1 of which is a cleric.

The party has a monk, barb, ranger, cleric, sorcerer, and I. The sorcerer will be in and out so we needed a dedicated arcane caster so I also became a sorcerer. I don't want to do divine sorcerer either, so I went with wild magic. Either way, 6 people is a lot for 1 healer and no partial healers.

Or should I just suck it up and do a bard? Despite not really wanting to play a bard when we are stopping at level 9.

[inner silo]

It probably sounds better in theory then it would be in practice

[serene jolt]

Any ideas or will the Healer Feat suffice?

[inner silo]

We have 5 people, all 5 of which are dps charisma casters up until now and none of us except my character who got insanely unlucky have died

[serene jolt]

It's a "challenging" dm who throws insane encounters at us. Otherwise I wouldn't worry as much about party comp.

[glass granite]

You already have Ranger and cleric for potential healing, healer should suffice

[hidden spindle]

Do you want to heal?

[serene jolt]

Not really tbh

[glass granite]

Then don’t heal

[hidden spindle]

Then don't take it

[marble lion]

ive seen parties without any healers

[inner silo]

Then grabbing magic initiate cleric and healing word could be useful

[marble lion]

its not that crazy not to have healers

[glass granite]

The best way to prevent death is to stop the enemy from killing you. Take damage spells or, especially, CC spells

[marble lion]

it just means the DM will most likely give you some more access to healing items

[serene jolt]

Alright. I just feel pressured because the Cleric has been complaining. 😅

[marble lion]

unless its a very challenging game, where the DM will punish party comp

[glass granite]

Ask the ranger to grab a healing spell when they can

[hidden spindle]

The Cleric don't need to heal either

[serene jolt]

It is

[inner silo]

If you want a heal that won't disrupt your action economy much, magic initiate cleric and healing word is a bonus action heal to get a downed ally back up

[marble lion]

considering the party comp is the result of what each player wants to play though, that seems a bit annoying to me

[loud tendon]

So the game doesnt require you to have specific roles filled.. you could have no healing classes or feats. It just means people have to learn to play a little differently, a little more purposefully.

Play what you want to play not what you think thr group needs.. like, unless the dm is saying you need a dedicated arcane caster, a healer, tank etc...

[marble lion]

"oh none of you liked the idea of playing a healer? well you will lose now" is a rough take on the game to me

[serene jolt]

I did forget that rangers have the choice to heal tho. I'll bring that up if I need to. Or I'll just magic initiate healing word it.

Thank yall for the advice

[glass granite]

Or both. Either way it’s better than healer imo

[buoyant oar]

If there is no healer it's on the DM to compensate

[inner silo]

Is there really a way to punish not having a healer in 2024?

[marble lion]

by just running the game as normal id say

imo the DM should make a game that is fun for the party comp, not demand a party comp for a fair game

[glass granite]

And specifically not giving magic healing items

[marble lion]

or tldr as lord kas said

[serene jolt]

Dm made it clear in session 0 that this was gonna be tough. I have a druid currently but our sorcerer comes and goes. We had a really rough time without him and realized we might need a blaster.

That's primarily the context

[inner silo]

Druid is an amazing healer baseline

[marble lion]

the game being tough as a blanket statement does not mean he wont compensate for your comp not having healers btw
but i trust you know your DM better than i do

[serene jolt]

I agree. But not a great blaster. XD

[marble lion]

if i said the game will be tough, i would still balance that toughness around whatever comp they bring

[inner silo]

They can do pretty good sustained dpr and control

[marble lion]

that means a party without a healer would get a game that is tough for them, not the game that would have been tough for the nonheal party comp

[serene jolt]

I made the choice to play a moon druid 💔

[glass granite]

I mean they’re still a full caster, they hit relatively hard

[inner silo]

Great!

[marble lion]

but its fine anyway, its just a kinda meta approach to me

[serene jolt]

Bc I was under the assumption we had a blaster xD

[glass granite]

I’ve had a party where the Druid was the main blaster and they did fine

[serene jolt]

Unless you guys think it might be a better idea to just change my druid subclass.

[inner silo]

Only if you want to

[dapper cloud]

Druid can fill almost any roll in the party and be decent at it.

