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Could I suggest that they have disadvantage on Dex saves against damaging area effects? Seems like a fireball or lightning bolt should be more effective against a group and this is a not-too-extreme way to handle it.
Dungeons and Dragons Megathread
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Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
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No, the crafting would mostly be done by the horde of followers. The Cohort may have the feats for the stuff the followers can't do, but will mostly be using the crafted items. Although there is that one class variant that uses scrolls as weapons... Imagine, you run up to the enemy Wizard, only for the Wizard to grab two of the scrolls from their belt, then they hit you with a blade of burning magic from 10 ft away. You try to strike them, but they block with a magical shield coming from the other scroll! And then you get blasted by a Wizard with save-or-suck scrolls using the Wizard's stats instead of the scrolls.
Considering how the only worthwhile crafting is magical one spellcraft makes most craft booster useless , and that people that take the feat to aid you during crafting give out a non stacking bonus having level 1 followers to help with that is useless after the first.
The only thing that cooperative casting is useful for is that it allows you to raise the GP that you can invest in a single item per day. Dwarfen forgemaster or dwarfen wizard are also increasing the production time while not changing costs.
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
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I'm sorry, you don't seem to see the value of having hoards of gold from crafting nonmagical items on a large scale. Or have a massive stockpile of scrolls as a Scrollmaster Wizard, who gets to use their stats for casting from scrolls when they hit level 10. There's the value of making large amounts of low grade items and then selling them for large amounts of gold. After all, those items adventurers buy have to come from somewhere! And the effective discount on Masterwork items is a nice bonus.
Simply put, you get the money to make the massively powerful items from having the horde of low level crafters. You supply them with the materials to make their basic goods and take a cut of the profit as you have become the manager. You can essentially use the followers as a business, with the option of having lower-than-basic-price mercenaries equipped with high quality items as a part of your follower base. Tucker's Kobolds(it's on 1d4chan) prove that large numbers of well managed low power creatures are fully able to wreck everything that fights them. A squad of 5 well set up 5th level characters with a 20th level caster buffing them and supplying equipment can easily wreck massive amounts of face.
There's also something to be said about being able to have a party who start out as followers of a fully rules compliant 20th level character. It let's the party know that they, too, can become a monolithic entity who shapes entire civilizations. Then there's the fun of strategic and tactical play, where both players and GM use dozens of characters with full RAW support of this situation.
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They already take double damage from damaging area effects.
Yeah but considering that even a level 20 paladin only has 13 level 1, 7 level 2, 4 level 3, 4 level 4 and two level 5 & 6 followers the amountthat they can give you is low.
Okay DC to create the items x result of your crafting in silverpieces , lets be fancy and assume you gave them magical gear and so they make a crafting check of 40 and that they create a masterwork sword (DC20) which means that they create items worth 114 silber per day, so that they roughly need 27 day to finish a masterwork longsword. So , we get 300 gold out of 75 gold in materials or 225 gold per worker per month or on a whole 6700ish gold per month.
Regular crafted items turn 1 gold into 4 gold as you only need material at 1/4 of the price Which is after all one might think better then producing magical items which do so at 1/2.
Ah but now we get into the problem of crafting time. Your mundane people that are not producing magical items if we assume that they all craft 4 GP jewelery or something else with a TN of 20 Which means that if all of them make the check, you invest 30 gold, and get 120 out of it. Now one might ask, why not create something harder? Well you could go for a initial investment to boost there craft score so lets assume that you are instead giving all of them magical items for +30 crafting and so lets assume that all of them make a TN 45 check then. Which means that you are getting for the cost of 180 gold 720 gold out of it. So over 30 days that 21K gold for only 5400 gold in cost.Hey, 15600 money made off mundane items.
Ah but now we get into the problem of crafting time. Your mundane people that are not producing magical items if we assume that they all craft 4 GP jewelery or something else with a TN of 20 Which means that if all of them make the check, you invest 30 gold, and get 120 out of it. Now one might ask, why not create something harder? Well you could go for a initial investment to boost there craft score so lets assume that you are instead giving all of them magical items for +30 crafting and so lets assume that all of them make a TN 45 check then. Which means that you are getting for the cost of 180 gold 720 gold out of it. So over 30 days that 21K gold for only 5400 gold in cost.Hey, 15600 money made off mundane items.
