dnd-discussion

[fossil hollow]

they rip each other apart

[hot marlin]

What kind of monkey? Because there are lots of different monkeys with very different specializations.

The hussar monkey is incredibly fast.

[near karma]

Most overrated Wizard subclass?

React to vote:
🛡️ is Abjuration.
🤺 is Bladesinging.
⏰ is Chronurgy.
💣 is Conjuration.
🧙 is Divination.
😵‍💫 is Enchantment.
🔥 is Evocation.
🌐 is Graviturgy.
🍥 is Illusion.
💀 is Necromancy.
📖 is Scribes.
🪨 is Transmutation.
⚔️ is War.

yes, fish cake was the best thing I could come up with for illusion 😭

[strong wave]

Why bladesinging

[naive belfry]

Naruto moment 🥷

[remote wadi]

Holy mother of emoji flood

[craggy summit]

Divination on top 🔥 genuinely a top 5, maybe top 3 subclass ability

[naive belfry]

No, that's Evocation.

[fickle heart]

Portent is the specific reason I think Div is overrated with how the gameplay has to be structured for two rolls to make that huge of a difference, though I think Expert Div is underrated when you're doing something like dungeoncrawling that makes Div spells less painful to cast.

(I'm assuming we're discussing 2014 because all of the subclasses are actually out in it.)

Not only is it two rolls, but it's two rolls that need to be used before the actual roll is made, meaning it's not a retroactive replacement but a proactive replacement. You need to have a pretty good idea of the modifier you're going up against or the DC you need to hit for them to work every time, and the closer the rolls are to average the worse they are for the ability.

[naive belfry]

I'm more of a 2024 person, but it makes sense.

[barren badger]

I think it's actually better to use portent to make enemies do poorly on D20 tests, specifically if you want them to fail a save

[severe rampart]

What Tamms said, you don't know what their bonus on saves are

[barren badger]

Of any class though, i think wizard subclasses generally have the least impact

[fickle heart]

I'll also admit that the more metagaming is appropriate and the more recognizable the enemies are, the better Portent is, but it still totally relies on getting results that trend away from the average.

[severe rampart]

I wouldn't know, I'm more of a sorcerer fella, bards too

[naive belfry]

I'm either Rouge, Ranger, or Druid depending on my mood.

[severe rampart]

When you roll two 10s so you can't use the portent for anything...

[barren badger]

I think I enjoy Circle of the Land druid as a general spellcaster over a wizard i think

[severe rampart]

Rogues are fun

[twilit shell]

hey knockoff reliable talent ;P

[severe rampart]

Wizard is honestly bottom 3 classes for me

Nuclear take

[barren badger]

The thing i LOVE about wizard is being able to ritual cast spells that you havent prepared

[near karma]

I'd say rogue subs have the least impact because they're really just so bad

wizard has some pretty strong subclasses like chronurgy (access to gift of alacrity, immovable object, +int to AC, chronal shift, a decent 6th level feature, and incredible 10th and 14th level features)

[fickle heart]

Best case you roll two really terrible results on the dice so you can at least use them as LR-burners, but that itself is a rarity.

[barren badger]

glances at arcane trickster

[near karma]

based druid enjoyer

[severe rampart]

Hm. Not sure about this one, other than Assassin the subclasses are pretty solid imo

[near karma]

Yeah that's the best 5e rogue sub. The best rogue sub is pretty underwhelming

[severe rampart]

Ah, I'm 2024

[near karma]

thief and AT are definitely better in 5.5

[barren badger]

i was really disappointed by Scion of the Three in HoF

[fossil hollow]

its really fun tho

[barren badger]

Which part? Bloodthirst?

[fossil hollow]

aye

[twilit shell]

Barbarian # 1 bard last place wizard second to last

[barren badger]

wow, people really dislike wizard that much?

[fickle heart]

Conceptually, Wizard takes everyone's lunch money and warps class design around it.

[craggy summit]

they have like no class features, which is why everyone dislikes it. i know their gimmick is the massive spell list but there's like not much besides that

[near karma]

it's probably my 3rd favorite class

druid is #1, ranger (5e) is #2, and then the next 3 are warlock, cleric, wizard

[true citrus]

Masters of the Arcane? more like Ar-can't 🥁

[barren badger]

I think I just love the concept of learning new spells. They're like little pokemon you have to catch

[valid geyser]

that 6 level gap hurts hard

id say it hurts hardest relatively compared to stuff like bar'd six level gap because its all of tier 2 you gotta wait

[barren badger]

i think bottom class is rogue sadly. i think I'd rather play a monk or ranger over a rogue

[valid geyser]

id say its not as bad as the cleric's 11 level gap though

[barren badger]

But I've also never played a table where "skill monkey" is a role that's really needed.

Even then, i think bard is better?

[fickle heart]

I did a whole write-up on the classes from 2014, as part of a big ol' rework.

The actual text itself on what's wrong with Wizard (found on page 29) is:

What’s Wrong: Wizard

Unlike others, Wizard isn’t necessarily a class that is missing anything, has anything directly wrong with it, or needs correction for it to shine. Wizard instead is problematic because it is the primary offender of overlap, due to how much it overlaps every other Arcane caster, leaving each of them with nearly no unique spells.

Arcane Recovery allows a huge amount of additional spell slots per day over the lifetime of a character, adding power to an already relatively unrestricted class. This is cemented by how low level spell slots can be used for powerful spells (like Shield) that don’t scale with slot level.

Ironically, Wizard’s complete reliance on spells leaves them relatively dry of any other features. Their subclasses are often restricted to simple features due to the nature of their spellbook and their ability to ritual cast even when not having a spell prepared.

[valid geyser]

yeah wizards dont have as much decision paralysis from having other resources and actions

[near karma]

at least they all get expanded spell lists often with good spells

[craggy summit]

Their decision paralysis comes from "okay I leveled up! ......which spells do I want tho."

[barren badger]

I was actually surprised by how rough the spell list is for cleric.

There are som VERY good spells, but i feel like they're limited

[valid geyser]

i like clerics, but man i have my nitpicks

[near karma]

yeah, it's on the weaker end of casters

it's still a caster though so it's very good

[barren badger]

||please give clerics a spell attack cantrip||

At least give them true strike

[fickle heart]

One of the struggles 5e has with spell lists comes from the fact that it's meant to be an RPG at heart but it's relatively rare that people play it with more of the traditional RPG mindset that actually justifies various classes having certain functions.

[valid geyser]

i feel like youd expect clerics to have much more build diversity for how diverse their domains are conceptually, but their subclasses being relatively simple alongside the aformentioned spell list, theyre all, so samey

[open salmon]

hello everyone

im new to dnd

[naive belfry]

[barren badger]

This is my exerience as well. It looks like they have a lot of diversity, but i think they end up feeling up more homogenous than wizards

[errant crag]

Just found out that Tenser (a la Tenser's Floating Disk) was the player character of Gary Gygax's son

[valid geyser]

it is ernest spelled backwards

[near karma]

1: bless, ceremony, command, healing word, sanctuary, fog cloud (tempest), sleep (twilight)

2: aid, augury, lesser restoration, locate object, gust of wind (tempest), shatter (tempest, zeal), moonbeam (twilight), spike growth (nature), pass without trace (trickery)

3: animate dead, 5.5 daylight, dispel magic, glyph of warding, magic circle, remove curse, revivify, sending, speak with dead, spirit guardians, water walk, fireball (light, zeal), hypnotic pattern (5.5 trickery), Leomund's tiny hut (twilight), plant growth (nature), sleet storm (tempest)

4: aura of life, banishment, control water, death ward, divination, doomtide, guardian of faith, stone shape, arcane eye (5.5 light, 5.5 knowledge), dimension door (5.5 trickery), fabricate (forge), polymorph (trickery), wall of fire (forge, light)

5: circle of power, commune, dawn, greater restoration, holy weapon, planar binding, raise dead, scrying, summon celestial, animate objects (forge), creation (forge), destructive wave (tempest, zeal), synpatic static (5.5 knowledge)

6: dirge, forbiddance, heal, heroes' feast, planar ally, word of recall

7: conjure celestial, divine word, fire storm, plane shift, power word fortify, resurrection

8: antimagic field, earthquake, holy aura

9: astral projection, gate, mass heal, true resurrection

that's a list of good cleric spells I made about a month ago
I'm probably forgetting some good downtime spells (like I forgot regenerate and continual flame)

[craggy summit]

I don't think anyone here is a medical professional. You'd have to look it up for ask a vet unfortunately. Hope your dog is well 🙏

[craggy summit]

Same is true for mordenkainen!

Oh wait I misread, mordenkainen was Gary's character

[errant crag]

Mordenkainen was Gary's character and I believe Elminster was Ed Greenwood's

[valid geyser]

The realms existed in greenwood's mind before d&d existed

[craggy summit]

Yes yes 🙂‍↕️ atleast for mordenkainen, I'm not sure about elminster

[fossil hollow]

its greenwood's mind child

[errant crag]

Melf was also one of Luke Gygax's character and was a Fighter/Wizard dual class

[fickle heart]

Designing 5e to be more of a purely combat-focused game (akin to how games like WoW are now) would likely involve a lot of shifted assumptions that require rebalancing of spell lists, as Clerics are focused on more of the "incomparables" of RPGs.

[near karma]

Talk to your local veterinarian

we can't help you with your dog's heartworms

we're just dnd nerds

[fickle heart]

If you're looking for financial support/donations (not that I'm saying you are), you'd best ask the mod team if you can put up a link for a donation thing, but potentially indirectly soliciting them would be a no-no.

[errant crag]

Strahd has so much Aura in the server banner

[barren badger]

I'm sympathetic, but I'm going to be honest, randomly dropping in here and starting off with your original comment is making my "scam alert" senses tingle.

I'm not saying you are a scammer, but it's discord and there are sketchy people out there.

[near karma]

I'm not a vet so I can't help you

[crimson gulch]

Yeah that new art is fantastic

[craggy summit]

And it'd also just invalidate a handful of spells, magic items, etc etc if dnd went pure combat. Since there's alot of out of combat stuff

[errant crag]

It's good that the art has aura because the narrative surrounding him gives him negative aura from what I've heard

[barren badger]

is there an wasy way to view the banner in the server?

[near karma]

why would we need proof of your dog having heartworms

[fickle heart]

Oh, definitely. It would also invalidate a lot of the point of the Rogue class, which is reasonable context for why the class is seen as weak.

[errant crag]

This server has nothing to do with pet health there are servers dedicated to that, but most importantly you should take them to a veterinarian

[craggy summit]

Absolutely. ESPECIALLY arcane trickster 😅

[jolly canyon]

03/2026 creation date for account soliciting donations in a dnd server for pet care. def a bot

[errant crag]

And they claim to take commissions for art, probably a scam yeah

[barren badger]

with no link to a portfolio in bio

And a bluesky with a different handle than the discord name. Without any posts

can you dm it? I would love to see your work!

[errant crag]

Coulda fooled me

[sleek cloud]

Hit level 10 today 🙌

[errant crag]

Heck yeah level 10

[naive belfry]

W

Wait-

What's so good about level 10?

[barren badger]

Well, its bigger than 9

[idle oar]

More features and hit points?

[errant crag]

It's a high level

[craggy summit]

And 9 is bigger than 8! And 8 is bigger than... You get it

[fresh laurel]

haloo

[barren badger]

if only 6 was bigger than 7

[fresh laurel]

i never played DnD before
do i need to learn much stuff

im nerdy

[naive belfry]

Oh I thought he meant Discord levels.

