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Dungeons and Dragons Megathread

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Revlid said:
I saw that, but the question "why not just have that tier of Beastmaster let me give up attacks to let my beast attack on a 1:1 basis" springs to mind.
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Action economy problems is my thinking. The beast companion is now a fully independent creature with a full set of action on its initiative count, bringing it up to par with every other companion in the game. Before, the beast was hamstrung by the fact it couldn't attack on its own, which ran into consistency issues with the fact that familiars could contribute to combat on their count and that a mount summoned by Find Steed could attack independently--the ranger's companion was the least effective combat companion before, all to limit the ranger's action economy.

The new ranger frees up the beast to make it feel like a genuine independent companion like others in the game, but introduced clunkiness in the ranger's own mechanics.
 
Renewal said:
Action economy problems is my thinking. The beast companion is now a fully independent creature with a full set of action on its initiative count, bringing it up to par with every other companion in the game. Before, the beast was hamstrung by the fact it couldn't attack on its own, which ran into consistency issues with the fact that familiars could contribute to combat on their count and that a mount summoned by Find Steed could attack independently--the ranger's companion was the least effective combat companion before, all to limit the ranger's action economy.

The new ranger frees up the beast to make it feel like a genuine independent companion like others in the game, but introduced clunkiness in the ranger's own mechanics.
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Familiars can not attack on there own, you need to sacrifice your action to do so.
 
Scia said:
Familiars can not attack on there own, you need to sacrifice your action to do so.
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Ah, my mistake. Still, familiars are wholly independent with their own turn, while beast companions were still as a whole entirely bound to the ranger's own turn, making the companion feel rather clunky in comparison.
 
Well, I polished off the latest version of my pure martial Ranger rewrite.

Just a day after Unearthed Arcana released a pretty decent upgrade of the Ranger which means this one will never see playtesting.

It's a lemon-scented kind of disappointment.

At least it means I can spend more time on subclasses instead, and they're far more likely to see play. On my list are Gladiator Fighters, Abhorsen Paladins, Aztec Paladins, Sorcerers of the First Flame, Poisoner Rogues, Juggler Rogues, Viking Barbarians, Possessed Barbarians, and a rewritten version of my Old Ones Bards.

A Summoner class would be pretty cool, actually. I might consider giving that a go... at some point.
 
Revlid said:
Well, I polished off the latest version of my pure martial Ranger rewrite.

Just a day after Unearthed Arcana released a pretty decent upgrade of the Ranger which means this one will never see playtesting.

It's a lemon-scented kind of disappointment.

At least it means I can spend more time on subclasses instead, and they're far more likely to see play. On my list are Gladiator Fighters, Abhorsen Paladins, Aztec Paladins, Sorcerers of the First Flame, Poisoner Rogues, Juggler Rogues, Viking Barbarians, Possessed Barbarians, and a rewritten version of my Old Ones Bards.

A Summoner class would be pretty cool, actually. I might consider giving that a go... at some point.
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I like this. The campfire Knacks are one of the most perfectly flavorful Ranger concepts I've seen and I can't believe I've never seen it before. Formating is iffy, though; some picture obscure entire swaths of text.

I want to see your Barbarian ideas because I like nothing more than to ponder alternate versions of characters I play. Battlerager!Clanless is a thing of beauty that will sadly never see the day.
 
Revlid said:
Well, I polished off the latest version of my pure martial Ranger rewrite.

Just a day after Unearthed Arcana released a pretty decent upgrade of the Ranger which means this one will never see playtesting.

It's a lemon-scented kind of disappointment.

At least it means I can spend more time on subclasses instead, and they're far more likely to see play. On my list are Gladiator Fighters, Abhorsen Paladins, Aztec Paladins, Sorcerers of the First Flame, Poisoner Rogues, Juggler Rogues, Viking Barbarians, Possessed Barbarians, and a rewritten version of my Old Ones Bards.

A Summoner class would be pretty cool, actually. I might consider giving that a go... at some point.
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I'll test it out next game I run that plays a ranger or if I get to play one. It looks pretty fucking cool.