[glass granite]

Agreed. Moon is fine

[loud tendon]

Why is it on you to totally change concept and not say, the monk or ranger? The barb can "tank", so why doesnt the other melee or ranger switch?

[serene jolt]

Because they don't want to and I like to fill in gaps.

[marble lion]

oh if you enjoy it thats your call

[inner silo]

If you want a damage druid iirc stars is pretty good for that

[marble lion]

i was taking this as "one player is having their fantasy denied because the game is meant to be tough" which is silly because it is an above table problem that shouldnt affect ingame

[tall forge]

Dnd really doesnt care that much about party balance

[glass granite]

Yeah if that’s the case go ham, if you want to change it then do that. And I second stars, LOVE me a stars Druid

[inner silo]

Sea can be great front line damage and control

[serene jolt]

Stars a good blaster?

[glass granite]

Buffed healing, damage and concentration

[marble lion]

id say not that much but having no healers in a game where the dm didnt plan on giving out any healing as well will probably end up in a lot of dead characters

[glass granite]

Not half bad

[inner silo]

They get additional damage and heals as a bonus action iirc

[marble lion]

if you have no way of bringing downed people back, that is just a very big thing

[glass granite]

Or a minimum 10 on concentration

[tall forge]

Its up to the dm to compensate that with healing potions and scrolls of revivify

Its an incredibly easy fix

[marble lion]

i agree but IF the DM was not doing that, DnD would certainly care

[remote wadi]

And in terms of long term damage for low cost, Call Lightning is a good choice

[inner silo]

Yup, great subclass! I was going to choose it until i realised spikegrowth works with forced movement

[tall forge]

Even then, healing is…. Ok

Its not exactly great

[marble lion]

healing is whatever, its about the revives

[serene jolt]

Alright so my two options:

Sorcerer, grab magic initiate for healing word.
Or change my druid to a stars druid for some extra power + sticking with my current character.

[marble lion]

its just about the revives, nothing else

[inner silo]

Btw healing got buffed in 2024, just saying in case

[marble lion]

if hitting 0 gives you a greater than 50% chance of losing a character, that is rough

[glass granite]

In either case I’d stick with whichever case involves keeping your character

[tall forge]

It’s less about how strong any individual healing spell is, just how the game is balanced

[marble lion]

outofcombat prayer of healing is pretty strong

[tall forge]

Agreed

[marble lion]

20d6 healing is wonderful

[tall forge]

Most healings great out of combat

[inner silo]

True. Though bringing allies from downed as a ba is nice

[tall forge]

I speak only on combat

[remote wadi]

I would say Mercy Monk, but honestly

Not great in 2014. 2024 giving Monks a good upgrade is probably one of the only few things that actually makes me play 2024

[glass granite]

Monks are fun in both versions imo, and mercy is a great pick for 2014

But yeah 2024 monk is peak

[remote wadi]

They can be, but they're got problems

[glass granite]

Particularly lack of ki

That’s the main thing for me

[remote wadi]

Weaker Martial die, no Medicine and Insight Prof either

[glass granite]

The latter two are far less important for me, but yeah they’re problems nonetheless.

[humble cairn]

Skill Proficiencies are fairly easy to pick up outside of Class.

[remote wadi]

Oh, yeah. I forgot Wis and Dex still pulls through for that

[inner silo]

What about a divine warlock as a healer and dps?

[remote wadi]

True, but it's the fact you get them just by picking uo the subclass

Meaning you only need to go 2 levels to get basically a skilled feat for free

[glass granite]

Skilled feat with a very niche skill, but yes

[humble cairn]

Which is kinda still a ribbon ability, but yeah it's not bad.

[glass granite]

Genuinely have called for medicine once

Insight is great tho

[remote wadi]

Elaborate

[inner silo]

Ngl medicine is a bit underrated as a skill

[humble cairn]

Monk in 2014 has very sparse resource economy. It made you need to be very tactical with how you spent it.

[glass granite]

They simply run out of ki too fast with how much they want to spend it

[humble cairn]

Monk '24 has more options that don't cost Focus, giving you a lot of options that don't cost a resource.