[fresh laurel]

six ate seven

[craggy summit]

You don't need to per say but it would definitely help to know about the game

[sleek cloud]

No, like, celestial warlock 10

[fresh laurel]

i have some weird and non DnD focused fictions i wrote before i was into literacy
theme and world is a lot diffrent
can i find a way to make someone host my fiction?
including payment

[craggy summit]

There's #dnd-advertisements

Oh wait nvm I misread

[fresh laurel]

oh thats still cool

[idle oar]

This is not the server for that - but you could just make your own blog (like even get a free WordPress.com blog) and share your writing there

Anyway let's get back to chatting D&D

[fresh laurel]

no no i want to play in my fictiton but i don't want to host it

can i somehow pay someone for it

[barren badger]

if you all were playing in a virtual tabletop, would you allow players to roll dice on their own, at the own desk?

and then just tell the DM what they got?

[crimson gulch]

If you want to hire a pro dm your best bet is to look at Startplaying

[fickle heart]

Depends on the players themselves.

[near karma]

no, there's 0 reason for them to not roll on the vtt

[idle oar]

That's probably going to be hard to do but you could look through #paid-looking-for-game and see if a DM there would be willing to run your setting as a D&D adventure

[fresh laurel]

thanks for the lead! ill look onto it

[crimson gulch]

If you trust them sure, digital automation attempts can be a huge slowdown

[near karma]

it's faster and also shows everyone the rolls

[fresh laurel]

oh okay! thank you very much

[near karma]

how would it slow things down?

you can make macros that roll 16 attacks from velociraptors and their damage in 1 button press

you can /roll 8d6 and immediately get the total damage of your fireball

you can press an attack button and in that 1 press get an attack roll and damage

[near karma]

or if you don't know how to do that, you can /r 32d20 and count the hits

[fickle heart]

Depending on the nature of the rolling and knock-on effects, it's definitely possible for digital to slow down rolling, but I wouldn't say it does so on average.

[rough basalt]

No.

[fickle heart]

The more customizable the software being used to roll is, though, the faster it goes, but that can come with a learning curve (with the software, not rolling).

[crimson gulch]

The more software you have the more things that can and will break

[near karma]

on roll20 and foundry, and also using Avrae and 5eCrawler it's always sped things up a lot

[barren badger]

Foundry doesnt really break

[crimson gulch]

It sure does

[near karma]

I even just used the google dice roller when using conjure animals in person to speed it up

[rough basalt]

Stuff breaking in foundry is usually due to updating too fast after a new update

[crimson gulch]

I have never had a worse experience playing dnd than with foundry, took the dm 5 minuts to cast one fireball.

Had to stop and fiddle with it 17 times

[fickle heart]

Foundry and Avrae are both ones that are pretty good but require that learning curve. I haven't used R20 for quite a while (but wasn't impressed) and haven't heard of 5eC.

[rough basalt]

5 minutes for fireball sounds like a major user problem.

Since it's just click, drop template then roll dice.

[barren badger]

Foundry does really have a learning curve, but once you know how it works *chef's kiss*

[near karma]

5e crawler is just another dice rolling bot like avrae

[barren badger]

Yup, clicking a button to roll the saves for 8 goblins is much faster than doing it manually

[rough basalt]

Like I had two Flameskulls use fireball back to back on the whole party and that as a collective only took 3 minutes cause one dude was on his phone and I had to keep reminding him to roll a dex save.

[fossil hollow]

hitting my level 16 party with a adult silver and a scion of memnor popping in and out

[fickle heart]

Foundry is definitely the best-case scenario for automating those aspects of the game, though I haven't used it much, and all of the horror stories I hear around it largely come from those situations where people have too many addons and updates bork them.

[rough basalt]

Presumably anyway. This was online without cameras so he could've been scrolling Twitter on a different tab.

[rough basalt]

It's like Skyrim.

If you mod the hell out of skyrim without putting thought into it you're gonna break your game.

Foundry is the Skyrim of VTTs.

Except the base foundry isn't built off spaghetti code

[craggy summit]

But I NEED my Skyrim mod that summons a bolt of lightning to strike a guard when they say the arrow to the knee quote 😢

[rough basalt]

That one I think doesn't really conflict.

[fickle heart]

IME with other games, it's more addons having dependencies or the game having some tiny tweak to its code that requires a miniscule update.

[rough basalt]

Yeah thankfully when you need dependencies it does prompt you to download them.

[fickle heart]

But someone might not be updating that dependent addon anymore

[rough basalt]

A lot of the dependent mods are from like v11 and stuff and still work fine.

Think it's cause Foundry themselves don't touch the code they use cause they don't need to anymore.

[fickle heart]

Either way, pure dice work best for drop-in style play but investing some initial time in getting a good dice-roller set up can be well worth the cost.

[rough basalt]

Cause Foundry is evil skyrim.

The devs motto "we believe that stuff should be coded properly"

[barren badger]

Less is more with foundry, tbh.

It's usually when people have 30-50 mods that things get relly, really bad.

V14 is very cool, but i'm sticking with the current version for my main campaign because it works and i dont want to break anything

[rough basalt]

I'd have to check how many I run

I know I have around 150 installed.

[barren badger]

Self-hosting foundry has been a game changer too.

[rough basalt]

I use Forge.

[barren badger]

I used molten core for a while, but I built a little server for music and figured I'd give it a try

[rough basalt]

That way if there's any issues I can pin it on peoples hardware or Forge itself

[barren badger]

This is very helpful!

[rough basalt]

Hardware is definitely a major thing for Foundry if you use modules tho

I got 83 active ones in my main campaign

[barren badger]

yeah, i was really surprised that the server requirements are VERY low. The major requirements are on the people runnig it

[rough basalt]

Yeah like base foundry itself can work on a potato with the potato or not module

[barren badger]

I love that module!

[rough basalt]

But then soon as you start using special effects, or anything that potato is getting turned into a baked potato.

[spice cliff]

What is Sunlight Hypersensitivity, and which Creatures have it? I haven't heard of it in years of playing.

[rough basalt]

Means that you're sensitive to sunlight

So you have disadvantage on attacks and perception checks while in sunlight

As for who has it. In '14, Drow and Kobolds are two I can think of.

[spice cliff]

That's Sunlight Sensitivity. I'm talking about Hypersensitivity. Apparently, it deals 10 Radiant Damage when in Sunlight, and I wondered what Creatures have it.

[crimson gulch]

Vampires

[rough basalt]

Oh that'd be Vampires

[spice cliff]

Ah that makes sense.

I haven't fought any of those yet.

[rough basalt]

They're pretty rare to fight

Unless you're doing CoS

[near karma]

Nosferatu have sunlight hypersensitivity, though it's 20 radiant

[near karma]

from van richten's guide to ravenloft

Fensir Skirmishers get paralyzed in sunlight

Bodaks take 5 radiant in sunlight

[fossil hollow]

fensirs are fun, theyre lotr trolls essentially

[mighty pulsar]

Hello

Anyone know of any feats/abilities/items that help you with being aware of danger?

[blissful ibex]

5e or 5.5e?

[mighty pulsar]

5.5e!

[paper portal]

alert and observant come to mind

[mighty pulsar]

I have alert currently

well let me pull up everything i have rq

[paper portal]

well thats the best one tbh

[blissful ibex]

• Skulker feat
• Blindfighting Fighting Style
• Alert origin feat
• Dagger of Blindsight
• Access to to Find Familiar for the Bat familiar for 60ft blindsight as a Bonus Action
• Devil's Sight / Witch Sight Eldritch Invocations
• Any magic item with the [Guardian] minor artifact property
• Robe of eyes

[barren badger]

weapon of warning

[mighty pulsar]

Alert
Danger Sense
Evasion
Patient Defense

thank you both!

[barren badger]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/9229199-weapon-of-warning

[twilit shell]

@dusty socket see if ur dm will be chill and let you buy +1 clawcaps for your companion or the rough equivalent

[mighty pulsar]

just trying to make a pseudo spider-sense if any of you were curious

[twilit shell]

sentinel shield as well

[barren badger]

Barbarians get Danger Sense and Feral Instinct

[mighty pulsar]

I have danger sense currently

[glass granite]

Gloomstalkers get a large bonus to initiative too

[blissful ibex]

Blindsight would work well for that; would let you sense things in the area that aren't fully obscured or that have the false appearence trait

Dagger of blindsight gives 30 feet for the cost of an attunement slot
Don't need to weild or hold it; just need it on your person

[mighty pulsar]

yeah i'm trying to figure out how to work that one in right now

[mighty pulsar]

my DM is already mad i have a +10 😭

[blissful ibex]

eeh; high init is fine so long as you're not slamming Hard Control spells down every combat

[glass granite]

Even then I consider it fine, high initiative is strong but not broken

[cerulean monolith]

Why doesn’t your DM also want you to be strong? You’re on the same team

[mighty pulsar]

oh no, im a monk barb. I don't do much besides stun and hit people

[barren badger]

what do you want your character to do, mechanically?

[glass granite]

Barbonk

[barren badger]

this is so much cooler than monkarian

[mighty pulsar]

well not literally mad but initiative plays out like:

Me: "27"

DM: "Of course.... 😔 "

[hot marlin]

I'm currently learning about the fascinating history of legal and corporate battles between Hasbro and Atari over the licensing rights of D&D videogames.

Turns out there's a reason it took so long for BG3 to come out

Or for any good D&D video game to come out after NWN2

[rough basalt]

I thought they just liked making bad-mid games. Then interrupt it with a generational banger. After the generational run period anyway

[barren badger]

wasnt BG3 delayed because of the Xbox?

[rough basalt]

Least BG3 was as phenomenal as it is.

[lyric ivy]

What you guys think of an idea of an aboleth for campaign vilan?

[fossil hollow]

neat

[rough basalt]

After they rebooted Dark Alliance as one of the worst titles of the early 2020s, could've easily ruined another generational game name.

[blissful ibex]

yes; works well if you finish the arc mid to late tier 2
Give them an Elemental Cultist sub boss

[lavish flame]

Yeah thays basically their video game philosophy

[lyric ivy]

And tier 2 would be?

[lavish flame]

shit out a bunch of stinkers, then change games forever

[blissful ibex]

Player Levels 5~10

[lyric ivy]

Oh ok, thank you

[rough basalt]

One company makes DA reboot and does so bad they fire over half the people involved with it then rebrand your whole studio.
Larian makes BG3 and now they'll always have the giant phenom looming over them

[lavish flame]

Tier 2 is levels 5-10. The game breaks the levels into 4 Tiers.
Tier 1 is levels 1-4
Tier 2 is levels 5-10
Tier 3 is levels 11-16
Tier 4 is levels 17-20

[rough basalt]

Perfectly balanced. As all things should be.

[blissful ibex]

It'd be fine on it's own at level 6~7; and with adds past that; if you get to around 10; add that Elemental Cultist and have one on land and one in the water >:3c

[rough basalt]

It's funny cause the new game Warlock is being made by the company that made Dark Alliance '21

[hot marlin]

Nope. In the nineties, Hasbro had Hasbro interactive that owned the digital rights to the board games. In 2001 when Hasbro was struggling, they decided to stop that. So Infrogrames, french gaming conglomerate founded by a guy that later became a senator in France, bought Hasbro Interactive for a hundred millions, and paid in their own stock, making Hasbro a shareholder in Infogrames and Infogrames the owner of Hasbro Interactive with exclusive rights to make video games on all of Hasbro's properties. Which is the reason Infogrammes is well known in France for having saturated the market with very poor quality licensed video games. Back then Hasbro also bought WOTC, so the rights to D&D video games were swept up in the french deal. The Atari logo on Neverwinter Nights? Because Infogrammes rebranded as Atari. By the late two thousands, severe financial troubles hit Atari/Infogrammes and Hasbro got frustrated, so they filed a lawsuit to get the digital rights to D&D back, settled out of court, and the digital rights to WOTC properties reverted back to Hasbro, which is why Hasbro was able to greenlit BG3

[rough basalt]

So I wonder if they'll redeem themselves or release another generational crapper

[lavish flame]

Oh yeesh

I was excited for Warlock. Now I'm not so sure.

