DnD 5E/Next Discussion Thread
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on Feb. 19, 2016, 2:41 a.m. by kengiczar
So first, here's my incredibly short history with D&D:
Brief History
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Current Campaign
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Some basic points of discussion
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Also unless you go to the official website you might not have even known the Dungeon Masters Guild existed. It's an official WotC program to help home-brewers publish material and make money. If you publish anything be sure to let us know.
I have not nearly enough time for that right now otherwise my custom class would already be done and uploaded.
Last thing, my "coolest" crit so far
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How are you producing 20AC at level 5? I guess your campaign is different to ours but we're all like level 10 and our AC varies from 14 (Monk) to 20 (Me - fighter). Our DM doesn't give us any bonuses to anything ever haha, so it's a struggle to get stat gains outside of levelling. But to have 20AC and 2 attributes at +4 by level 5, woooah you must have a nice DM haha.
Your playgroup is wrong about the casting versus non-casting problem in 5e. It certainly existed in 3.5 and to an extent in 4 but in 5 being a non-caster is much better than it used to be. It's an old D&D problem because obviously casters get more flexible as the game goes on (more spells of different types that are more powerful) whereas fighters do not become more flexible (we just hit stuff harder). However this has been addressed in a variety of ways.You can look up some graphs on the interwebz that people have produced, mapping out how average damage looks for each class level by level and the fighter and rogue do keep up with spell casters.
Here are some main points why casters are no longer ridiculously better than non casters:
The concentration mechanic means you can only have one powerful spell effect active at a time. You can't just stack spells and become invincible.
Spell slots means casters NEED sleep. Fighters only marginally need sleep. Non casters can do days with like 5 combats in without needing to regain lost slots. Casters quiver at the thought of more than 1 difficult combat.
Reliability. A fighter at level 11 attacks three times per turn against the same or different targets, every turn. A caster needs spell slots to achieve that. A fighter is more likely to just make stuff dead every single turn, non-stop, than a caster who may have had to detect magic etc. all day. My resources (hitting stuff) are not limited by anything, yours are.
Noncasters now have cool little class abilities that make them even more potent. I can do stuff with my attacks such as trip opponents etc. You get advantage when attacking prone opponents. Your party thanks you. I can now look at enemies and tell my party roughly how strong they are because Fighters know these things. This is cool. I can action surge which means once a day I get an extra action in a combat round. This means that a level 20 Fighter that can attack 4 times per round can attack 8 times in a single combat round once per day. So they essentially have "spells" that beef up their power. And they still get all the bonus feats that fighters used to get in 3.5e. So now they get what they used to get and little spell-like extras too!
Fighters gain the ability to reroll saves against magic. They become REALLY hard to kill, even with "save or die" spells because they get to attempt to save multiple times. Barbarians gain similar abilities. Rogues gain the ability to do like triple digit damage in a single hit. shrugs Rogues shrugs.
Cool things about my campaign: There have been multiple times where through extra attacks and action surge (being able to double my attacks) I've done somewhere in the region of 4d8+20 damage in a turn without crits or anything. At level 11 when I get 3 attacks per turn it'll go up to 6d8+30 or something like that.
I remember at one point we were forced to go to this really nasty demiplane and fight some warrior that had basically trained in combat his entire life. Before he even closed in for close combat I'd produced 4 arrow hits straight to his chest for something like 4d6+20 damage which turned out to be around half his health. In a single combat turn. Before he'd reached the party.
I'm working on this optimisation of the Fighter and Paladin classes at the moment. If you combine the ability to have extra attacks by main classing Fighter and then take level dips in Paladin for divine smite you can achieve around 300 damage in a single turn, pretty reliably by level 20, without much effort. I've been told this is enough to threaten dragons in a single action.
After the nerf to the spell Wish and the limitations to things like Power Word: Kill, that really does feel good.
You achieve it with 3 things:
Extra attacks (4 a turn).
Action surge (doubles attacks once a day to 8 a turn).
Divine Smite (expend spell slots with every attack to do extra d6 or d5 or d4 damage, depending on the slot).
February 19, 2016 9:37 a.m.
Coinman1863 says... #4
I play the old school version of 1e. My collection has all the things with some extra stuff (I have the maps too). I personally haven't campaigned in a while but I really want to get a group going locally.