[remote wadi]

It also doesn't help that Dash and Disengage are not free BAs at level 2 in 2014

And the deflect reaction is weaker

[glass granite]

And that monks don’t get their focus back on initiative once per long rest

[serene jolt]

No, but talking about the group I was just talking about with my sorcerer problem:
Our monk is the worst. He will go into a bunch of enemies and stand there, going down over and over again. Trying to tank but failing miserably.

And the DM has and will finish him off so half the time as a moon druid, I'm running over to cure wounds the frickin dude.

[humble cairn]

But so much was changed for the better in the new rules. Monk being tweaked is just one of the good changes.

[serene jolt]

It's fairly frustrating xD
If only we got healing word in wild shape.

[humble cairn]

There's only so much the class can do if the player doesn't know how to use it.

[serene jolt]

-# or if only he decided to play monk a little better

[glass granite]

Raise that with the monk

[remote wadi]

So yeah. If you ask me

If most of the 2024 buffs were applied to 2014 and more homebrew classes were made for 2014 in mind

Picking up 2024 would likely not happen for me

[serene jolt]

I will. He got angry at us because the first mission, he ended up dying (we revived him). And now he holds a grudge icly. But at the same time, his monk goes in and goes dumb things.

So I may just bring it up in character.

Cuz it feels more like a character problem perhaps

[glass granite]

This feels like something that can be brought up in or out of character, so I’d say that’s fine

[humble cairn]

You're describing what they did with Tasha's which was good, but was still just a bandaid. The update made all those improvements more streamlined because they were in the mechanics from the getgo.

[serene jolt]

I told myself if he does it again tho, I'm leaving him for the Cleric to deal with unless I have the action economy to bring him up. If he dies, then he dies. 🤣

[desert fable]

is it possible to fire muskets with animate objects?

[humble cairn]

I don't understand the question, but I'm betting the answer is probably no.

[glass granite]

Not RAW no

[desert fable]

dang, but what if I prepare evryting and the gun just need to pull the trigger?

[glass granite]

“If you command an object to attack, it can make a single melee attack against a creature within 5 feet of it. It makes a slam attack”

[humble cairn]

Oh Animate Objects the spell. So you want to animate a musket and have it shoot itself?

[remote wadi]

Well, no. Deflect, TotSaM, and the Level 20 were different, and none of those were Tasha

[desert fable]

yes

[humble cairn]

No, the spell only does what it says it does.

[desert fable]

dang

[glass granite]

Nothing here mentions you can use the object to attack in any way but slamming

[glass granite]

ToTSam?!

[humble cairn]

Tongue of the Sun and Moon?

[remote wadi]

Tongue of the Sun and Moon

[desert fable]

no way to make a musket shoot without the character holding it?

[remote wadi]

You basically become a universal language translator. That's it.

[humble cairn]

Anyway, besides the monk improvements, a lot of the other changes in 2024 really are good quality of life changes and make things run smoother.

[tall forge]

Agreed

[remote wadi]

Another thing is that the deflect mechanic is much better in 2024

[glass granite]

Not to my knowledge

[desert fable]

I see thank you

[glass granite]

Agreed

[humble cairn]

Certainly, upgrading to be able to deflect elemental attacks as well is great.

[glass granite]

It’s also very fun thematically

[remote wadi]

2014 is ranged weapon attacks only, 2024 is both melee and ranged physical attack rolls

Level 13 iirc replaces TotSaM with an upgrade that changes it to any damage types for attack rolls

[tall forge]

Tho i dont know if im a fan of some of the monster ability choices

[humble cairn]

What I meant was that putting a patch on 2014 was what Tasha's did, and while it was decent, it is better that there was a ground-up overhaul of the base system. Trying to put so many changes in as "optional" leads to something very messy.