[rough basalt]

Like I mentioned they fired most of the people behind DA '21

Including the dude who was in charge of it.

So it's the same company but only some of the behind the scenes people from DA '21. None of the writers, main designers ect. that made that dumpsterfire the dumpsterfire it was

So there's a chance it's good

I don't think Warlock will do as well as Hasbro/WotC are hoping tho

I have a very deep suspicion that Hasbro/WotC or Hasbro at least, are gonna use BG3s success as the standard bar for "success" for the current video game projects.

[hot marlin]

Oh and that guy who was head of Infogrammes-Atari that owned the digital rights to D&D? Turns out he hosted the french version of the Apprentice for a while, before he turned to politics. So yeah, the host of the Apprentice was for a while the owner of digital rights to D&D

[lavish flame]

I assume Hasbro is aiming for BG3 success for every video game project they do in the future

[hot marlin]

That would be suicidal.

[lavish flame]

So basically any D&D video game will be a flop for them

[hot marlin]

BG3 is lightning in a bottle that arrived in specific situations

Larian was really the perfect company for it as they had already been taking that direction with Divinity Original Sin

[twilit shell]

I am so excited for DOS3 on that note after seeing how well they handled BG3

[hot marlin]

I admit I'd be more curious to see what they might do with a Divinity 3 or a Dragon Commander 2.

[twilit shell]

Not sure if you saw their game awards trailer from 2025 for the next divinity installment, but it has a brutal vibe

[balmy ice]

Ok im lv 9. When do I get a new feat?

Or option to

[lavish flame]

Depending on ur class, either 1 level or 3

Fighters and Rogues get a Feat at level 10. Everyone else waits until level 12

[thorn osprey]

General question, Clerics usually don't get that famous. Right? Unless they're like, a real big shot? Or one of the only ones in that city/town?

[balmy ice]

I thought when you get points you can chose a feat insted?

[lavish flame]

What do you mean?

[balmy ice]

I think its like every 4lv you get like 2 points to add to scores

[lavish flame]

At certain levels, everybody gets either an Ability Score Improvement or a Feat. For most, this is level 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19.

[twilit shell]

I imagine not. Local celebrities perhaps, depending on the world lore and how common clerics are. If you are above like level 9 as a cleric you probably start picking up some more influence due to your ability to cast greater restoration if nothing else

[balmy ice]

Ah this is it. Thx

My next is 12

[thorn osprey]

But like, a level 5 cleric who is a failure according to his own parents? 😭 like, that makes no sense.

(I am venting on basis of my PC who wants to be "famous" in the town we play in, just because he feels like it)

[fossil hollow]

you can think of them like bishops and archpriests irl

[thorn osprey]

Basing it on my own IRL religious background(and his) "clerics" wouldn't be that popular, especially of his which is a "grave cleric" which aren't exactly known for healing/helping people stay alive

[tulip widget]

How do I create a looking for player’s post

[twilit shell]

I got a friend who has a doctorate and a house and his parents still don't think he's successful 💀

[lavish flame]

You send a bot command into any channel and itll redirect u into making a post

[loud tendon]

please read #find-a-game

[twilit shell]

"Level 5 cleric? Sure. Why aren't you level 9 yet? Why aren't you the archpriest of Torag? Jenny's son is the archpriest of Bhaal and he works so hard. Maybe you just aren't praying enough."

[barren badger]

You’ll never make money as a knowledge cleric. You should have been a light cleric like your brother

[thorn osprey]

Nah they're disappointed in him because he is supposed to be a wizard. So, they felt like failures once their son started getting magic from praying instead of learning it the hard way 🤷‍♂️

[twilit shell]

Why couldn’t you have just gone into forge or creation cleric? You know how much your older Paladin brother needs his gear maintained!

[tribal plume]

"You reached level 6? Cool, your cousin is level 6 too and he's only 15 years old"

[barren badger]

A BARD?? No son of mine will be a bard.

[thorn osprey]

Unironically the PC also asked me to note that "My family compares me to my cousin who is a successful wizard"

😭 He might be trauma dumping, I am not sure

[tribal plume]

lol

[tribal plume]

this happens more often than you might think!!!!

[indigo wing]

whats wrong with being a bard?

[barren badger]

You’ll end up as a barista!

[tribal plume]

there's a bigger job market for wizards I guess

[twilit shell]

Even in the way they’re going about it. They don’t want to be respected, they want to be famous. They view respect and admiration as unattainable and view popularity as a suitable replacement ong. Speaks to low self-cleric-worth 😔

[barren badger]

Which class is the most employable?

[twilit shell]

Send the assassins guild after their parents we need a tragic orphan backstory now

[broken imp]

bard, wizard

[thorn osprey]

Probably not a warlock

[broken imp]

also known as like every teen novel's main character

[barren badger]

Warlock would do a tech startup

[indigo wing]

55e rogues with the skills epic boon

[thorn osprey]

Which class would be most likely to do a crypto pump and dump scheme?

[barren badger]

Warlock

[tribal plume]

warlock pyramid scheme

[twilit shell]

Bard. Warlock is pyramid scheme

[thorn osprey]

😭 EVERYONE agrees.

[barren badger]

“Yes, you’ll need to give me your soul, but you get 12 people to give you their souls. Then you’ll have 12 souls!!”

[twilit shell]

“You just gotta up the upward flow from your downstream”

[mighty pulsar]

Ugh I wish I could do everything in dnd

[thorn osprey]

I mean, you can

[glossy otter]

looks at the role of DM

[thorn osprey]

Who is stopping you

[mighty pulsar]

on one character

[mighty pulsar]

I already DM

[thorn osprey]

You technically can.

[glossy otter]

ah, the power of mortality

jkjk

[mighty pulsar]

Ik this is bait... but how?

[broken imp]

u can

[barren badger]

You can do whatever you want!

[broken imp]

u can

[mighty pulsar]

how?

[thorn osprey]

I've seen someone make a character with 1 level in every class before. It'll be hellish, but yeah.

[lyric viper]

We going absurd or mystic?

[mighty pulsar]

I'm trying to recreate spider-man (technically silk) as best as i can but its harddd

oh

[glossy otter]

Let us not speak of the heresy that is the mystic XD

[thorn osprey]

I'll open this just for you

[mighty pulsar]

no embed 🙄

[loud tendon]

no gifs allowed, nor images in most channels.. thank you

[glossy otter]

The mystic must lie in the imperial dnd records

[mighty pulsar]

what are mystics and absurds?

[barren badger]

we’ve always got emojis

[glossy otter]

Mystic was a broken dnd class that never made it past UA

[mighty pulsar]

oh

[indigo wing]

mystic?

[glossy otter]

oh no, we've said too much

[mighty pulsar]

they seem like they just do anything

oh i think thats why you responded with that 😭

[mortal quartz]

does anyone know how to turn the DND beyond back to the imperial instead of metric

[barren badger]

I always like instinct more than mystic

[paper portal]

i dont think msytic was rly allat

[indigo wing]

so we cant create a mystic in dndbeyond right?

[glossy otter]

not as far as I know

[twilit shell]

I mean if you wanna go spend 5h homebrewing it

[paper portal]

someone else probably has already

[broken imp]

lorewise, u in theory can try to
1, use wish for smaller things
2, try to recover the lost magic that has been destroyed during kascar's folly (basically fight a greater deity)
3, attempt to perfect the spell to achieve godhood
4, survive the the wrath of ao
5, became the new overgod and do what ever

buuuut.... u prob will fail at this and be erased from existence

[mighty pulsar]

I will not be able to accomplish any of those as a level 18 barbonk

[hot marlin]

Have you considered using a game dedicated to emulating the superhero genre like Mutants & Masterminds?

[twilit shell]

Not with that attitude!

[mighty pulsar]

neva!

[little stream]

I'm sorry but I couldn't help my giggle at number 1

The implications of it is so much

[humble fog]

Absurd was a YouTubers character for a one shot that had one level in every class as a joke iirc

[indigo wing]

and what book os circle of preservation from?

[broken imp]

well no.... but u can try

[twilit shell]

Pretty sure that was scrapped UA?

[barren badger]

Can you do that with point buy?

[paper portal]

yeah

[twilit shell]

Thats AbsErd to you

[paper portal]

it sucks though

[twilit shell]

Puffin Forest is one of my favorite DnD content creators, he makes exclusively bangers

[humble fog]

I'd have to check but only need 13s which ya on-top of the multiclass lack of focus really hamstrings you

But the point was never to be good just that it could be done at all

[paper portal]

yeah point buy lets you get a 13 in everything after racials

[hot marlin]

Enjoy having a useless character though

[indigo wing]

y was it scrapped?

[remote wadi]

Evening, chat

[paper portal]

erm actually its 9:33 am rn

[twilit shell]

Same reason one might give up on any hope, dream, goal, child, or relationship. not worth it 😔

[remote wadi]

Evening, chat

[twilit shell]

Most UA content doesnt really get finalized with any reasonable time frame or at all, they usually pluck the elements they like and reshape for future official content

[hot marlin]

They tried to make it work again and again, but all in all it was impossible to balance

[paper portal]

too strong i think

reading it rn it seems very good

[river vector]

My DND party is hunting for an anti undeath weapon because their enemies are an undead kingdom, as well as a terrorist rebel vampire spawn
The terrorist rebel was in disguise among them for a while as a holy cleric, so now he knows about the anti undead weapon and wants it as part of his terrorist rebellion. This should be fun.

[hot marlin]

Rebel against whom?

[twilit shell]

Sunblade WYA

[indigo wing]

So what exactly is UA?

[remote wadi]

Unearthed Arcana iirc

[humble fog]

Playtest material

[lavish flame]

UA stands for Unearthed Arcana. Its content that the developers of D&D are working on and want us to publicly test. Its playtest content, like a video game in an open Alpha.

It is also the name of a magic shop in The Free City of Greyhawk

[rough basalt]

Notably all UA for 5.5e that was slated for current confirmed releases has made it through UA and to print.

So for now it's more like a confirmation of what will hit print rather than probably not.

[paper portal]

(but is still open to rebalances and such)

[rough basalt]

Yeah, just not completely abandoned or stripped for parts like 5e UAs usually were.

[barren badger]

I'm a little sad about the shadow sorcerer rework in UA

I'll miss Hound of Ill Omen

[rough basalt]

Like the only "Horror UA" sub not in Ravenloft is Hexblade I think and they said it'll be in Arcana Unleashed iirc

[paper portal]

aw they removed that? rip

[paper portal]

maybe hexblade can finally be more than an armor dip

[barren badger]

yeahhh

You can cast Summon Undead without a Material component. You can also cast it once without a spell slot, and you regain the ability to cast it in this way when you finish a Long Rest.
Whenever you start casting the spell, you can modify it so that it doesn’t require Concentration. If you do so, the spell’s duration becomes 1 minute for that casting, and the spell ends early if you cast it again.```

it's just generic summon undead now. I wish it was some sort of summon shadow

[paper portal]

non conc is cool at least

[barren badger]

it does only last a minute when cast this way, but that's probably fine

[rough basalt]

It's just current design.
Avoiding initiative bloat with too many summons.

[empty thicket]

for a combat 1 minute is a lot so its fair

[rough basalt]

As for Summon Undead I think a Shadow itself could be too strong cause of the strength drain.

Not to mention the annoying bookkeeping of that.

Tho Summon Undead has a Ghost version could flavor as a shadow.

[empty thicket]

and that not considerating that warlock can have a skeleton or some invested familiar that can do more stuff

[remote wadi]

Wanted to ask chat if they want to hear 3 of the worst rules I had to play with for DnD

[empty thicket]

so a warlock could have 2 minions or more per combat

[empty thicket]

shoot it

[remote wadi]

Right here?

[empty thicket]

yeah, nothing is going on for now so

[remote wadi]

Okay, first one

You now have points equal to Int modifier. Spend a point to gain a prof, or 2 to make a prof into an expertise

Problem was, this also applied for negative modifiers too

[barren badger]

oh you lose profs?