I still do newer 1 shots as people do them of some days at my LGS. So, I play all versions but prefer 1e all the way.
And oh yeah, I still roll for my characters, still waiting to get a 18/00 strength guy, AKA max strength. I do use character generators for one shots though. Makes my life a lot easier.
February 19, 2016 9:44 a.m.
Coinman1863 says... #6
Here are a few reasons that I like 1e better:
The numbers are a lot smaller. Starting health is between 4-12 (Mage to fighter respectively, when making a Character you roll for how much hp you start with within a range) and get up to about 40,'and that's at lvl 15+, where as in later editions I've seem PC health of above 60.
Even with spells being better, mages are really squishy and die easily.
It's really unforgiving for both the DM and the NPCs. If you or the monsters mess up bad things can happenmand as a session of this, it's easier to die but you usually see it see it coming from a mile a way.
It's harder for both parties to hit stuff. When I play newer versions, I rolled over 20 a lot with mods added. In the old game you had to work for those mods (+1 to +3) by either be Go high level or having good stats.
The DM has a lot more control over how the game is run. These rules are very open ended since Gygax wanted it to be home brew filled/ able to be run with only a GM book and some dine, and the Greyhalk and Unearthed Arcana expansions really allow for world building and other cool added stuff which fills out the game (I personally would not play it without those two expansions because barbarians, thief-acrobats and other extra classes are cool). Also with this more control, he can implement all, or as little of, perception/lore/persuasion like checks as he likes depending on what the playgroup likes.
Hope this is adequate ChiefBell and explains why I like it better :P
February 19, 2016 10:23 a.m.
Yeah my health is 60-something now at level 10. Our spellcasters are like 40-something at this point.
It sounds interesting. Like a very different game.
February 19, 2016 10:34 a.m.
Coinman1863 says... #8
I also have to ask, can you be over encumbered in the new versions? Weight management is a really interesting concept in 1e because you equipment and money both weigh stuff (weight is in gold pieces and gold pieces are your main monetary unit). We have had situations where the rouges or rangers have to carry the Wizards money due to being over weight :P
February 19, 2016 10:42 a.m.
Yeah you can be encumbered and over-encumbered. I think encumbered is half speed and over encumbered is no movement or something. I don't know. Get a bag of holding haha.
February 19, 2016 10:44 a.m.
Coinman1863 says... #10
Our most epic adventure? That has got to be riding Baba Yaga's Hut (yes this is a stock in game treasure) into the depths of the Hell in an attempt to kill the devil lord 'cause Asmodeus payed us a shit ton of money and gave us epic +5 equipment. Needless to say, it was one of the most fun adventures I've ever had and it was still hard because 9th circle Devils are not exactly what you'd call easy to kill.
February 19, 2016 11:02 a.m.
Back in the playtest days I exploited a bunch of loopholes (who wouldn't?). My favourite one was when we (five of us, I'm the Fighter) were running from a group of Orcs. We climbed to the top of the hill and I get knocked prone by one of the Orc's bolts. Next up is me, and I'm staring at the board (we use playmats and set pieces) doing math in my head. After about a minute, I am positive that I can do something amazing.
"Since speed debuffs don't stack, I crawl down the fifteen foot hill, then stand up for zero movement, then jump twenty feet, and charge another ten feet into the Orc boss and attack him."
The whole table was stunned at what I just did. The DM is checking the rules, the other party members are trying to get me to take it back, and it probably took ten minutes before the DM said "Alright, you can do it, but I'm adding house rules for everything you just did. Also, because it was pretty awesome, you can have an extra round where everyone is too surprised to do anything."
I killed the boss, killed a mob, and then almost died before my party saved me. Good times.
My second favourite moment has to be in the same campaign (but post playtest rules) when we were fighting some cult acolytes and a demon. I'm playing the same fighter, and have the brilliant idea of trying to trip the demon. Everyone looks at me, someones says "You know its strength is higher than yours, right?" and I try it anyway. I succeed, by a lot (lucky rolls), and then we all stab it while it's stuck on the ground, and kill it.
