>>47189501
> As bard
Botched a perform check to win over a crowd with a joke, cast Tasha's on a fat guy near me, got them to laugh anyway.

>>47189501
>>47188612
What sort of themes does your campaign have? Try and work those out and see if you can build on them e.g. if you keep running into undead maybe there's some sea of skeletons or some shit?

>as he climbed down things got darker and darker until he realised he was climbing up, not down, and found himself in a mirrored version of our world but permanently dark
>the immediately recognisable corpse of one of the gods. Is it really him? Who's answering his prayers then?
>the great pillar that the world is built on is a tiny twig of an otherwise mundane tree within some other reality. We are completely and utterly irrelevant

Hehehe

Looks like a boob

>>47189667
That made me shudder anon, nice imagery

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>>47189669
>>47189414

>>47189613

Depending on how your DM rules timestop, you could set up (1d4+1)*2 crossbow bolt attacks on one target in a round, with the crossbow expert feat.

I think RAW the bolts immediately effect the target during a time stop, but it makes more sense to me that as soon as they leave your presence, they're affected by the magic too.

Anyways, with the Za Warudo interpretation of time stop, casters can physically and personally attack more times per round than martials.

>>47189720
Ignoring that that's not how time stop works, RAW, it's also only once per day. So, there's a 25% chance that you can set up more crossbow bolts to hit in one round than a fighter, once per day.

>>47189766
Simulacrum, Haste, Swift Quiver, all on a college of valor bard.

Simulacrum concentrates on one spell, you concentrate on another.

You get to attack 5 times per turn for 10 rounds, guaranteed. That's more attacks in a minute than any variety of martial can put out, except maybe hordebreaker ranger. I can't quite remember how that one works.

>>47189751
>inside of combat
That's not what we're talking about here. Read >>47189500 again.

>outside of combat
A caster with the same physical stats as the martial, because just about everything a martial can do outside of goofy class ribbons like Battlemaster "identify if an enemy's stat is higher or lower" is basic rules shit that also applies to casters. They have access to the same bag of tricks. The 20 Strength Dwarven Fighter can lift exactly as much as the 20 Strength Elven Wizard, for instance. And even if you bring in the one class/background/feature combination that specifically improves lifting (Bearbarian), most casters have a host of magical options for beating that, from polymorphing into something physically strong enough to lift that weight (or polymorphing into something physically WEAKER than the Barbarian but nonetheless capable of outlifting him because the DM decides "well, it's silly that an iron golem or dragon wouldn't be able to lift this wagon if the tiny human Barbarian can, it's only REALISTIC that they be able to outperform this..."), summoning things that can do it, reshaping terrain, forced movement caused by summoned objects, teleportation effects, etc.

>>47189874
Fighter. Just attack 5 times per turn forever.

>>47189904
So, casters can do anything martials can do if you ignore combat and give them 20 in every stat. Yeah, that's a pretty fair assumption.

>>47189720
For every time you can Time Stop, the Fighter can take an Action Surge. Going off of suggested numbers of short rests per day it's more like three Action Surges.

Going by the suggested number of encounters per day and an average encounter length of three rounds (my personal experience) we're talking about 35 crossbow shots a day vs 87.

Also, that's not how Time Stop works.

>>47189960
The best way to phrase it is this:

Martials interact with the world through combat and skill checks.

Casters interact with the world through combat, skill checks, and spells.

2<3. This is the fundamental imbalance. Damage isn't relevant to the discussion. Martials need a new way to interact with the world that is as varied and useful as spellcasting, or casters need to lose a way of interacting with the world (necessarily skill checks).

>>47189960
>argument about the non-combat part of the game
>UH, ONLY IF YOU IGNORE COMBAT, DUH
That's literally the point.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3414-Is-STORM-KING-S-THUNDER-The-Next-D-D-Storyline#.VzJucFgrKUk

>won't be officially announced until June 1st
>Forgotten Realms again
>Shakespeare with Giants

Still holding out hope that the one after this is the Eberron one Perkins talked about last summer.

>>47189960
Honestly, like a caster has to have a specific build and spell layout to compete with a martial, usually at the expense of his best role, AND to even do it well he has to be top, high end levels which most games don't even reach.

>>47189904
Hey buddy, welcome back

>>47190030
That's not the same guy. Fix your samefag detector.