[empty thicket]

use it in an example please

[remote wadi]

So, let's say i have 16 Int as a Wizard

[paper portal]

seems badly ported over from pathfinder

[remote wadi]

That can be split up into either 3 new proficiencies, or 1 new proficiency and gaining an expertise

[crimson gulch]

Yeha, bad homebrew is bad allright

[empty thicket]

but if oyu have lets say -2 in str mean you have to split that negativity into 2 skills?

[remote wadi]

The problem? Spellcasters or half Spellcasters are commonly dumping Str or Dex, whereas Martials are very commonly dumping Chr or especially Int

[remote wadi]

Nope. Only applies for intelligence stat

[barren badger]

I dont think many spellcasters dump dex, do they?

[empty thicket]

nope

[barren badger]

i think str, int, and cha are the most common dump stats

[remote wadi]

I mentioned half spellcasters because someone is probably begging to bring up Paladin

[twilit shell]

My favorite characters have had 6 or less int

[empty thicket]

yep

[hot marlin]

You can also get away with wisdom as a dump stat but people don't seem to do it often

[empty thicket]

There isnt too much Cha saves and is mostly RP or some few skills

[barren badger]

there are a lot of wis saves in dnd

[remote wadi]

So yeah. If you play a class that dumps Int, tough luck. If you play a spellcaster, especially a Wizard, basically sv_cheats1

[barren badger]

actually... i think only wizards and artis really go for int

maybe rogues? (and some fighters)

[empty thicket]

ek and arcane trickst

[remote wadi]

Chr is probably the second most dumped stat because Str based characters and events are usually more common the social or Chr based characters (especially since you likely only need one "face of the party")

[paper portal]

yeah cus theyre minor saves

[empty thicket]

Str is the most dumped and less problematic for doing it

because STR is only for 1 skill and unless you use X weapons you dont need it at all

[barren badger]

yeah, I've been in MANY parties where everyone dumped str

[empty thicket]

maybe some "saves and checks" but that it is

[barren badger]

heavy armor too i think

[remote wadi]

The issue isn't just who goes for Int. It's also who doesn't

Spellcasters are much more likely to have an average or higher int than martials

[paper portal]

ive seen clerics do it cus theyre SAD enough to put points kinda wherever

and some subs that use int yeah

[remote wadi]

So, that was the first one. Second (and these may be ripped off elsewhere, keep that in mind)

MP system now replaces spell slots. All it does is that how much MP you have total and how much you need to cast a spell (aside from components) are dependent on spell/spell slot level

[paper portal]

five hundred caster buffs

[remote wadi]

Example: level 5 spellcaster has 16 MP (4 1s, 3 2s, 2 3s)
Scorching Ray costs 2 MP, Revivify costs 3 MP, etc

[barren badger]

didnt 5e have an optional rule for spell points?

[remote wadi]

This worked differently, apparently

[craggy summit]

Yeah I remember hearing about MP before 🤔

[mighty pulsar]

Can any DM tell me why some DM's like to limit the uses of strength...?

[paper portal]

sounds the exact same tbh

[fossil hollow]

less limit and more dont give more uses for it

[empty thicket]

Mana points?

[mighty pulsar]

Why can't a level 19 barbarian rip a tree straight out of the ground

[mighty pulsar]

That too

[empty thicket]

idk, i think that any higher to 16 should do some remarkable feats

[mighty pulsar]

not even a big tree

[empty thicket]

using a log like a spear is one

[crimson gulch]

depends on the tree

[barren badger]

tree very strong

[loud tendon]

less an issue of strength and more of leverage? some giants can do that..

[mighty pulsar]

a 6ft tree?

[crimson gulch]

i had a level 20 barbarian hold two halfs of a planet togeather for 5 rounds

[barren badger]

how thick

[crimson gulch]

while kicking a god in the head

[barren badger]

18-19 (4): Heavily muscular. Able to out-wrestle a work animal or catch a falling person. Performs the work of multiple people in physical labor

[mighty pulsar]

Well she just said I'm not strong enough to be able to. I'd imagine just squatting right under the tree and ripping it up would be plausible for people who are as strong as dragons?

[mighty pulsar]

no way

[fickle heart]

Honestly? I don't think this is entirely bad, considering that a theoretically great stat-system would make dumping different stats be a legitimate decision.

[barren badger]

that's pretty strong. It would be insane for a human to out-wrestle an oxen

[remote wadi]

Gave it a quick skim. 2 differences I saw so far were the conversion rates being less severe for MP

As well as the lack of restrictions on 6th level and higher spells

[fickle heart]

Using INT for skills known (or how fast they are trained) is also pretty common across various RPGs, TT or otherwise.

[remote wadi]

The second of the 3 worst DM rules I came across

[mighty pulsar]

where'd ya find this?

[barren badger]

reddit, loll

10-11 (0): Lifts heavy objects for a short time. Can perform simple physical labor for a few hours without break
12-13 (1): Carries heavy objects and throws small objects for medium distances. Can perform physical labor for half a day without break
14-15 (2): Visibly toned. Carries heavy objects with one arm for longer distances. Doesn't get too exhausted by physical labor
16-17 (3): Muscular. Can break objects like wood with bare hands and raw strength. Can perform heavy physical labor for several hours without break
18-19 (4): Heavily muscular. Able to out-wrestle a work animal or catch a falling person. Performs the work of multiple people in physical labor
20 (5): Pinnacle of brawn, able to out-lift several people in combined effort.```

[mighty pulsar]

but these aren't regular humans/not even humans at all

[remote wadi]

I didn't say this was unsalvagable. But it was poorly designed because it just made spellcasters better

I should also mention. These 3 rules were part of the same campaign

[mighty pulsar]

this list can't be from the players handbook. The average is 10 and my ex boyfriend can break wood with raw strength 😭

[jolly canyon]

I like the idea that mages can alter reality at higher levels but barbarians cant rip a small tree out the ground lol

[barren badger]

most average people cannot break wood with raw strength

[remote wadi]

You may want to make a medicine check for if you got cancer from that short Reddit visit

[mighty pulsar]

like a wood plank???

[barren badger]

https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/81cras/dd_ability_score_ranges_described/

[paper portal]

ah well known to be the most reliable source for all dnd matters

[barren badger]

theres a guy on youtube who tears chunks of wood apart with his bare(bear) hands, its kind of insane.

[remote wadi]

I'm just showing my condolences for you visiting and using things from reddit

[barren badger]

Look, we're on a public discord. This isnt much better

[mighty pulsar]

if its multiple or even more than one yeah

[empty thicket]

i think if adapted better can be good and i would try it. But would need to be worked on

[paper portal]

i see a lot of interesting opinions here but honestly its way better than reddit

[mighty pulsar]

i think like the max strength (30 ig?) should be like cratering a chunk of a mountain or causing a rockslide

[barren badger]

I think 30 strength is godhood

[fickle heart]

I think my issue with your assessment of the rule is that you are positing that correlation equals causation. You are saying that, because martials dump INT, this nerfs martials. The thing is, the reason that martials dump INT is because they have no real use of INT. This rule provides a use for INT, which means that over a period of time whether dumping INT was or wasn't a good idea, it would slowly stabilize.

[loud tendon]

depends on the dragon.. some have str 27, some higher.. I likely wouldn't let a player rip up a healthy tree as a medium creature with 22 str or less.. What is the strength score?

[barren badger]

well, an ancient red dragon has 30 strength. Maybe its not godhood?

[mental turtle]

Quick question haven't been here in a bit.... How does one post for looking for players or looking for DM? Because idk what to do now lol

[mighty pulsar]

20 currently

[barren badger]

I think you truly underestimate how difficult it can be to pull a tree out of the ground

[remote wadi]

I should also give context to the setting as well. Magic items are basically none, we had a party of 5-6 people, and we had 1-2 short combats per long rest

So spellcasters, who are already some of the most versatile and nova characters in that situation are even stronger. Level 5 Wizards could literally blow up the battlefield with 5 fireballs and still be able to cast a 1st level spell after that

[mighty pulsar]

I think I'm overestimating how strong D&D species are...

[barren badger]

i remember my father broke his truck trying to pull a tree out of the ground

[paper portal]

eh ive done it a couple times it isnt that hard

granted it was a very small tree and i had a shovel but i dont see why that would be relevant at all

[mighty pulsar]

or should be

[cerulean monolith]

Carrying/lifting capacity is right there…

[empty thicket]

again, adapted

[loud tendon]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/rules-glossary#CarryingCapacity for reference.. trees are pretty heavy.. well beyond this scale I'd think

[twilit shell]

Man I have had a hard enough time getting stumps of small trees out of the ground

[barren badger]

https://old.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/7ml5lr/request_how_much_force_would_it_take_to/

ironically back to reddit

[remote wadi]

It could be helpful, yes. But try to have a campaign with very scarce materials/magic items (meaning the only way to buff Intelligence is to spend things like ASIs to do it). At that point, if you really need to reclaim what you lost, you burn a feat on Skilled

[empty thicket]

bag of holding being one of the first artificer items....

[barren badger]

i think its much more than just the weight, but the roots holding the tree in place.

Wait, aren't there, like, scottish competitions where they throw trees?

[twilit shell]

Caber toss is pine tree, a very light wood, its like 100-150lbs depending on weight class

[fickle heart]

This is a good thing...? It means that INT is more appealing as a stat in the long run.

I'm not trying to sound too critical here, but I think you are looking at INT "as it is" for this rule and not INT "as the designer intended it to be".

[cerulean monolith]

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the average male deadlift is ~200lbs. Which requires a 4 Strength to do in D&D. My point is that you shouldn’t compare real life to D&D

[loud tendon]

they don't rip them live from the ground, they are shaped logs basically

[twilit shell]

I think the threat of this is that with base point buy, martials just get boned by this that aren't heavy armor. Good luck having dex, str, con, AND int in good measure

[remote wadi]

That would be if the stat applied positively. But as mentioned before, this rule applied inversely as well
Meaning a -2 or Selune forbid a -3 means you are losing proficiencies as well

[barren badger]

4 modifier?

[fickle heart]

This is fine, yeah. It means dumping INT is not a good idea.

[mighty pulsar]

I can't imagine a dragon turtle only being able to pull 6000 lbs

[barren badger]

That makes a lot more sense than what I was picturing in my mind

[mighty pulsar]

i think you need like 13-14 to do that

[cerulean monolith]

No, 4 score.

[mighty pulsar]

PHB says small/medium = Str x 15 to carry

[twilit shell]

It just reward the people playing wizard/artificer heavily since they can just dump everything else. If you aren't punishing low dex with tripping on random rocks and low con with getting tuburculosis, its basically a wizard/artificer buff and everything else nerf

[thick void]

Casting Enlarge/Reduce on a ship keel or mast to sink the ship.
-Discuss-

[paper portal]

and seven years ago?

[fickle heart]

See, I think the problem I have is that people are assuming this only penalizes martials. As a Sorcerer, good luck having DEX, CHA, CON, and INT. Same exact deal.

[cerulean monolith]

We’re taking about lifting. I read the wwrong category though, it’s 7 STR.

[remote wadi]

So if you have 2 stats to dump, that means you need to dump something else that will end very poorly. Con, Wis, or Dex would all end poorly for the majority of the case

But if you are a Wizard, you get heavily rewarded with effectively a free feat and Rogue dip for expertise

[thick void]

or Twinned Spell and hit both?

[fickle heart]

Yes, I recognize this. I see this exact scenario as a flaw, because there are automatic dump stats. Having automatic dump stats is not a good thing, I would say.

[cerulean monolith]

I, personally, don’t think it’s logical that the average healthy adult male is a 7 STR. Hence why D&D STR isn’t a fair abstraction

[twilit shell]

I mean it is a game fundamentally. As long as people accurately play their dump stat its fine. But if you have 4 int no you don't get to roll to decipher the ancient draconic runes

[sturdy niche]

not sure where to ask this, but do we know how many levels of rogue the 5.5e assassin is suppose to have presumably?