A couple of turns after that, an acolyte tries to grapple me. "Pfft," I scoff. "That acolyte is as stupid as it is weak. Did it not just notice when I wrecked his evil lord?" I roll to counter it, and lose horribly. The next three turns I'm stuck there, trying to escape, with my party killing everyone but the acolyte that is grappling me. Finally, the thief kills it, and we leave, me in a bit of shame.
Also in the playtest days, my first attempt at a character was a Dwarf with 22AC at level 1, but the DM said (basically) "No, the rules are unfinished, that's dumb I'm not letting you do that."
February 19, 2016 11:52 a.m.
Coinman1863 says... #12
Which edition are you playtesting here? 5 or Next?
February 19, 2016 12:28 p.m.
ChiefBell about the whole 20 AC by lv 5 thing, it's not actually that hard to do if you're a paladin. I mean, you start off sitting at like 18 AC with the chain mail and the shield, and at lv 2 you can pick up the Defense fighting style putting you at 19. If you manage to save up 200 gp to get splint, you're now at 20. This is of course assuming you have an STR of 13 & 15 respectively.
As for the Fighter/Paly optimization, I was looking into that one, though the 1/day limit on action surge made me question how useful it is. I mean, after that your damage is kind of low (ish?). Though of course the one turn you did use action surge + smite you kind of nuked the thing you were fighting, so I guess it's a trade off. What level split were you looking into? 18f,2p? or like 17f,3p? Or am I completely off?
February 19, 2016 4:42 p.m.
Action surge is per short rest so you can do it every hour. However the spell slots you expend for divine smite are per long rest. You still get 6 fighter attacks every hour which is a great starting point. Then once a day you get divine smite too.
I can't remember what I'm doing exactly. I'm in vacation at the moment. I want 3 attacks from fighter so you have to be fighter 11 at least. Then I believe you need enough spell slots to expend one per attack (6 slots then).
I believe I looked at 11F/9P maybe due to spell slot maximisation but unsure what I decided. I don't have the book in front of me and I can't remember off by heart. At the moment I'm 9F/1P.
I think indomitable is well worth getting from fighter though. Re rolling spell saves (is it reroll or advantage?) is silly. However I think that only comes at like level 16 or something?
The best fighter specialisation in my opinion is combat master or whatever it's called due to maneuvers but after you have like 5 of them there's little point continuing and you might as well stop.
The problem with fighter is that between like levels 11 (your third attack) and like 15/16 (indomitable - better spell saves) not much happens so you might as well just stop at 11 or something and take 9 elsewhere or stop at 15/16 and take 5/4 levels elsewhere.
February 19, 2016 5 p.m.
Oh yeah I remember now.
Paladin 5 gets 2nd level spells. 4 first and 2 second.
Paladin 9 gets 3rd level spells. 4 first, 3 second, and two third. I think.
A fighter 15 gets indomitable and a few more ability skill ups. A fighter 11 gets their third attack.
So 11F/9P will deal the most damage when they go nova. A 15F/5P will be more survivable due to indomitable and have more skill ups.
That's basically the decision.
That's not to say the extra paladin levels are just spell slots. You get better lay on hands for healing and all sorts of stuff. Also aura of protection at paladin 6 gives you AND allies bonuses to save depending on your charisma.
So there's ups and downs to both.
But essentially. Divine smite is balanced by the fact that paladins only attack twice a turn. If you give divine smite to a class that can attack 6 times a turn it's busted.
February 19, 2016 5:11 p.m.
yeah I didn't know that action surge was per short rest. That's NUTS. and The paladin thing makes sense, I don't know why it didn't occur to me that you'd have to have enough spell slots for all your attacks.
Right now I'm working on a Fighter/barb mix that, though it doesn't have the same burst as yours, it has a higher consistent damage. I'll post it when i work everything out. :)
February 19, 2016 6:25 p.m.
jandrobard says... #17
I haven't played 5e (I've only played 3.5, Pathfinder, and 4e so far) but I may switch to it, as my last game I was running disintegrated (If you're reading this, guys, the blame's on me). I've had problems with 3.5's rules (I have to houserule a lot of stuff) and 4e's fluff (it can be really difficult to integrate some of the stuff into an imaginable world) and 5e looks practical.