>>47190020
>in physical combat
I'm beginning to sense the reason that a lot of /5eg/ doesn't grasp the basics of this argument is that they're actually too dumb to have played a caster with the barest amount of savvy and cunning that lets them style all over the martials.

>>47190002
One could make the ways in which martial characters interact with combat and/or skill checks powerful enough that the imbalance doesn't matter? Although, I guess that's just functionally similar to removing one of the ways casters can interact with the world - if you were to increase martial damage tenfold then a caster's contribution to combat becomes so irrelevant that it's like they don't have one.

How well does Lord's Alliance and Chaotic Good mesh?

>>47190082
Right. I think combat is fairly well balanced, though I'd prefer if maneuvers were baseline for most martial classes, just like fighting styles.

Giving all the martials rogue like skill abilities (though more limited than rogue abilities) would go a long way towards resolving the issue.

>>47190074
Sounds like you can't play a classy martial, desu.
Maybe you should just play level 20 games only, by yourself, so you can keep the dream of never having a martial outshine a caster.

>>47190082
That's one idea.

Personally, I don't think the solution is increasing martial damage. They're already the kings of damage, even if most of this is predicated on hurrr level 20 Fighter burning Action Surge every round somehow vs. Wizard who isn't cheesing it.

Last time someone suggested letting martials get away with "physical checks" better than casters, or let them do "crazy and interesting shit", the thread blew up on how unfair it would be that a Cleric can't jump as far or lift as much even if he has the same Strength or Dex as the Rogue or Fighter. I think it was something about tables.
>if the Barbarian wants to pick up and throw a whole table into a group of enemies and have it explode into splinters, maybe let him
>IF MY CLERIC HAS THE SAME STRENGTH HE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT TOO
And that's just the in-combat side of things. It didn't even address the other pillars, though you can see exactly how the same argument applies. As long as the capabilities of martials is tied to their physical scores and not some innate quality of their class (like spellcasting is for casters), the casters, who have equal access to those physical scores, will be able to match them. It doesn't matter that it's unlikely that a Wizard would ever run around with stats like 20/16/18 (but much more probable that a Cleric or Paladin would), because they still CAN, and it doesn't exactly torpedo the effectiveness of individual spells to do that.

>>47190159
You want to explain how your classy martial is going to do something out of combat that my caster can't, kouhai? Give us three nice examples to start with.

What's a good way to do Transmutation Wizard?
It's Ravenloft, and the idea is he's basically just an old dude whose been stuck there for years, and just wants to get back home to see his children again, who likely have grandchildren at this point, he's been stuck for there for a while

>>47190193
Wait wait, but shouldn't a Wizard who sacrifices his stat in Int for max STR be able to keep up?
I mean, Fighters CAN cast spells this edition. If a fighter wants to give up 20 STR so his Hold Person has a high-ass DC, shouldn't he have that right?

>>47190213
Alrighty sempai
Show me the build for your caster, lets say level 10.

>>47190113
to be honest, the martials options homebrew fixes most of these problems and people who feel inclined should implement it. we only have these discussions because of trolls and memes.

but the threads would be pretty slow otherwise because WotC never release content.

>>47190247
How is this Fighter getting a second level spell? Being an Eldritch Knight? It's a little disingenuous to say that the solution to caster-martial disparity is for every martial to take the archetype that gives them straight-up spellcasting, or to multiclass into one. Well, shit, now they're just a caster (and this really doesn't help Barb, who doesn't have an archetype like Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster/Wot4E to fall back on).

>>47190266
>give me a theoretical caster that I can pick and choose around
If it's so fucking obvious that a classy, creative martial can't be trumped by casters out of a fight, you shouldn't need this enormous handicap. Apply yourself.

>>47190247
I agree, but right now a wizard who sacrifices INT still gains 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells, and can cast them. Many of them are useful without a high spellcasting modifier.

A fighter who gives up strength can't get access to 6th - 9th level slots without devoting a majority of their levels to a casting class.

>>47190266
Level 10 lore bard

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>>47190298
That your assumed disparity overlooks core achtypes, as well as assumes specific builds at high end levels. It also ignores that magic is a core aspect of the game for any class, ignores the narrative choices of the GM and the players, demands that a caster would gimp their primary focus to focus on another classes primary focus, and doesn't even work with all casters.
You, anon, are being disingenuous

>>47190366
What chosen spells, and stats? We'll assume point buy.

>>47190319
No need to be butthurt broski, just go play with your dick in the corner.