[mighty pulsar]

What do you need good dex for as a sorc? (Limited knowledge as I only play martials really..)

[cerulean monolith]

What?

[fickle heart]

Your AC.

[cerulean monolith]

AC and saves

[mighty pulsar]

how many levels?

[twilit shell]

I mean it has 15 hit die?

[cerulean monolith]

What

[remote wadi]

So, Sorcerers will commonly dumping STR far more than Int, even if both are the choice

Regardless, by and large, Martials are much more likely to Dump Int than Spellcasters purely because Martials have lesser need of mental stats and vice versa for spellcasters

[loud tendon]

and initiative..

[barren badger]

I dont think many of the ability scores make sense.

Why does a Gallows Speaker have an 18 charisma

[sturdy niche]

basically how many class levels in rogue is the assassin ment to have, if it is even ment to basically have class levels, or is this flawed logic?

[cerulean monolith]

Oh, the monster? None, monsters dont have class levels.

(i.g.)

[mighty pulsar]

ohhh

that makes much more sense

[sturdy niche]

ok, i was just wanting to make sure because i used it as a template for making an npc statblock of a player character i made

[twilit shell]

Maybe your monsters don't, but wait until you meet bear totem tarrasque

[barren badger]

Dex might be the most important stat in the game, i think

[fickle heart]

From my perspective, you are looking at this backwards. You are taking what martials do now and saying that it's bad that this rule changes that.

[cerulean monolith]

Fish discovers water is wet

[mighty pulsar]

im struggling to find a reason to keep bumping int on one of my PCs besides lore

[little stream]

Charisma where's it at babe, someone so charming. The door open itself

[remote wadi]

Because why should say, a Fighter or Ranger be punished for having that be a stat they were going to dump anyways? This applied only to Intelligence by the way

[sturdy niche]

geeze, i know monsters don't follow the same logic, i was just wondering if there was any sort of comparability to help me guess how many hit die to give them instead of just plugging what is in the character sheet

[severe rampart]

Yes.

[barren badger]

Do monsters get hit die?

[severe rampart]

Never dump charisma

[severe rampart]

They do

[cerulean monolith]

Oh, sorry, wrong reply. my bad.

[severe rampart]

It's next to the hp

[empty thicket]

wait until meeting up the Wild magic tarrasque

[twilit shell]

Every monster has hitdie, most people don't bother rolling and just take the base average

[sturdy niche]

is not my fault the 5.5e monster making stuff is not as clearly defined in some cases to the 2014

[remote wadi]

For resting? I'm not sure. To determine HP? that js something you can do if you want

[twilit shell]

nah wild magic sorc is saved for the archfey godqueen

[severe rampart]

Or they're like me and use the highest possible hp

[barren badger]

wait this is in the DMG. It tells you how to calculate hit die. I remember this

[mighty pulsar]

depends on how much damage you want him to do ig?

I'd say lean slightly on the more side since rogue damage seems kinda weak imo

[empty thicket]

but imagine a giga mutated tarrasque with some of hte magic of Wild magic

[cerulean monolith]

Again, I didn’t mean to reply to you. I’m sorry.

[sturdy niche]

honestly if you give class levels to the tarrasque i would not even bother stating it out XD

[twilit shell]

A rogue enemy is hard to do because he either has sneak attack going or he doesn't

[mighty pulsar]

I'd just match as best as i can with the party's level

[sturdy niche]

ah, ok

[remote wadi]

So yeah. Very ironic of the DM to "make everyone powerful" only to have spellcasters, especially Wizards, just be very broken

[barren badger]

2014 DMG, p. 276 discusses hit points

A monster can have as many Hit Dice as you want, but the size of the die used to calculate its hit points depends on the monster's size, as shown in the Hit Dice by Size table. For example, a Medium monster uses d8s for hit points, so a Medium monster with 5 Hit Dice and a Constitution of 13 (+1 modifier) has 5d8 + 5 hit points.

A monster typically has average hit points based on its Hit Dice. For example, a creature with 5d8 + 5 hit points has an average of 27 hit points (5 × 4.5 + 5).

[cerulean monolith]

Or… the monster manual

[barren badger]

Theres a table as well

[paper portal]

cr ratings are kinda bogus ngl

[mighty pulsar]

It can be hard, when using martials I like to give them a lot of environmental benefits.

Spilled mead, fallen papers, leftover potions, trinkets, 15ft+ push abilities etc.

[barren badger]

i wonder if this made it into 2024 DMG...

[twilit shell]

Some of the setting books have some WILD variance in CR calcs

[severe rampart]

3d6 = 10 hp? I think not, 18 hp
12d8 = 54? Nope, 96 hp, man I love using the max hp

[remote wadi]

2 other rules, by the way. I think these were ripped from 3.5e
Sacrificing action, bonus action, and free action to move 5x movement speed

That person you were barely able to see 6 seconds ago, let alone accurately shoot with a longbow? He is now in your face and forcing you to shoot with disadvantage, burn an action, or take a OA

[barren badger]

Oh wow, they really slimmed down the "Creating a Creature" section in 2024 DMG

[mighty pulsar]

Are there circumstances where you do roll instead?

[paper portal]

i think they changed it a bit? in 5.5 but a cr 10 monster is more than double a "deadly" encounter for level 10 pcs

[cerulean monolith]

🤷 I’ve been DMing for 7 years and have found them consistently accurate

[cerulean monolith]

That’s not true, I don’t know where you’re getting that math from

[twilit shell]

The core books are all pretty good about CR rating. Setting books (looking at you Theros and Ravnica) are not the best

[severe rampart]

Well, my party is going up against an ||Adult White Dragon, an 18th level spellcaster, and an insanely strong martial/revenant|| not really

[twilit shell]

A cr 10 monster is a medium encounter for a lv 10 party, no?

[severe rampart]

No, it's an easy encounter

[paper portal]

a cr 10 monster is 5900 xp, a level 10 deadly encounter is 2800

[mighty pulsar]

all at the same time...?

[barren badger]

The issue I've had with CRs is that tactical skill level can vary DRASTICALLY from group to group.

[severe rampart]

CR 10 = 4 level 10 players needed to easily defeat it

[mighty pulsar]

what level are they?

[severe rampart]

Level 6

[barren badger]

....

[little stream]

A ||dragon ||is an easy encounter?

[remote wadi]

And the other one was passive rolls being possible if you stretch the task to take place over a minute. 10 + modifiers

Got very out of hand when Bard and Chr spellcastera realized there are way too many checks that you can do that for, especially social checks

[mighty pulsar]

how are they supposed to beat all three?

[severe rampart]

They're probably going to run

[mighty pulsar]

ok 😭

[fickle heart]

See, I think the part we disagree on the most is that you see dump stats as conceptually fine, whereas I do not. I'm baking-in a where STR affects your Speed, for example. Negative STR? Speed goes down from 30.

[cerulean monolith]

Deadly doesn’t exist anymore. A High encounter, though, is 3,100 XP per PC, for level 10s.

[severe rampart]

Believe it or not, this all happened because of their choices

The climax of all the poor decisions made

[fickle heart]

I want dump stats to feel like a punishment.

[mighty pulsar]

figures

[severe rampart]

Oh god... please no...

[barren badger]

"probably" 😅

[little stream]

Oh yes, you get strength this time rather then dex 😩

[severe rampart]

I played in a game once with 20 speed... I wasnt doing anything for the first four rounds of combat

[twilit shell]

I feel like this just pushes people towards more milquetoast average builds because consequences are a lot more salient than benefits. Esp if you do default point buy, nobody wants to be Jim the fighter with 12 str 12 con 10 int 10 cha 10 wis 10 dex

[severe rampart]

All 3 of them can kill a PC in one turn, seperately

[remote wadi]

Again, I am not saying that the rule is bad or that you cannot work it into something better with changes

I am saying the rule that was implemented in this case was very poorly designed. As in, they had it only apply to Intelligence and not things like Dexterity, Wisdom, or Constitution

[severe rampart]

Especially the martial, don't get me started on the martial!

[cerulean monolith]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/creating-adventures#CombatEncounterDifficulty

[...] As a rough guideline, a single monster generally presents a low-difficulty challenge for a party of four characters whose level equals the monster’s CR.
[...]
Step 2: Determine Your XP Budget. Using the XP Budget per Character table, cross-reference the party’s level with the desired encounter difficulty. Multiply the number in the table by the number of characters in the party to get your XP budget for the encounter.

[fickle heart]

The thing is, there already are rules that apply to Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution. They don't need those rules added.

[severe rampart]

+10 to hit, 2d10+7 damage, four attacks, then action surge, assuming all 8 hit will be 16d10+56 damage

[fickle heart]

(I don't see this is a terrible thing, honestly.)

[twilit shell]

Fair enough, comes down to DM philosophy I guess. I'd rather have a party with really stark stat differences because it spreads out who is going to be doing what and lets people fill niches better. Punishing dump stats just makes it harder for players to lean into the power fantasy of the build/character that they want to be playing

[severe rampart]

If I'm feeling generous I might let my PCs get a long rest, though that's not RAW.

[crimson gulch]

Stats are the starting point, the rest of your sheet has a bigger impact

[barren badger]

I do like the CR system, i think

I kind of wish the the DMG gave advice on increasing difficultly for skilled players. But i think its fine as is

[fickle heart]

Put another way: I think stark differences are fine, but I think those stark differences should have a mechanical impact.

[twilit shell]

The mechanical impact is abusable saves and the inability to use half the skills in the game productively

[fickle heart]

Which is already an existing flaw in the game, yeah (in other ways.)

[twilit shell]

But I also don't track carrying weight and ammo so I am not really a nitty-gritty realism sorta DM anyways

[severe rampart]

Playing wild magic Sorcerer with 7 strength, 8 int and 10 wisdon, got unlucky with the rolls so might as well roll again

[cerulean monolith]

carrying weight is not nitty gritty

[crimson gulch]

Carry weight barely has an impact even when you track it

[twilit shell]

As long as the players aren't trying to haul an entire mobile market I don't bother enforcing it. Within reason its assumed that you're using your pack animals to deal with it

[crimson gulch]

In my hardcore games it barely even needed to come up

[cerulean monolith]

I don't track carry weight in my games that use PDFs or pen and paper, but those that use DDB of course I do

[lavish flame]

pen+paper we dodnt bother with carry weight. since using a VTT, I always use it

[crimson gulch]

I'm doing paper tracking of weight in my home toa game, it's not hard

[late kernel]

You guys ever do something that takes stupidly long for a one-off bit in your campaign? I... keep doing it.

[crimson gulch]

No, I resolve things quickly in general

[severe rampart]

As a DM or as a player?

[late kernel]

A DM

[severe rampart]

Yes to both

[late kernel]

I spent an hour rewriting modern major-general.

[barren badger]

can you give an example?

Like, long prep time?

[remote wadi]

True. But just because they are only the starting point doesn't mean it's a good thing the DM goes "Hey, Martials! Don't dump this stat that you usually need to dump or you will lose proficiencies.

But I will also give the Wizard more proficiencies and/or expertises because he is a Wizard."

You basically start to cross the line between cool ways to improve your character and homebrewed favoritism/class punishment
I should also mention again, this was a low resource environment, so nothing like magic items or ways to raise intelligence aside from ASIs or starting off with a high Int. Likely at the price of another more crucial stat

[severe rampart]

God, I've had this encounter prepared for 6 weeks now, the day comes, one of my players is sick so instead I whip up a backstory session in 5 hours and somehow I pulled it off and they loved it!