I've seen some pretty crazy stuff in game, like the int 3 half-orc barbarian, and basically anything with 4e pixies, but he most memorable thing that's happened in a while is a group of level 1 players conning their way into "borrowing" an airship, then attaching a giant scoop to the bottom and using it to repay their debt to a wizard.
February 19, 2016 7:57 p.m.
I don't know about canon 5e though because we play as if the spellplague never happened.
February 19, 2016 8:33 p.m.
@ ChiefBell - As soon as you put on Plate armor your defense is 18. If you are wearing a shield it's 20. Cleric has a bunch of different domains to choose from at level 1 sort of like how Bards have Colleges. 3 of these domains grant profficiency with Plate at level 1. Of course you still have to be able to afford it, I didn't get mine until I was about level 4.
That may seem early but with 6 people besides the DM showing up that means we went on more adventures, thus getting more cash, to get to the same amount of xp as others. (We have one party member who is a Monk and never takes any gold from adventures and some of our previous party members died so we took money of their corpses and didn't give it to their new chars yet : P )
As for the stats being good I was wrong about my wisdom it's only at 17 for a +3 (I choose + to attributes both times so far and got a +1 Wisdom permanent boost.) My strength is set to 19 because of Gauntlets of overpower. Despite there being 6 of us most nights I was the most consistent person with strength showing up when it dropped so they passed it to me.
Anyways all these stats are nice but trust me they don't make it easy. Our DM plays things really close. The campaigns are tough enough so that it feels like Fire Emblem on the highest difficulty: One suboptimal turn from one player and somebody is dying. (by suboptimal I mean they don't prioritize targets right or they use spell X instead of spell Y)
February 20, 2016 12:21 a.m.
Oh right yeah. Medium and heavy armor.
I'm actually a dexterity fighter which is cool because I get to use lots of ranges stuff too. Our DM home ruled that the strength 13 requirement was ridiculous to multiclass as a paladin and changed it to dex or strength 13. I mean not all paladins have to have physical prowess, right? Some could be fast etc. There are lots of Gods that would appreciate a more dextrous paladin representing them.
February 20, 2016 7:10 a.m.
heh..the class I'm designing is sort of the opposite of that. One thing that they all get is the ability to use a Shortbow as if it had finesse. Strength and Wisdom based. No spellcasting yet but I am considering giving them a quarter caster progression and access to spells like Thaumaturgy, small utility things that can really help at the right time but not damage based stuff.
February 20, 2016 7:54 a.m.
@ ChiefBell - Sorry I had to go to class and just got out.
Clan 1 is closer to Ranger/Fighter but the way I tweak the bonus action/reaction economy makes it feel like a Warlock if Eldritch Blast wasn't quite as OP.
Clan 2 is closer to Fighter if it existed solely as utility. That's not to say it buffs the team or debuffs the enemy, it Pins people down and either you or them have to spend an action to disengage. As it progresses in levels it is then able to do a 2nd or 3rd thing by spending bonus actions once it has pinned somebody. Stuff like causing bleed, reducing HP, or @ level 11 if you spend your reaction you can kick a pinned target. (Pinned targets can still cast spells that require Verbal or Somatic components. Kick is "Counterspell" in magic terms. The person you're trying to kick has to make a con save or they are like "oh my god that hurts" and stop casting their spell.)
Clan 3 is sort of like..well imagine a Prot Warrior from WoW but your signature move is intercept. You don't get the free movement like Intercept in wow but you're going to be taking 1/2 damage yourself and, starting at level 3, your team mates. All the clan gets either additional actions or reactions as they level up and this one focuses on reactions. It's stance is -1 Initiative +2 AC when using one of the core class features "Adept Deflection" which helps reduce damage. This stance becomes more practiced at higher levels capping out at -5 Initiative and +10 AC.
I'm still working on the identity for clan 4 atm.
I am sure that all sounds like rambling and it probably is sense I didn't sleep last night. Don't worry though my design goals and design rules are as follows:
Goals -
1. Make it special
2. Make it fun
3. keep it interesting
Rules -
1. Don't let it be stronger than anything in the base 5E PHB
2. Don't let it be a better "all around" version of anything.
3. Don't make a class that replaces another classes spot in the party
February 20, 2016 12:16 p.m.