Not this shit again

There jas got to be something more interesting to talk about

>>47190002
>Too many people say skill checks like it's one thing. There are six ability scores eightteen different skills and a number of possible tools to come into play.

>Meanwhile Wizards don't learn all the spells, they learn 44 spells for free, and can memorize up to 25 of them. And a lot of them only do what skills can already do or only interact with combat. If they don't, you're going to suck when it comes down to combat. Any spells beyond that were given by the DM.

>>47190247
The parts of a spell that having a high casting stat improves, like damage or DC, isn't applicable to many spells. Those are usually the spells that most effectively alter the other pillars of the game (outside of illusions, whose "disbelieve" effects, when applicable, rests on spell saves).

If you're casting Wall of Force, for instance, your spellcasting modifier is irrelevant. A 12 Int Wizard casting this does not make a wall that is smaller, less durable, or shorter-lasting than a 20 Int Wizard.

Spells can have a large variety of non-mechanical effects, and again, DMs often give preferential treatment to the success of effects achieved this way than by mundane methods, "because it's magic". Even when a class resource isn't being expended, if you're just making some kind of Arcana check to interact with an existing magical effect in an improvised, roleplay kind of way, the possibilities of magic far outstrip those of the mundane. And that makes sense, it's (unrealistically) realistic, okay. But is the average DM going to let the Barbarian make that same Arcana check, with the same level of success if his roll winds up the same as a theoretical Wizard's? Almost certainly not. And if the Barbarian wants to do something completely mundane, like hit a wall so hard it breaks, even expending resources (a use or two of Rage) to do it? Well, no, we're probably not going to let the party tunnel through a castle because we can find a few rules for how much health an inch of stone has (it's not much), and it would muck up the flow of the game. But a spell that blows up the wall or bypasses it? Oh, sure, yeah, whatever. But if we DO let the Barbarian punch through the wall, we've also got to let any Cleric or Paladin or Wizard or Druid with the same Strength do it as well, because that's only fair.

The new season 4 Adventurers League modules (6, 7, and 8) are out on DMs Guild. If anyone's willing to buy them and donate them, throw them here or on the Discord. I'll clean them and throw them in the Mega.

>>47190426
Still not showing us how creative and classy your martial prowess is. Come on, you can't even pluck the lowest hanging fruit here, like a martial class ability that has some applicability to non-combat situations (hint: Barbarian's got a lot!) and isn't obviously replicated by some simple spells? You really need another Anon to build you a target to shoot?

>>47190458
Are we just repeating ourselves now?

Nearly every class has equal access to the skill system. They each get the same number of proficiencies, except for the ranger (lol) and the rogue/bard (which are the designated skill monkey classes anyways).

Cantrips are usually enough damage wise, so that you only need a few supplementary damage spells. Control is far more useful in combat, and utility outside of combat is generally amazing.

>>47190266
If I were to make a lvl 10 caster that has to take on some of the martial roles, I would make an arcane cleric hill dwarf.

>>47190547
>Are we just repeating ourselves now?
You started it.

>>47190581
Mine clarified what someone was saying.

You repeated an already trashed response that had no merit.

>>47190581
No, I started it.
And if you want to beat someone's argument down, maybe you should actually refute his point instead of talking about whatever the fuck you want that isn't applicable or was explicitly already pointed out.

>>47190464
I do see where you are coming from.

I disagree with you about how you assume DMs interpret skill checks. Proficiency is supposed to be the gap between a wizard and a barbarian with equal stats. What irks me is that the book specifically says magic is what sets adventurers apart from the rest. A barbarian who is proficient in Arcana (or even just rolls high enough) is more then capable enough to write out a spell, or figure out an alchemical contraption. All adventurers use magic is an assumed default of D&D. Just like a high STR assumes you can punch through a wall, a high INT (or CHA or WIS) assumes you can fiddle with magic. That the narrative choices of a DM or player ignore this, doesn't change that magic is an assume key component of the game and the character, by the creators.

TL;DR
It isn't Wizards fault most people can't read the fucking book

>>47190547
>Nearly every class has equal access to the skill system
NO THEY DON'T

Casters and martials (not even a good distinction anyway because every class is some way between the two with Wizards at one end and probably Barbarians at the other) may have the same number of proficiencies but they have completely different primary stats.