Ah but you ask, what then about other profits? Well level 1&2 crafters can only be used to create scrolls and potions, and you can only create one of them per day . And as Scrolls fall under spell-trigger or spell-completion items you need to know the spell to craft them. Which is a difference to regular crafting where it would only raise the DC.
So at the most they create 500ish gold of profit per day while level 3+ caster create wonderous items which give out 2 gold for every gold invested in it. So assuming that you maxed your Leadership, you are getting 10K gold in scrolls and potions, and then 12KI from those that can craft wonderous items. Which means that you get 22k gold per day in that magical sweatshop or 660K gold
After you so crashed the local economy the "make everyone a caster" version still made so much more profit that you could buy all the mundane equipment faster then crafting it yourself.
If the crafter lack magical items then on average a level 1 craft will create , as they can take 10 goods worth 25 gold per week without material costs , or roughly 72 gold per month in Profit while a level 1 wizard will make 375 gold in profit.
So one wizard makes over time as much money as 5 experts.
The whole argument changes of course if you go with the ruling that crafted gear, like looted stuff can only be sold for half price.
Which would mean that magical crafting is not making you any money, and nonmagical makes between 36 and 112 gold per month and crafter depending on the magical aid and skill of the worker.
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Oops, missed that.
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
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I'm talking Pathfinder, given how wrong the numbers you gave are for PF you seem to be talking something else. And I have seen the tables for follower numbers, it caps out at 135 level one followers and at least one level seven follower. And that's from the core rulebook. Granted, getting a Leadership score of 25 is quite hard, but not even close to impossible. And who says that a high level wizard can't train some of the crafters as Adepts? And ~200 people crafting items won't crash the economy of a continent. Especially given that most of those items will be common, but useful things and 1st and 2nd level scrolls. Valuable, but not even close to wrecking economies.
Renewal
Boring Person #5883781345
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This is really cool! It reminds me a little of the Angry GM's Paragon monsters, which were conceptually similar--Paragon monsters were designed as several monsters crammed into one in order to create more powerful and mechanically dynamic solo bosses, akin to multi-stage video game bosses. His Volcano Dragon is a really badass example of them. Your aggregate monsters are definitely a very elegant solution to modeling large groups, which is definitely appreciated and really keeps in line with 5e monster design.
Yeah that was me being blind and ignoring the 1st level colum there Leadership - Pathfinder_OGC and acording to that you get no level 7 follower unless you count your cohort there. And uh you saw that I assumed that all followers where either expert or wizards as I compared them? So yeah that is another 3375 in profit per day thanks to level 1 wizards there or 101k gold per month giving a leadership 25 Character a roughly a million gold pieces income per month thanks to leadership. Or roughly a bit more one level 20 Wealth per level per month.
Hi! I am trying to figure out a way to have a wider variety of potential enemies for a dungeon I'm running for 5e. The theme is demons and constructs and anything dwarves could have made. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to buff something like the Animated Armor to be a higher challenge rating? I ran the normal armor, and predictably it went down easy to my level 3 players, but they didn't gain enough experience for how long the fight took (First session, first time DM for D&D made it drag a bit, I think), and I want to keep doing animated armors and other such beings, but want them to feel like they are meaningfully progressing.
I would really appreciate any advice that could help me. Thank you!
I would really appreciate any advice that could help me. Thank you!
Mithrandir
Endurance and victory!
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Demons and Constructs and Dwarves, oh my.
Well, I don't know anything about 5e - so I can't recommend mechanics - but I do like brainstorming baddies.
How intermingled is the theme? Would you expect to encounter sin-powered clockwork armor, capable of smelling and hunting even the smallest evils? Could the Dwarves have captured a piece of hellfire and forged it into the heart of a metallic steam-dragon? Are there thinking machines who long ago slew their creator, now armed with Dwarven crossbows and Demon-hide shields?
Heh, not really. The constructs are pretty much universally fighting the demons, there's some variety in what they are and who made them, but they're pretty much all attempts to repel the demons for some reason or another. There might be a Helmed Horror somewhere in there, but that's as close as it gets to intermingling.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Resistances are a good way to increase an encounters Challenge since it doubles the enemies HP.
One trick I pulled on my players was having Animated Armors wielding Animated Swords, this gave them 'two attacks' per round. The players were surprised when they took down the armor only to have the swords keep fighting.