If I can say what I personally want the most out of the stuff you've put up here, it'd be a completed version of the College of Emblems Bard. That shit was ballin'.
 
Q99 said:
Hm, should I go Quest-forum, since I want to use a quest-esque format, or Roleplaying forum, since it'll involve roleplaying and have an IC and OOC thread and all that...?
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A quest is always about controlling a singular actor. Now, that actor might be a person, an army, a fleet of spaceships, a greek city-state, a multi-planetary emprie, whatever.

If you do a quest, you will be doing all of the writing. Most of what your players post will be votes, and arguing with each other about votes.

If you do RP (or NG), with separate IC and OOC, each player controls one actor, and you merely have to set the stage. Some games can run quite well with very little GM input once the characters start bouncing things off of each other. RPs can also much more easily go off the rails, though.
 
samdamandias said:
A quest is always about controlling a singular actor. Now, that actor might be a person, an army, a fleet of spaceships, a greek city-state, a multi-planetary emprie, whatever.

If you do a quest, you will be doing all of the writing. Most of what your players post will be votes, and arguing with each other about votes.

If you do RP (or NG), with separate IC and OOC, each player controls one actor, and you merely have to set the stage. Some games can run quite well with very little GM input once the characters start bouncing things off of each other. RPs can also much more easily go off the rails, though.
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I'm not (currently, this could change, it looks like next week is the soonest I'll do) planning on one player control each character. There'll be IC and OOC, the latter for info dumps on setting and other various chatter, but collective control over a group of characters who'll change makeup with time, with players able to submit lines and such for individual characters.
 
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It seems then, that you are combining the worst aspects of a quest and RP, and won't get RPers you got quest all over their RP, and questors won't be interested because you got RP all over their quest.

What do you hope to get out of using this chimeric mish-mash instead of running a normal quest (where the actor is an adventuring party) or regular RP?
 
The stuff I've mentioned? A plot-oriented fantasy adventure in an interesting setting, a fast plot movement rate, and hopefully interesting characters created (with some plot options less available to normal methods, like shifting people into and out of the party more)? A larger potential player base involved? Nothing about quests means no RPing.


I like the collective control thing because, well, people drop out of RPs and groups allow for continuous movement. That said, I'm not married to it, I get response from some committed players I could do so.
 
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Rook said:
I'll test it out next game I run that plays a ranger or if I get to play one. It looks pretty fucking cool.

If I can say what I personally want the most out of the stuff you've put up here, it'd be a completed version of the College of Emblems Bard. That shit was ballin'.
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Thanks for the kind words – I'm certain I already put the College of Emblems up on Homebrewery, but I can't find the link now. I'll take another look when I get home, or upload the final version again.

Omicron said:
I like this. The campfire Knacks are one of the most perfectly flavorful Ranger concepts I've seen and I can't believe I've never seen it before. Formating is iffy, though; some picture obscure entire swaths of text.
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Huh. Really? It looks fine on my browser, as a webpage and a pdf. Which pieces of art are messing up on yours – the dual-wielding beastman, the elephant dwarf, the skull or the staff?

Omicron said:
I want to see your Barbarian ideas because I like nothing more than to ponder alternate versions of characters I play. Battlerager!Clanless is a thing of beauty that will sadly never see the day.
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Possessed Barbarian is aimed at "ohhhh my demon half is taking overrrrr" nonsense. Features focused on turning Rage into an outright transformation.

Viking Barbarian is basically a greedy drunk Rogue multiclass.
 
Revlid said:
Huh. Really? It looks fine on my browser, as a webpage and a pdf. Which pieces of art are messing up on yours – the dual-wielding beastman, the elephant dwarf, the skull or the staff?
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The latter three. Could just br my phone browser, though.

Possessed Barbarian is aimed at "ohhhh my demon half is taking overrrrr" nonsense. Features focused on turning Rage into an outright transformation.
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Teenage me is in love with this.
 