[shadow vapor]

I don't think this is something that can be fixed but Imma just post it here anyways because this makes me mad: Why do cats suck in dnd? like these aren't even cats their creatures that have the ability to (kinda) jump good and that's it, it's dumb why would you ever want to become a cat in dnd? the answer is you don't because cat's aren't cats, they don't have the cat weakness or strengths they have nothing in fact, being a cat in dnd sucks, you can't even balance well or something, if you want to be a cat, don't just become like a fox or something at least then you'd get a burrow speed!? WHY DO FOX'S GET BURROW SPEED WHEN CAT'S CAN'T EVEN LAND ON THEIR FEET, it makes no sense I hate it.

now the fox I'm looking at isn't from 2024 so maybe they'd nerf that aswell but my point still stands cat's deserve more, so why not give them more.

for starters give them the ability to sense the heart of another creature within 30 feet of them if they can hear the other creatures heart beat, and the other creature isn't on the other side of a wall in another closed off room, make it so if someone pinches' the back of their necks they instinctively can not move and gain the stunned condition, LET THEN REDUCE FALL DAMAGE, BY REMOVING 10 FEET FROM THE FALL (I'd do 30 but I'm trying to be reasonable.)

now this might all sound OP, but the thing is this does nothing to raise their CR by any amount these buffs turns them into actual cats.

Now I'm bias. I'll admit. But come on, these creature were once celebrated like as gods and they holds great significance to us as a spices they deserver their flowers just like dogs do... and speaking of dogs- really no dogs in dnd at all, I'm a cat glazer and this saddens me greatly, dogs are cherished in all walks of life, I cannot think of a single culture that have history with dogs! and there Zero Beast Dogs in dnd? sure they are objectively worse then cats (joke) but still at least let us cat fans a creature to lord our Greatness over, bird don't count (there no birds in dnd ether lol) like don't some rangers like get a dog? do they just have to make it up as they go? what about the puglist? why are there zero cannon dogs in dnd? this is crazy, what is the DnD lore for this did ever have a dog? were their just wolves, dogs never happened? if so why did cat's happen, I think Wolves missed a meeting or something.

But I don't know again I'm not like a dog guy, so I don't really care about dog stuff, what do you dog fellows thing about this, do you dog dudes want dogs in dnd?

[tall forge]

I feel like there are a lot more “if you get hit, get effected no save” abilities which i dont like

[glass granite]

Holy text wall

[tall forge]

The lich is the easy target of that criticism

[humble cairn]

That's certainly some passion behind "Make cats not suck in D&D."

[tall forge]

Auto paralysis isnt fun :(

[inner silo]

They're fun imo if it's a minor effect like ray of frost

[tall forge]

Agreed!

I just dont like the ones that go “you got hit, dont play the game”

[inner silo]

Oof, something's that auto fully incapasitates a character isn't fun

[humble cairn]

Hmm ... it does make things very dangerous and makes recovery abilities more valuable. I dunno, I might like it.

[glass granite]

Yeah the “you got hit so take a time out” is bad, but “you got hit, deal with this for a bit” is fine

[remote wadi]

Honestly, I just cross my fingers that 6e is when they start actually putting in work for this

But knowing the people behind it and things today being the posterboy for definition of insanity...

I really doubt it. I want to believe, but it's probably delusional at this point

[tall forge]

I can see some value

But i dont particularly enjoy it

[flint ledge]

They added that within 2024, I assume mostly to make monsters feel more threatening

[inner silo]

Stuff that doesn't take away your turn but hinders you for more turns could be better and more fun

[humble cairn]

I mean I certainly felt good when I was able to BA Lesser Recovery the Paladin when a lich paralyzed her.

[stiff rock]

I doubt we'll see a 6e for the next decade or so

[glass granite]

Personally I’ve never had an issue with it cuz I don’t play high enough levels for it hat to occur

[humble cairn]

But like ... what don't you like about the 2024 update?

[remote wadi]

Then maybe that'll be some time for them to actually stand in their billion dollar corner and think about their actions for a while

[tall forge]

I like stuff that still lets you mitigate the problem, ray of frost you can still teleport/dash

Grapple you can try and escape, ignore it, or teleport

[humble cairn]

And they definitely are.

[flint ledge]

In some attacks I understand it... But the lich with the instant paralyze on a hit... Was that necessary?

[tall forge]

Sure it makes it more dangerous

But like…. I feel they coulda done it in a less cheesy way

[remote wadi]

From a first glance, it spends too much time trying to replace when ut should have been time trying to compliment 14

[hidden spindle]

Everyone wants to swing for an Attack Roll

[lost ice]

6e is the half life 3 of dnd

[inner silo]

Just add an extra 2d10 to all their attacks

[remote wadi]

It could have been what Tasha did and made most of the changes optional and not trying to separate itself from 14