Have the animated armor use terrain and traps to harry the PCs. Have them lure PCs into rooms with elevated sniper positions manned by crossbow wielding armors. Flood areas with poisonous gas (which the armors reset) because what to constructs care?
The players walk down a hallway with lit torches, only when they get halfway down the sconces come alive and start swinging flaming clubs at the PCs. Then more animated armors attack.
Basically go play Dark Souls and learn how even 'weak' enemies can be frightening.
One trick I pulled on my players was having Animated Armors wielding Animated Swords, this gave them 'two attacks' per round. The players were surprised when they took down the armor only to have the swords keep fighting.
Have the animated armor use terrain and traps to harry the PCs. Have them lure PCs into rooms with elevated sniper positions manned by crossbow wielding armors. Flood areas with poisonous gas (which the armors reset) because what to constructs care?
The players walk down a hallway with lit torches, only when they get halfway down the sconces come alive and start swinging flaming clubs at the PCs. Then more animated armors attack.
Basically go play Dark Souls and learn how even 'weak' enemies can be frightening.
No, I'm not trying to seriously strain them, I meant raise the Challenge Rating for the XP of the encounter. Like. How much extra HP or to hit whatever do you give an Animated Armor to make it Challenge 2 instead of Challenge 1?
I'm as likely to kill them as seriously challenge them if I go all out, I'm very new to D&D.
Renewal
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Do you have the Dungeon Master's Guide? Its section on creating custom monsters is a necessity for this sort of thing; it shows you how to set monster stats to reach a certain CR. A basic trick with that is to just create stronger iterations of Animated Armors: scale up their stats and their CR, and then give them a weapon, make them bigger and more inhuman, make them out of exotic materials, etc. to justify the strength increase. You can also start giving them feature like Pack Tactics for a stronger and more intelligent type, spellcasting for imbued armors, and so on.
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Ah, in that case you definitely just need to refer to the DMG. The section Creating a Monster from page 273 on is all you need.
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Oh. I missed that section, thank you!
Revlid
blob of bugs
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So, while thinking up an alternative final feature for the Doom-Seeker Path, I came up with a mutual destruction idea – as in, you declare that a particular enemy is fated to be your nemesis, and both of you get the same damaging benefit against each other. I suspect it's unbalanced, considering how good critical hits are for Barbarians relative to the likely target of this feature – on a Greataxe Half-Orc at level 20, it's an extra 26 (?) damage per attack. Even on the Dwarf this is being written for, at level 14 it's +13 damage.
Meanwhile, Rage means the target's own automatic critical hits won't be as effacious, unless they deal a more exotic kind of damage. Might be better to replace it with vulnerability or something, to cancel out the Rage-resistance.
And I definitely need to compare it to the Assassin capstone.
Well, I'll see what you all think, anyway.
EDIT: Included some alternatives.
"Could you be the one to finally finish me?"
Star-Breaker (active or responsive)
Starting at 14th level, your impatience draws rivals into ruination against the looming rocks of destiny. Whenever you enter a rage you may declare a prophecy, marking one creature you can see as your nemesis. Any reckless attack you make that hits your nemesis is considered a critical hit. Any attack your nemesis makes that hits you is considered a critical hit. The creature remains your nemesis until your rage ends, or they are reduced to 0 hit points. If you are raging but have no nemesis, you may declare one whenever you suffer a critical hit or are reduced to 0 hit points, marking the creature who inflicted the damage as your nemesis.
Star-Breaker (responsive only, no downside)
Starting at 14th level, your destiny draws rivals into mutual ruination. If you suffer a critical hit or are reduced to 0 hit points while raging, you may mark the creature which inflicted the damage as your nemesis. Any hit you score against your nemesis is a critical hit. You cannot have more than one nemesis, and the creature only stops being your nemesis when your rage ends, or they are reduced to 0 hit points. In addition, you no longer age, and cannot be aged magically.
Star-Breaker (responsive only, downside)
Starting at 14th level, your destiny draws rivals into mutual ruination. If you suffer a critical hit or are reduced to 0 hit points while raging, you may mark the creature which inflicted the damage as your nemesis. Any hit you score against your nemesis, or your nemesis scores against you, is a critical hit. You cannot have more than one nemesis, and the creature only stops being your nemesis when your rage ends, or they are reduced to 0 hit points. In addition, you no longer age, and cannot be aged magically.