So one concept I've bren playing with lately for 5e is a dual-wielding Barbarian/Rogue/Fighter. It's kind of weird but I think it might actually work well.

Sneak Attack requires finesse weapons, but does not mandate the use of Dexterity. So you can choose to attack with Strength, gaining your rage bonus to damage. Reckless Attack allows you to trigger sneak attack pretty much at will, so you're guaranteed to have its bonus damage every turn. Since you're dual-wielding, you might as well dip fighter for your Strength damage to your other weapon.

Your Rogue Archetype is probably Assassin, as it synergizes with a Barbarian's Feral Instinct - advantage to Initiative, resulting in advantage to attacks on the first turn without needing Reckless Attack.

Battle master is probably the best Fighter Archetype because it always is, but given that you're rolling 4-6 attack tolls per turn (because advantage) a strong case can be made for Champion to maximize crits, especially if you're only dipping Fighter.

If you can set up a surprise attack (and why couldn't you? You probably have Stealth proficiency and Expertise in it), your first turn in a fight can combine the Assassin's Assassinate with the Fighter's Action Surge for a nest alpha strike.

A big issue is as usual bonus action overcrowding, as you need it for rage, cunning action and dual-wielding. However, I feel the combination of rage damage and ability to damage, plus the scaling benefits if you can get dual-wield magic weapons, should make up for it.

The level spread I'm thinking of would be something like Barbarian 11/Rogue 5/Fighter 4. This sacrifices one Ability Bonus/Feat, but in turn gets the Rogue's Uncanny Dodge and the Barbarian's Relentless Rage, rage damage +3, and sneak attack 3d6.

Any thoughts?
 
Omicron said:
Any thoughts?
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Despite the traditional roguish image, dual-wielding does not work very well for Rogues, because neither of their two most tempting class features – Sneak Attack and Cunning Action – work with it. Sneak Attack only works on one attack per round, and so does not scale with dual-wielding. Cunning Action gives you new ways to use your bonus action, which dual-wielding occupies.

Similarly, dual-wielding does not work hugely well for Barbarians. Many of their features (Rage, Reckless Attack) rely on Strength, and dual-wieldable weapons are more suited to Dexterity builds due to the common link between the Finesse and Light tags. This can be mitigated with a feat, but that same feat can be spent bumping your way up to Strength 24 or buying a greatweapon feat – and it invalidates Sneak Attack, anyway. Moreover, the higher end of Barbarian damage-dealing relies on combining Reckless Attack with Brutal Critical, which requires a Greataxe or similar d12 damage weapon to get the most out of. Also, you can't dual-wield on a round that you enter Rage.

Hell, dual-wielding probably isn't a hugely good investment for a Fighter, either, most times... In fact, Improved Divine Smite, no bonus action features and only one Extra Attack means that the Paladin's probably the relative best class for dual-wielding, ironically enough – even without the relevant Fighting Style.

Of course, you're aware of all this. My usual distaste for multiclassing aside, I'll just say that (if my math is right) your build with the relevant feat will be doing roughly the same per-turn damage as a Barbarian 17/Fighter 3 (Berserker/Champion)... just without so much swing, because the Barbarian 17/Fighter 3 is making 6-8 rolls a turn where they crit on a 19-20, re-roll damage dice on a 1-2, can use their bonus action to make another attack if they crit or kill, and can take an attack penalty for a damage bonus, and taken all together that does weird things to the damage average.

All that said, Battle Master is still probably better bet for the build if it's crit-focused, because you can spend your superiority dice to add damage after you've confirmed a crit.

So it looks totally viable, though you've not stumbled onto anything broken. It seems like you'll mainly just be keeping up but also having more options, which is always fun.
 
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Revlid said:
Despite the traditional roguish image, dual-wielding does not work very well for Rogues, because neither of their two most tempting class features – Sneak Attack and Cunning Action – work with it. Sneak Attack only works on one attack per round, and so does not scale with dual-wielding. Cunning Action gives you new ways to use your bonus action, which dual-wielding occupies.