Have you read the unearthed arcana about class variants and making new classes.
February 20, 2016 12:23 p.m.
I skimmed over it. I kind of got the vibe of "just rearrange some stuff" and I was like "to hell with that!"
If that's not what it's really about I'll read it again Sunday and take what is has to say into consideration.
February 20, 2016 12:25 p.m.
One of the hugest things is essentially to not give spellcasting to everything. It's super powerful and you have to be careful.
February 20, 2016 12:41 p.m.
I can definitely agree with that. On a different note I had noticed over the last 3-4 weeks that our Rangers DPS is insanely high. Tonight I saw the Ranger roll a 4 and a 5 for his damage dice and end up doing something like 20-23 damage after adding just class bonuses. Their ability to hit is so high that they only miss about 20% of their attacks and even if they miss 1 out of 3 rounds the damage is still stupid good.
Does this change at later levels or will a Ranger always have nuts DPS?
February 21, 2016 2:55 a.m.
Rangers fighters and barbarians just have consistently high DPS throughout the game.
Unfortunately the ranger is generally considered the worst class in 5e. I believe this is because the beastmaster can't attack and also have their creature attack because commanding a creature is an action. I forget the name of the other subclass but you get bonuses against one type of enemy, which is a bit meh because one minute you're fighting orcs then giants then spiders then goblins etc so it's rare that you consistently get your bonus.
I believe the highest consistent damage you can get is a fighter / barbarian multiclass using two handed weapons. You get lots of extra attacks and the barbarian rage etc.
February 21, 2016 4:09 a.m.
It's just boggling my mind how when a ranger rolls a 4 and a 9 for attack dice he deals 22 damage but when a Fighter rolls a total of four for one damage roll he just deals something like 9 damage.
February 21, 2016 4:17 a.m.
Yep but the ranger will be doing that to only one creature type.
February 21, 2016 5:31 a.m.
So about that Samurai class I was making. I asked somebody to check it for me before it was finished so I could can get an idea of what works and what doesn't. Long story short 1 of the 4 starting "Clan's" (which I will probably change to "Shogunate" after renaming the class "Shinsengumi" but I digress..) was incredibly OP but the others weren't.
I hope to have the max DPR calculations for fighter and Samurai/Shinsengumi done by next week thursday up to level 10. Once I am done if anyone is interested I can make a dummy FB account and post the Excel file into chat.
Either way things are looking good for Samurai/Shinsengumi using Glaives and Halberds.. I can't wait to play some Cleric and smite people this evening though.
February 27, 2016 3:51 a.m.
@ ChiefBell, Nemisis, Coinman1863:
My backup char is going to be a Goliath. In my DMs campaign world Goliath's are like the tree-loving Elves of Mirrodin except they live in huts on the ground and protect nature by mostly physical force. They have decent Wisdom if they are old enough otherwise use brute strength and toughness to act as wardens of the land. This leads me to beleive I should play either a Ranger or Barb.
Imagine Garruk, Primal Hunter as a Goliath (so big and grey instead of big and white) but I live in harmony with and protect the living parts of nature. The Goliath in our campaign are rare but I've got the DMs approval. The Goliath in our campaign get along well with Dwarven Aritificers. So I could care less if a Dwarve has been mining out a mountain his whole life so long as it's not harming plants/animals. On the other hand if they go so far as to destroy a whole ecosystem such as a forest and it's creatures to supply a kingdom with Crossbows I would be peeved.
With all that said does this sound more like a Ranger who fights in melee or a barbarian to you? The actual Mini has a Greataxe which is what I'll use regardless of which class I'll take.
March 14, 2016 2:59 p.m.
Coinman1863 says... #34
Assuming this Goliath is younger than ancient (IE lacking Wisdom), then a Barbarian is the way to go as a Melee Ranger seems odd. Also rangers have some other tertiary abilities that don't exactly fit the non wise archtype.
March 14, 2016 3:25 p.m.
Counterpoint - Druid? But that would require wisdom
Barbarian might be fun to play.
canterlotguardian says... #2
I've been playing 5E since a friend got me into the alpha test group. Overall, I think it's pretty awesome, though nothing can dethrone 3.5 as my favorite iteration.
February 19, 2016 8:42 a.m.