[crimson gulch]

Oh I'm not speaking to that bad homebrew, just RAW 5e

[barren badger]

the worst is when you spend a lot of time for something cool and special, and then the players make a decision where it doesnt even come up 😭

[remote wadi]

Ah. The topic was related to said bad homebrew, I apologize

[twilit shell]

I used to just give people an extra tool proficiency or language for each positive modifier point of int that they had and call it a day lol

[fickle heart]

Putting the stuff in order, to elaborate on my point of ability scores being very lopsided in terms of how much of an effect they have depending on the stat:

• STR: Carrying capacity (+ proposed Speed).
• DEX: AC, Initiative, DEX saves.
• CON: HP, CON saves.
• INT: ??? (+ proposed Skills).
• WIS: WIS skills (including Perception), WIS saves.
• CHA: Social skills (the big three).

If you look at the list, STR, INT, and CHA themselves have very little benefit aside from classes using them directly within the class, which is very easy to view as a systemic flaw.

[crimson gulch]

All good, just not what I was referring too

[barren badger]

Dex also has initiative

[severe rampart]

Idk about strength being tied to speed

[fickle heart]

Knew I was forgetting something.

[late kernel]

I hate when that hapens, usually if I like something I'll just put it in their path so long as it doesn't impact the flow of the story.

[barren badger]

I'm torn between railroading players to a cool social/combat/other encounter and giving them full agency

[fickle heart]

I think the question for me comes down to: "What actually punishing effect should exist from dumping STR?" If the answer is "nothing", then the value system between us has a fundamental clash, as I'm of the mind that dumping stats should be actively detrimental and a cost-benefit.

[severe rampart]

Never railroad

[barren badger]

dex is also tied to many weapon attacks. (most weapon attacks?)

[late kernel]

sometimes I put the same thing at the end of both paths, and they'll never know because they didn't go down the other path. But only if it's absolutely necessary.

[twilit shell]

Eh on occasion they need to be on a disney theme park railroad, set course with lots to see and do

[severe rampart]

You could keep your idea in your back pocket for something cool later on

[barren badger]

I dont think I railroad, but i do (gently) highlight certain paths that could be interesting for them.

[remote wadi]

That is for the DM to implement by having the monsters make reasonable decisions to combat that. Wizard with dumped Str? Have the occassional Wizard attack lean more towards trying to pin them down, grapple, or things involving physically overpowering them

[fickle heart]

In which case I disagree. I think it should be a punishment at chargen and something that is recognized equally in the sense of dumping DEX, CON, and WIS.

The alternative is that all stats should have no issue when dumped. I'm not a fan of the double standard.

[crimson gulch]

They do, saving throw issues

[fickle heart]

They do, but much less punishing due to the nature and frequency of saving throws.

[barren badger]

Carrying capacity should be a downside for low strength, as well as ability checks and saves

[twilit shell]

Then as the DM throw more saving throws at them

[late kernel]

I think, personally, that having a low strength score is enough of a punishment for dumping strength. Being grappled isn't fun at all, and they're pretty prone to it.

[twilit shell]

I will always abuse my player's dump stat saves and checks

[crimson gulch]

Nah, you just gotta blast your whole party more often

[fickle heart]

That doesn't really address the issue, though. I'm referring to specifically applicable game design intent based on stats in a way that provides more parity between them.

[barren badger]

does strength affect your ability to be grapped in 2024?

[twilit shell]

For features that monsters have that specifically require str check to escape the autograpple

[barren badger]

ah yes, target str affects DC for grappling check

Its a saving throw against 8 + PB + str

[fickle heart]

The thing is, if everything is solvable within play, logically (in the sense of justifying choices) we can't say that adjustments to rules are detrimental, because that goes back around to saying that such rules can be solved within play.

[twilit shell]

I would have to go through all the 5.5e statblocks though to know if they standardized fully across the board ngl

[crimson gulch]

Nah going off raw is very detrimental in my experience

[fickle heart]

And in this case RAW has detrimental effects for people with specific values towards stats in overarching game design.

[crimson gulch]

There is disparity and that's a feature

[fickle heart]

See, I see this as a bug.

[remote wadi]

Hmmm, I should probably explaining it like this

Having a low carrying capacity or bad social checks are very easy to solve because only one or 2 people need to invest in it

The problem with this Int change is that this is less "I'm not investing in this attribute because someone else can help do that for me". This is "I must invest in Intelligence or I lose what proficiencies I have"

[crimson gulch]

I don't, if you want perfect balance we can just roll unmodified dice, balance is not the goal

[twilit shell]

I think its just fundamentally a philosophical divide between "highlight strengths" and "punish weaknesses," in my experience I tend to prefer highlighting strengths as that creates a more enjoyable experience. If you want hardcore number crunch 5e isn't really the right fit IMO

[twilit shell]

also sidenote, damn I love the 5.5e roper art

[barren badger]

The question is, do these detrimental effects actually make the game worse? Or do they bother you because they make the game less elegant?

[fickle heart]

It's not just about balance to me, but parity. Balance is an illusion that exists to empower enjoyment in multiple directions.

[twilit shell]

Does the game have to have full parity in order to be enjoyable?

[crimson gulch]

The game is enjoyable with 1 to 8 players in my experience

[fickle heart]

I think they make the game worse because the idea of dumping stats with no consequences leads to what I see as a minimization of stats as an overarching concept.

[twilit shell]

There are consequences you just do not seem to see them as harsh enough tbh. Fair enough I suppose

[fickle heart]

It also leads to what I view as detrimental effects from simplistic approaches to character generation.

[fickle heart]

Yeah, if people used the consequences more often for stuff like carrying capacity (and the varying needs surrounding it), I wouldn't feel that STR would need an adjustment in any way.

But I have very high standards around intentionality.

[rough basalt]

I enforce carrying capacity and honestly I think it's fun

[twilit shell]

I think that the simplistic aspect of 5e's character creation is definitely a strength and in some areas a weakness. If you want some hardcore complexity I will utter the accursed word, pf1e

[barren badger]

I think the sad truth is that DND character generation is relatively simplisitic and it can be "solved" rather easily.

But idk if it makes players enjoy the game any less

[rough basalt]

Makes mounts and bags of holding much more valuable.

[crimson gulch]

Strength is great and strong charicters constantly carry the team in my games in more way than one

[fickle heart]

Interestingly, I think D&D could be a statless game.

[barren badger]

a VTT makes carrying capacity much easier. I couldnt imagine tracking it in person

[barren badger]

would it be D&D then?

[rough basalt]

When you get a bag of holding its less "hey nice!" And more "praise the dice gods"

[fickle heart]

Depends on how we define "D&D", really.

I think we could largely have the same experiences in the game by shifting away from stats and baking stats in such that "dumping" stats is just a baked-in assumption of how the statless game works.

[barren badger]

it's also fun to unload all of the stuff youve accumulated

[cerulean monolith]

I gave one of my parties a Heward's Handy Haversack flavored as a deity's hand. It was handy.

[twilit shell]

Check out FATE (yes yes, this is not dnd)

[fickle heart]

Aye, I'm aware of FATE.

[twilit shell]

I think statless systems can work really well and be engaging, but 5e fundamentally doesn't really function without stats I don't think with banded accuracy being a thing

[barren badger]

Something I've learned from my players is that most of them do not spend NEARLY as much time thinking about dnd outside of session as i do.

They all seem super content with the game as is

[twilit shell]

They don't even read the rules to begin with so they don't have that many strong opinions LOL

[stuck delta]

E

[craggy summit]

In my experience, this is the same case for me too. Besides a "looking forward to next session!"

[barren badger]

My players wont even consider trying a new game.

But tbf, most of them are too busy to really learn the rules for a new game

[fickle heart]

Oh, definitely agreed in most cases. I do a lot of homebrew/design stuff, so it involves actually caring about the driving forces of the game on the back-end.

For example, from a game design perspective, if we assume everyone wants CON (which they do), there's actually little benefit in having CON as a stat aside from making sure that people have to actually invest in CON. If we took the inverse of this and applied it to other stats, it means that those other stats may end up having little benefit to existing aside from within those classes. If that effect exists with enough prevalence, we could make it where stats are replaced with scalars that exist within classes, such as if modifiers were things you didn't actually modify via ASIs and they just scaled with level.

(Scalars being things like how Monk's Martial Arts Die increases with Monk level or how Rage damage scales with Barbarian level.)

[craggy summit]

And learning a whole new system can be kinda daunting 😅

Part of our dnd group made a star wars RPG table and I'm still learning the fine details of it but it's not that bad tbh! It helps when the game master is really experienced and willing to help new players

[barren badger]

Yeahhhh. I do homebrew behind the scenes and maybe tweak rules in ways that players wont see, but i try to keep houserules to an absolute minimum

[lavish flame]

This has been my experience in almost every group I've been in. I figure that means I'm the exception to the rule

[twilit shell]

I think part of the challenge with that potentially is that it then really homogenizes the player experience if class is the only scaler. Every kensei monk is just going to be a kensei monk with a different name and maybe different feats

Not that current attribute systems really add that much variance either tbf

[crimson gulch]

I don't, the 6 stats are core

[fickle heart]

This is the exact thing I'm talking about, yes. The current stat systems give the illusion of variance, but that variance largely doesn't exist.

The near-constant effect of digging into the back-end of the game is that you realize how some of the sacred cows of games really aren't that sacred when you bash them up against certain effects they cause.

[craggy summit]

Dnd could be a statless game, but they'd have to introduce new mechanics

[twilit shell]

I'd rather have the illusion of choice than the certainty of nonagency

[barren badger]

i think its more about brand recognition than importance to the game

[twilit shell]

I am the cow on the left side of that farside comic

[fickle heart]

Which is fair. I'm the opposite. I think a game lying to me needs to be really good at it for me to tolerate it heavily, and D&D's stat system is very bad at this.

[barren badger]

Also, you do NOT see the character creation decisions one of my players always makes.

They will NOT make a character with stats below 10. Period.

[crimson gulch]

I like 3d6 in order for stats, that's when you see some real hard decisions get made

[fickle heart]

Which is intersting because the stat adjustment proposals would make that decision more interesting.

[barren badger]

I like this for OSR games, but i dislike rolling for stats in 5(.5)e. You're with characters for too long

[fickle heart]

I think this could largely get "solved" with aspects of the game as they are now, but I suppose I have a different view on whether this would be hard or not.

[left tartan]

i have a question

as a newbie dm

[twilit shell]

Speak friend and enter

[fickle heart]

I would say you can logically order stats per class from least to most importance, with slight possible modifiers based on group composition.
-# I don't think this is inherently bad, but I'm not a big fan of how tiny the modifiers to that order are.

[twilit shell]

Exactly. As a DM I have just used a modified version of point allocation so that people can have highs and lows without the inherent dissatisfaction that rolling brings. Variance for something so committal as DnD chars can be a killer

[left tartan]

would a game be fun if the players were only bards? i'm thinking of hosting a game with theatre kids and they all have decent abilities at singing. I'm unsure if it would be interesting tho to restrict them to only be bards.

[naive belfry]

Has anyone used D&D as a story canvas instead of as a game?

[barren badger]

Non-bards can sing too!

[twilit shell]

That'd be a really rough time to have meaningful combats with. bards don't have great damage per round and offensive combat options (generally)

[cerulean monolith]

scrap the idea, it's not fun

[harsh hinge]

You'd have to ask the group. I love bards, and I wanna do a all-bards one-shot, but it might not work for a long-term campaign.

[crimson gulch]

It was a hard campaign, 13 deaths in 37 sessions, tomb of anhilliation

[twilit shell]

The only Oops, all one class! game I have had that has gone well has been paladins

[onyx sluice]

I'm playing a monk that is a performer, does rather will with instruments and singing. You can dress up any class how ya like.

[crimson gulch]

Tinkering with the rules will never be more fun than just playing by the rules by my books when it comes down to it

[barren badger]

I still remember the time I was in a group that rolled stats, and the wizard was better at charisma skills than my bard, just because they rolled really high.