Star-Breaker (short-term responsive, no downside)
Starting at 14th level, your impatient destiny draws rivals into mutual ruination. If a creature reduces you to 0 hit points or inflicts a critical hit on you, any hit you score against that creature until the end of your next turn is a critical hit. In addition, you no longer age, and cannot be aged magically.
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Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
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My suggestion is to have the Animated Armor come in several types, each type being a different sort of armor that is animated. So, the basic one might be unenhanced Half Plate, or some other low quality heavy armor. Faster ones could be made of Medium armor, perhaps , getting higher Dex and move speed but lower Con and maybe hit dice. There's also having the Animated Armor get armor enhancements as inherent qualities, making it stronger based on what enhancements it has. Then there are special material bonuses, translated into things like Mithral granting a bonus to Dex and move speed and Adimantine(?) getting bonus to Con and maybe hit dice, along with some sort of DR or resistance. For the 'boss' ones, you could figure out how to mix the stats of Animated Armor and Golems or Elementals, to represent a Animated Armor that is also a Golem or Elemental, or worn by a Golem or Elemental.
Then, with the weapons, you can use Animated Weapons. Again, special material bonuses can be translated into various buffs and you can use a wide variety of different weapons as the basis of them, getting the weapon's special qualities as inherent bonuses. There's also some odd item enhancements that can be applied in interesting ways to Animated Weapons. Returning could grand some sort of movement bonus, like how Spring Attack works in 3.5/PF, Holy and Axiomantic are both things that fit the situation with the demons, and can grant their normal bonus.
Also, think about having Intelligent Magic Items as animated weapons and armor, to act as NPCs to talk to/make deals with/have enemies with an excuse to be amazing planners/have class levels. Basically, look at everything there is in item customization and try to think of a way to apply it to animated items. For CR, maybe have some ratio of item price to CR as a guideline. And if you want to be both silly and evil, have an Intelligent Magic Item staff/rod/quarterstaff with a lot of Wizard levels and a lot of the crazy stuff that staffs, rods and quarterstaffs can have on them as a major boss.
Revlid
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Included some fresh new alternatives of differing power levels and utilities. Which one looks best?
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Aaah I had a post written up but now I have to take that into account too
Revlid
blob of bugs
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I think generally the responsive-only options are better conceptually. With the active option, depending on how reckless the barbarian is or how optimized to take advantage of this feature their party's tactics are, you may end up with someone declaring people to be their "fated opponent" several times a day. D&D sessions are admittedly rarely srs bsns but this could quickly become more of a running gag than anything else. Having Star-Breaker trigger in response to an opponent seems more natural.
On the other hand crits are random, so with that option you can find yourself declaring a random orc mook to be your "fated opponent" when Chief Slaughtermayhem is standing right there, and then you splatter the mook and the feature was kind of wasted.
Hm. I think the ideal version of this would be calling out someone, anyone, to step up and face you. But that's kind of hard to put into mechanics so this isn't a very helpful suggestion.
I appreciate the desire to have subclass features synergize with each other, but I think this might synergize too well with Woe-Striker. Up to seven criticals in one turn with Brutal Critical seems a bit... much.
I think "Responsive, but with downside" and "short-term responsive, but no downside" look best to me, of those offered.
Revlid
blob of bugs
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New trio of options!
Star-Breaker (short-term responsive, no downside)
Starting at 14th level, your impatient destiny draws rivals into a spiral of mutual ruination. Whenever a creature reduces you to 0 hit points or inflicts a critical hit on you, any hit you score against that creature until the end of your next turn is a critical hit. In addition, you no longer age, and cannot be aged magically.
Star-Breaker (active, with downside)
At 14th level your destiny acquires a ruinous gravity, dragging even the brightest stars down with you. While raging, you may use a bonus action to issue a challenge to any creature you can see. Any hit you score on that creature, or it scores on you, is a critical hit. This lasts until your rage ends. You cannot use this feature more than once per rage. In addition, you no longer age, and cannot be aged magically.
Star-Breaker (active, with downside, requires mutual)
At 14th level your destiny acquires a ruinous gravity, dragging even the brightest stars down with you. While raging, you may use a bonus action to issue a challenge to any creature you can see. Any hit the creature scores on you is a critical hit. If the creature attacks you, any hit you score on it until the end of your next turn is a critical hit. This feature lasts until your rage ends. and cannot be used more than once per rage. In addition, you no longer age, and cannot be aged magically.
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How does the third version interact with Wound-Stealer?