Similarly, dual-wielding does not work hugely well for Barbarians. Many of their features (Rage, Reckless Attack) rely on Strength, and dual-wieldable weapons are more suited to Dexterity builds due to the common link between the Finesse and Light tags. This can be mitigated with a feat, but that same feat can be spent bumping your way up to Strength 24 or buying a greatweapon feat – and it invalidates Sneak Attack, anyway. Moreover, the higher end of Barbarian damage-dealing relies on combining Reckless Attack with Brutal Critical, which requires a Greataxe or similar d12 damage weapon to get the most out of. Also, you can't dual-wield on a round that you enter Rage.

Hell, dual-wielding probably isn't a hugely good investment for a Fighter, either, most times... In fact, Improved Divine Smite, no bonus action features and only one Extra Attack means that the Paladin's probably the relative best class for dual-wielding, ironically enough – even without the relevant Fighting Style.

Of course, you're aware of all this. My usual distaste for multiclassing aside, I'll just say that (if my math is right) your build with the relevant feat will be doing roughly the same per-turn damage as a Barbarian 17/Fighter 3... just without so much swing, because the Barbarian 17/Fighter 3 is making 6 rolls a turn where they crit on a 19-20, re-roll on a 1-2, can use their bonus action to make another attack if they crit or kill, and can take an attack penalty for a damage bonus, and taken all together that does weird things to the damage average.

So it looks totally viable, though you've not stumbled onto anything broken. It seems like you'll mainly just be keeping up but also having more options, which is always fun.
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I have this weird split where in chargen I value straightforward power and in actual play I value versatility and the ability to split focus, so yeah, if kinda works for me even if it isn't something OP.

@Crumplepunch has done some very interesting maths on the comparative merits of various fighting styles, and while dual-wielding does lag behind it actually ends up not too far away from the other options, more effective than I had thought. Since then I've bren trying to find combinations to give it an extra edge.
 
Meanwhile the warlock is comfortable trucking behind you and the other casters at 4d10+4d6+20-28 Damage a turn prior to adjustments for hitting, all day long as these are a level 1 spell and cantrips.
 
Omicron said:
How do you even do that?
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Eldtrich blast is increasing the number of bolts that I have per level so at level 16 I get 4 of them.
Now these are base 1d10, but there is a warlock invocation that allows me to permanetly add my charisma modifer to each blast, which means that each blast, all of them require a hit roll btw, now deals roughly 1d10+5 , and then I cast hex on it, which is a spell that I can concentrate (which is the biggest downside) on for the whole day which add 1d6 necrotic damage to each target that I hit. And as each EB counts as a seperate hit, that is 1d10+5+1d6 x4. Respective a bit higher if I can push my charisma above 20.
 
Omicron said:
The level spread I'm thinking of would be something like Barbarian 11/Rogue 5/Fighter 4. This sacrifices one Ability Bonus/Feat, but in turn gets the Rogue's Uncanny Dodge and the Barbarian's Relentless Rage, rage damage +3, and sneak attack 3d6.
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I make this as an average damage per turn of 53.4, assuming 20 strength, rage and the duel wielding feat with two rapiers. 82 using action surge.

On an ambush turn, it would be 75, or 121 using action surge.

For comparison, a dual wielding pure assassin tops out at 122 if he gets a successful Death Strike on both attacks on his ambush round.

Scia said:
Meanwhile the warlock is comfortable trucking behind you and the other casters at 4d10+4d6+20-28 Damage a turn prior to adjustments for hitting, all day long as these are a level 1 spell and cantrips.
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That would be an average of 52 at charisma 20.

EDIT: Actually 57.8.
 
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Omicron said:
i'm pretty sure that's higher than my barbarian damage @Scia
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It is 56 Damage per round on average prior to any calculations for hitting where you should beat me if I remember it right.

And there is the problem that a resistance to necrotic damage , which is fairly common reduces that by 7 respective a immunity by 14 points. Luckily the main damage is force and force resistance is basically non exixstant but I for example fall off strongly against undead.
 
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