It can be fun to roleplay it, but it just feels bad when my character is worse because of some random dice rolls 10 months ago

[fickle heart]

Oh, I'm not saying the campaign wasn't hard, just that the decisions themselves aren't necessarily hard to me.

[minor cargo]

It happened!

Two PCs who have been flirting for like 5 sessions have finally kissed!

It was mid combat and counted as a bardic inspiration lmao.

(Edit: Sorry, totally interrupting the conversation haha)

[twilit shell]

And then people will try to solve this by adding statroll templates that reroll if you are under or over a certain amount. At that point just don't roll...

[cerulean monolith]

Yeah let me correct myself that I think it's an unfun idea not because i don't like Oops, All... games, but because, as a singer, I wouldn't enjoy being caricaturized like that, nor would it be healthy nor enjoyable to be compelled to sing throughout a D&D game.

[craggy summit]

Kissed above table? Or in character? 😅

[fickle heart]

I'm the opposite 😅

I love tinkering and improving things, with a big part of that being changes require knowing your audience.

[barren badger]

I think you'll have players who are more interested in playing when you give them more choices rather than restricting them

Give them the pieces and let them build the characters that inspire them to play.

[minor cargo]

Haha, good question! Player characters kissed haha.

I mean, smooching players is totally valid. I'm not one to disparage that. 👀

[twilit shell]

My developmental experience as a DM has been primarily running for more novice players and running west march servers, so my emphasis has always been on keeping things simple and consistent. Very minimal homebrew and rules tweaks. The system isn't perfect but it works well enough

[naive belfry]

Have you ever had an entire party just be hopeless flirts?

[minor cargo]

Haha, of course!
Sometimes you just have groups and it's just one big dating sim. Doesn't always happen but sure, why not.

[craggy summit]

Just wanted to make sure haha 😅

And I'm not against it either! I mean heck, I met my current girlfriend at d&d 👀

[severe rampart]

Only a Bardic?

[left tartan]

mmmm okay

[fickle heart]

Very important comment at the end there, yeah. No system is perfect, because perfection doesn't really exist in that metric. Perfection is, most of all, contextual and individual.

[severe rampart]

That's a dang heroic inspiration!

[woven flint]

The most open affection my Dragonborn Fighter had with his Kobold Monk boyfriend in the party was letting him ride around on his shoulders outside of combat sometimes lol

[barren badger]

||Also bards can be a bit tricky for new players.||

[twilit shell]

I am a big subscriber to ACT ideals, and everything in context with a heavy splash of acceptance makes life a lot smoother ;P

[severe rampart]

Hm, I disagree

[twilit shell]

I think the tricky part of bard for new players is figuring out how to be effective in combat and understanding how to properly role/roll play. But thats any class to some extent, bard in particular is just a bit less direct

[barren badger]

I might be wrong, but with spell selection and ability score allocation, i think its easy to make a bard that doesnt feel good to play

[craggy summit]

They're not quite easy but not quite hard for new players

[severe rampart]

It's not that "x class is hard" It's a matter of preference

[barren badger]

i think its the spell selection that can really be tough

if they prepared spells, i think it would be easier

[pseudo moat]

This is especially true in an all-bards game. When four people have the same class, the natural instinct is to avoid stepping on each other's toes, so what happens is that you just end up with four sub-par bards rather than four really good bards.

[craggy summit]

It's a probably less desirable class for most new players. Of course if someone wants to be the smooth talker then it's different

[woven flint]

I think bards are middling ground for complexity

Warlocks are unironically one of the most complex classes for new players I'd say
(With all the decision points and build opportunities)

[crimson gulch]

And based on how easy recruiting is for me, the biggest audience loves RAW 5e, I have so many players that were so badly burnt on bad homebrew

[twilit shell]

But preparing spells in and of itself adds a layer of difficulty too. For people that have played the game for years its something that comes naturally, but for a new player I think a lot would rather just have their list of spells and stick with it

A lot of newer players I have worked with have really disliked wizard because of perceived complexity, whether or not its actually complex

[remote wadi]

_>

[barren badger]

Yeah, but you can just fix your mistake at the next long rest. With a bard you're stuck until level up

[severe rampart]

I think, best class to start with? Either Fighter or Warlock depending on their preference and investment in the game

[remote wadi]

Discord really loves jumping me to the interesting messages

[twilit shell]

If I am playing with a new player I just let them swap out spells at LR like any prepared caster unless they are playing a sorcerer tbh

[severe rampart]

Fighter and Warlock is like build a bear

[barren badger]

I think I would agree with this. Ranger could probably be fine too

[twilit shell]

At least until they understand how the rules work

[woven flint]

You gotta choose spell, invocations

When and where to use the limited spellslots you have

Understand the relationship you have with your patron because a good dm makes them important for you

[fickle heart]

I wouldn't say the "biggest audience" as much as "the biggest paid audience", which I do agree with as making sense. Paying for consistency is a good financial decision.

[barren badger]

You do get pact slots back on short rest, which is more forgiving. But yeah.

I think warlocks can be easy to play, difficult to master. When in doubt, just EB

[pseudo moat]

Oath of Homebrew
Name checks out

[limber cosmos]

hi

[severe rampart]

Low floor, high ceiling

[barren badger]

LOL, i didn't catch that!

[pseudo moat]

hi

[twilit shell]

If I am playing poker I want some good honest texas holdem, you will not catch me playing spades

[remote wadi]

It usually depends. But Ranger is deceptively good if the person has some semblance of how spells work too. But you'll rarely if ever see that because of how many jump on the "ranger bad, fighter with bow and Druid better" bandwagon

[crimson gulch]

Nah, even before I went pro.

You even see it here, constant posts for bad homebrew, and the ones running officla campaigns fill so much faster

[craggy summit]

Hot take, rogue should be the class given to starter players instead of fighter

Why? Because rogues have more utility and flavor and that'll help attract new players, and also teach them that combat isn't everything and that out of combat stuff is important too

Also, it helps them to feel useful when they do rogue things like sneaking and lockpicking (it was my starter class and I'm glad that's what was given to me)

[woven flint]

Then there's the fact you have to rely on your party to short rest often as well.

[hot marlin]

A long time ago there was a full homebrew party in this server. It is gone now, only Tamms remains. The paladin is the last survivor

[crimson gulch]

I give new players whatever class they want

[tender axle]

hey so since find familiar can be dismissed and summoned on the other side of doors (i dont need to see where i summon them) and i can look through its eyes for echo knights manifestation, cant i just bypass like every door/wall in existance?

[barren badger]

Ranger just doesnt scale well above level 6. But its a fine class

[woven flint]

Also, Eldritch Blast spam can and does get boring imho.

[severe rampart]

Ehhh. I love Rogues don't get me wrong, but when getting to later tiers they might feel a bit off when the sorcerer starts throwing fireballs and the other martial start attacking twice

[craggy summit]

Naturally yes, but if someone said "I'm not sure what I wanna play" I'd give them rogue

[fickle heart]

That's interesting, as my experience is the exact opposite.

(I will also say that saying "constant posts for bad homebrew" is itself a claim that's tough to substantiate comprehensively. What is "bad homebrew" in a generic sense? Do people not have different definitions of it? People can't even agree on what modules are good, much less homebrew.)

[woven flint]

I don't use EB on my warlocks because I'm built different 🔥

[rough basalt]

As someone playing a level 19 rogue in a party with casters.
It's great.

[severe rampart]

I started with ranger first, it was actually very nice, agreed

[little stream]

Fireball?

[craggy summit]

That is true yeah 😅 but it also helps to add to the simplicity

[twilit shell]

I mean RAW yeah. As a DM I would only let a player resummon the familiar within line of sight, but there is nothing to stop you

[remote wadi]

A solid chunk of characters can all be described like that. But it isn't just about scaling, it's also teaching the basics without being too basic

[barren badger]

Rogues + Necklace of fireball + thief subclass

[severe rampart]

I mean, at first I felt like the ranger was bad, then I realized I had a horrible party and a horrible DM

[woven flint]

Believe it or not

My Rogue and I (Warlock)
Often combo off of one another.
They're a scion rogue and often kill what I bloody

[pseudo moat]

The ranger has never really been a bad class since it came out in AD&D imo. It's just a "feel bad" class where you don't really feel like you're being useful when you are.

[severe rampart]

Oh yeah don't get me wrong, Rogues are awesome, just depends on how good of a sport the new player is

[remote wadi]

Same here. You have enough customization to experiment, but not to the point where you're shooting yourself in the foot with bad choices

The only thing I could change about it is not making Ranger a known spellcaster. Being that and a half is pretty painful, especially when, iirc, Paladin gets extra spells with Chr modifier

[twilit shell]

I think rangers aren't necessarily bad, it is just they excel in the pillar of DnD that most DMs neglect the most

[hollow estuary]

Mark of storm is REALLY really (Game breakingly) good.

House lyrandar has it easy LOL.

[barren badger]

Oh i agree, and it can be very effective! (all classes can be)

[pseudo moat]

Also the pillar of D&D that D&D itself neglects the most lol.

[rough basalt]

Honestly a lot of issues in dnd are caused by DMs ignoring stuff.

[barren badger]

Is that the conjure minor elemental one?

[civic bramble]

I think I may need some help with character backstory stuff. I want to make a character from Faerun.

Perhaps Neverwinter.

[hollow estuary]

Not only that but it also has resistance to lightning damage.

[barren badger]

||Thankfully dragonmarks are limited to eberron games||

[woven flint]

Sovis (My Drow Celestial Warlock)
And
Rowan (Human Scion of the Three Rogue Lady)
Are the most unstoppable duo I've ever seen in D&D

They killed a Drow Matron mother together before she could even take a turn

[rough basalt]

And wotc themselves doesn't help that by making the exploration pillar completely solved for the entire game with Magic Initiate Druid.

[pseudo moat]

Faerun is a kitchen sink setting, so you're basically free to do what you want.

[barren badger]

I think all of the dragonmarks are too good for non-eberron games tbh

[fickle heart]

One of the primary benefits of RAW that is easily recognizable is that it's consistent, but that consistency technically would apply regardless of whether RAW was good or not, which is more of a game design theoretical/principle than anything.

[twilit shell]

I try to emphasize exploration more, but even then actually running it is challenging because its just hard to get right

[woven flint]

It was incredibly hype

And I suspect that they'll be killing Lolth together too

[remote wadi]

It's just a shame because you would think that for how crucial good spellcasting is, it would be self explanatory on how Ranger has generally better use cases than "fighter with a bow/druid MC"

[hollow estuary]

Yeah ebberon characters deserve all they can get.

Its genuinely like that japan meme but backwards.

Heres something in DND, yeah.. thats some scary stats, and might cause your players a bit of trouble.

Then theirs that same thing In ebberon, Well good luck with that.

A good example are rakshasas.

[rough basalt]

Yeah it's a pillar that exists, but has everything going against it.

[barren badger]

My hot take is that the magic initiate origin feats were a mistake (its actually a cold take)

[twilit shell]

I try to just carry exploration as a big part of lore delving, trying to find historically significant locations and natural phenomena stuff like that

[pseudo moat]

I've only ever taken Magic Initiate Wizard for mage armor lmao, or on occasion Warlock for EB

[twilit shell]

If players care about the lore I will hammer in some solid exploration. If they don't, that pillar gets put down behind the barn

[rough basalt]

Like so much of the exploration pillar is stuff DMs don't wanna do and players sometimes refuse to.

[hollow estuary]

I mean like yeah, in ebberon Giants can destroy a whole moon, dragons are gods, rakshasas are gods, Everything is a god.

[woven flint]

I took Magic Initiate Wizard on my Tortle Knowledge Cleric for the shield spell lol

[rough basalt]

And if you're running RAW treasure you're never gonna hurt for resources.

[woven flint]

Also because it was part of the sage background lmao

[rough basalt]

Even if you don't have a Ranger/Druid/MI: Goodberry in the party.

[barren badger]

Three of my players took Magic initiate just to get silvery barbs

[little stream]

If we're gods too? I mean, we're the ones with dices

[rough basalt]

Yeah I've seen that before with SB

[fickle heart]

This is the type of chargen I don't like the most

That's why I'm totally fine with dump stats being punished and stuff.

[hollow estuary]

😂

[twilit shell]

I will make players do quests to gather crafting materials for fancy stuff and magic items. Strongholds and followers 3pp book adds a lot of fun stuff to encourage exploring and settling

[rough basalt]

Then the issue becomes needing to get a new group of players probably

[hollow estuary]

I mean I normally pick tuff or lucky on my origin feat

[woven flint]

Folks
I might be doing a Kuo-Toa Druid soon

Should I go Sea or Stars
(Sea for obvious reasons, Stars for their incredibly cosmic powers as a species in literally creating gods from imagination)

[barren badger]

Seas! Its cool!

[hollow estuary]

I truly believe you should go with stars.

[barren badger]

I think the fact that you can cast your Magic Initiate feat spell + a leveled spell is weird.

[rough basalt]

Cause there's nothing 5e players hate more than a challenge /hj

[twilit shell]

5e players want to feel challenged, they do not want to be challenged X)

[barren badger]

YUP.

[minor cargo]

Another way to describe it that I've gotten a lot of mileage out of is "combat as sport, not combat as war".

[twilit shell]

But that is also people and humanity as a whole

[little stream]

Am I dyslexic, wdym?

[pseudo moat]

5e players don't like being actually challenged. They just like being made to think they're challenged without any actual challenges to them.

Which is true.

[rough basalt]

You say you're tracking everything including encumbrance and going for a "survival exploration game" and the party shows up with 5 Artificers with bags of holding and MI Druid for Goodberry.

[hollow estuary]

The proper way to respond to being challenged in this game is to action surge and rage irl.

[woven flint]

I love being challenged

[twilit shell]

Though I will say this is the perfect time to differentiate difficulty and challenge. Challenge is hardship that is part of the process of reaching your goal, difficulty is an obstacle between you and your goals. Taxes are difficult, weightlifting is challenging

[woven flint]

I'm just built different

[little stream]

I'm sorry thats dumb. Lets say I play souls like game and expect it to be skyrim, do you not see where I'm going

[rough basalt]

Tokiis an outlier. A real hero. A real human being.

[woven flint]

YEAH BABYYY

[barren badger]

"Wait... you paralyzed my character for a turn? But... That's not fair"

after they spent three rounds locking down monsters and keeping them from taking actions

[nocturne turret]

guys my first session is tomorrow

[twilit shell]

When I am playing I am an optimizer and planner so I do really love challenges

[rough basalt]

There are unironically people who get angry when the dm says that crouching doesn't make them invisible in dnd.

[cobalt escarp]

i want be challenged in ways that make me think about more than just staying alive, not challenged by throwing a lich at me at level 5

[twilit shell]

To be fair paralysis is my absolute least favorite condition as a DM to run if there is no way to overcome it in the party. It is literally just a "you sit here for 3h irl time and do NOTHING if you don't roll well"

[barren badger]

i literally choked on my water lauging

[hollow estuary]

POV: Multiclass monks with 6 attacks and stunning strikes when they lose a single turn.

[pseudo moat]

"But I'm proficient in stealth!"

[woven flint]

I face every challenge with Glee

I didn't back down or run away from fighting an Adult White Dragon at level 6
We miraculously won 🔥

[hollow estuary]

Boots of elvenkind DM!

[woven flint]

Our bard ended up killing it!

[hollow estuary]

This is the way

[barren badger]

Lesser restoration!

(also its usually just for a turn or something)

[pseudo moat]

Conditions that are triggered by saving throws are the faults of the cleric and druid and I will die on this hill.

[twilit shell]

If it is just for one turn its whatever, but there are a lot of paralysis that last for longer than that (at least 2014 rules) until you save. And by then you might have gotten 2hit by guaranteed crits

[rough basalt]

Like for my last attempted campaign, I basically made it lore that Druids and Clerics get taken hostage for their resource spells to add some danger to bypassing the exploration pillar.

[twilit shell]

But yes lesser restoration is absolutely a necessity, but if my party doesn't have it I feel terrible running paralysis generally because its just genuinely zero agency if the party doesn't have the right composition

[woven flint]

I've only ever gotten upset about being CC'd ONCE ..
Which is one time too many admittedly, but I didn't take it out on the dm lol

[rough basalt]

I was having a bad day last Tuesday and got upset at the dm over my own misunderstanding. So I'm guilty of the "don't like being challenged"

[woven flint]

I got held personed today and I was more concerned about trying to get my airship back under control

I didnt even have a "damn, that sucks" moment

[twilit shell]

I play league of legends unfortunately so that has led to strong opinions about CC in all games lmao

[hollow estuary]

Yall Im thinking of playing a faerie moon druid werewolf, So essentially im a wolf with silly pixie wings.

[rough basalt]

I've just had character death kinda ruined for me by the two times I've had a PC die so I kinda wanna play an OSR system to get used to dying in ttrpgs.

[woven flint]

Most of my characters, somehow almost always miraculously avoid being CC'd with good saves

(Because I never dump wisdom)

[rough basalt]

As someone who played OW1 during the Brig meta and League of Legends I also have a strong opinion on CC lol

[woven flint]

OW1 Brig mentioned 🗿

[rough basalt]

What the hell is having fun?!

[minor cargo]

There's a lot of game theory (academic) in studying that "sweet spot" of where a challenge is just challenging enough and where it's too easy or too hard.

"Flow state" is a great adjacent concept. And you can absolutely feel a flow state in D&D - and interesting enough, both in combat and and other types of encounters (social).

[severe rampart]

Oh hey! I'm also putting my level 6 party up against an adult white dragon

[hollow estuary]

Monks can like remove conditions on themselves at will which is pretty cool ngl

[woven flint]

If they're really careful, they'll survive

[crimson gulch]

oh yeah, flow state is key for running games for me

[barren badger]

it feels bad, but you get to a certain level you kind of do have to lock down players for a turn or so. It's just the way it is.

[severe rampart]

They haven't taken a long rest from last session...

[hollow estuary]

Do it! a adult white dragon isent a strong monster against a well built party of level 6 adventurers

[rough basalt]

When I get into a flow state concerning dnd it leads to a lot of tabletop work getting done.

[little stream]

Shiii they can put celibacy on/off at will? Sounds lit

[twilit shell]

Yep. My thoughts on this will NOT prevent me from running skittering horror anyways 😄

[woven flint]

Sora didn't hold back on us when we fought that adult white and we got incredibly lucky lol

[severe rampart]

It's not just an adult white dragon, but yep

[hollow estuary]

oh right, okay so custom changes

[severe rampart]

Adult White Dragon with access to Sorcerer spells and instead of the average HP it's the maximum

[hollow estuary]

AHHH okay thats a issue 💀

[woven flint]

I appreciate it, honestly, I don't like pity holding back

[rough basalt]

When I don't run a session for awhile I feel like I just lose all ability to tabletop work and it's weird.

[twilit shell]

Adult dragons are one of those monsters that played true to nature will very rarely lose an actual fight. White dragons are an exception because they are pretty feral, but a smart dragon is going to be grappling, flying up, dropping, and strafing runs with breath attacks

[hollow estuary]

Dosent really track lorewise but thats badass bro.

[twilit shell]

I refuse to run a beholder because a properly run paranoid beholder has no right losing 9/10 times

[severe rampart]

It tracks lorewise for me ||The dragon is the Draconic Sorcerer PC who died, raised from the dead and controlled||

[barren badger]

I honestly think I need to spend more time as a player, just to understand what they go for. But I'm stuck in the world of forever DM.

[rough basalt]

I need to find some way to get my tabletop work done. I keep dragging my heels.

[hollow estuary]

(oh okay)

(was gnna say white dragons are a pretty feral race of dragonkind, a druid might make a bit more sense but ye.)

[twilit shell]

I think Fizbans is the book that establishes making dragons casters in addition to their normal statblocks. I could see a white dragon being a sorc or druid for sure

[hollow estuary]

thats cool.

Dude you should make it so that it escapes and ascends into a draconic ascendant

so like the player can watch their character become a god without them LOL

[severe rampart]

Lmao I wouldn't go so far as to do that

[fickle heart]

I do love me some game theory.

[severe rampart]

We're all here for fun

||But they would need to put down their own friends||

[hollow estuary]

right right yeah

A mark of storm paladin is a pretty strong character.

[twilit shell]

Yerkes-Dodson curve of optimal performance comes to mind too, there is a very specific amount of stress that is the 'right' amount to be the most engaging and rewarding/productive

[sturdy niche]

their casting is innate, so druid magic would be if they were to take druid class levels

[twilit shell]

I mean sorcerer is the innate class though ;P. Ez draconic ancestry

Also, all hail Niv Mizzet! Dracowizard Supreme!

[hollow estuary]

DM's telling me that were all here to have fun before proceeding to make us fight a level 17 swashbuckling goblin with battle master maneuvers named "Alex the ass kicker" and getting absaloutely mugged.

[sturdy niche]

people forget though that they are comparatively dumb and comparatively savage compared to other true dragons, they are not just dumb savage, this is because historically in the lore much like the lizardfolk their brains are hardwired for logic and optimal hunting as an apex preditor, as a consiquence abstract concepts tend to be rather difficult to understand or grasp, but not impossible

[severe rampart]

... I feel called out.

[sturdy niche]

it is seperate from class levels

[severe rampart]

||Custom enemy with access to every single battlemaster maneuver||

[fickle heart]

I will say that I also think that long-term D&D is most satisfying for me when there's that ebb and flow of excitement and "downtime". If the game is all excitement, the excitement has nothing to get compared to, if that makes sense.

[hollow estuary]

Noooooooooo 😭😭

[barren badger]

Random question, do you all give enemies the ability to use weawpon mastery?

[twilit shell]

Oh yes I know, I meant if you wanted to assign a class. The magic is indeed just innate because they are magical little lizard fellas

[sturdy niche]

ah

[twilit shell]

With the exception of wizard dragons, of course

[severe rampart]

Sometimes.

[sturdy niche]

well, no, not lizards, that would be akin to some rather insenitive terms that i am not sure i can even say in server, but it starts with an S

[severe rampart]

I love running difficult games

[hollow estuary]

Also Echo I was gonna say that dragon has serious potential to actually become a greatwyrm and then go even further and ascend, like he can use innate sorcery to empower his breath weapon (as breath weapons are essentially primal magic).

like imagine using your draconic bloodline to resonate with your primal power to increase your breath weapon dc

[twilit shell]

Thats the only kinda game there is! HOORAH!

[sturdy niche]

like you do not call a dragon a lizard if you value your life in dnd, their reptilian appearance is solely do to their scalely skin, the internal anatomy is a lot closer to predatory cats, heck dragons even loath, like a cat

[crimson gulch]

unfortunatly not, theres a lot of solfball dnd games out there with little to no challange

[severe rampart]

One session my players went up against a custom creature which had resistance to every type of damage, except one it was vulnerable to, it changed every turn so no one knew what to expect, they could only use their bonus action to scan it and try to determine what it was weak to

[twilit shell]

I do view the white dragon in particular as a very large, scaly, magical house cat. Smart but certainly not intelligent

[barren badger]

-# pspssppsppsspsppsps

[twilit shell]

Not in this house partna, not in this house!

[sturdy niche]

your funeral, intelligence contrary to popular believe comes in many kinds and white dragons on average are far from dumb, being smarter than the average commoner on most worlds of any humanoid race

[severe rampart]

Creature also had a Critical Hit Special Effect where it would sprint to the closest enemy and slam 2d4 times, if the slam got the enemy to 0 HP it would go to the next