Casters almost always have their proficiencies in knowledge or social skills. Martials have proficiencies in physical skills that let them climb around and sneak past enemies and swim raging rivers and do things while actually out adventuring, while still having enough ASIs to minor in one of the mental stats effectively.

Besides which in all of this, I think you're substantially overestimating how good most spells actually are and how many you get at lower levels, i.e. where most groups will be playing.

>>47190703
>backgrounds
>taking physical stats as a caster
You can talk about "the average" martial vs. "the average" caster all you want, but nothing actually prevents the caster from playing in the martials' pool if they want to. Meanwhile, the only way into the caster pool is to become a partial caster yourself.

>>47190519
That an anon HAS to build a target for me to shoot illustrates my point. I keep seeing

>casters outshine martials

but when it comes to specifics, with real play levels (1-15) I've yet to see a caster who can outplay a martial at his own game, outplay a different martial at THEIR own game, and still function as an optimal caster.

>>47190690
>I disagree with you about how you assume DMs interpret skill checks.
Care to revisit this in a week or two?

>>47190726
Yeah, and a caster playing in the martial's pool will be doing it less effectively than a martial, while also being less effective as a caster.

>>47190568
To you kind sir, I shall direct you to
>>47190426
Cleric, so don't sweat the spells, but stats please

>>47190247
>Wait wait, but shouldn't a Wizard who sacrifices his stat in Int for max STR be able to keep up?

there are items that instantly give you all the strength of a fighter and more. and no, most wizards won't have a belt of giant's strength. it's just illustrative of the fact that a single item can replicate everything the fighter might be expected to do outside of dealing damage.

if casters were designed like martials, then everyone with enough INT would have access to spellcasting - by default - regardless of their class features, and wizards would just have features that make them better at it. and a fighter with 29 INT (thanks to some magic item or whatever) would in some ways be better at casting than a wizard. but no one would care obviously because a fighter isn't going to have 29 INT.

>>47190742
If I catch you, of course.

>>47190510
Should the google document the author of The Executioner released to help make it less shit be added to the mega?

>>47190778
The problem with this argument is that it can be turned around on Wizards as well. A reusable Wish ring (way OP to prove this point I know, but bear with me) could replicate any wizard spell, and the Fighter with high Int and Arcana prof could then go around pretending to be a wizard.
Items can replicate any class, and I feel that people should consider passing the wand of fireballs to fighters more often.

As for class features, fighters have some pretty solid ones going for them. Action Surge is a very popular dip for wizards, but Fighters also get the additional ASIs, rerolls of saves, extra attacks. Not even going into archtypes.
A wizard may be able to out-damage a fighter... but only by being a wizard. I've yet to see a wizard who can compete with melee attacks without turning into some fuckhuge monster that probably doesn't even fit where they are fighting.
Even that is only at higher levels, reg polymorph requires concentration.

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>>47190019
I kind of hope they tap into the idea that Giants are an inherent threat to humanity (and the other sapient races as well). I'd also love to see something to evoke the hatred between Dwarves and Giants.

>>47190767
I would probably go with 8 str, 14 dex, 16 con, 10 int and cha, and, of course, 20 wis.

>>47190928
There isn't an unlimited wish ring, but there is a ring of three wishes, which is about as many as the wizard will cast if he uses it to change the rules of reality.

There's also the Crystal Ball and the Helm of Teleportation, because Scry-and-Die is an integral part of the high level game.

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Updated mega trove when? New PDFs got released recently.

>>47191042
See >>47190510.

>>47190737
But Anon, it's trivial for me to make up a situation where a caster can match or outdo the martial. We can sit here all day creating situations where the caster obviously wins, because that's what we're going for. If you want to prove this isn't the case, you need to outline the actions that a martial (and only a martial) can take. If no one can show how a caster can match or beat that example, boom, we've got one example of an area that casters can't compete in. If you can get a bunch of examples like this, then maybe you've damaged the argument.

But if you just want examples of casters being obviously superior, I can deliver those. But I know how it's going to end already. Someone will come up with a way that a martial could solve the same problem, but then someone will show how a caster could also do the same thing or come up with another, BETTER way of solving it. You're just making me do all the work first while also setting yourself up to deal with my heavily biased situations.

Situation #1:
>when travelling down a dark corridor, a hidden goblin throws a switch which opens a trap door, plunging the party down a 100' drop into a pit
>the caster casts Levitate/Fly mid-drop and floats back out

Situation #2:
>a band of orcs has destroyed the dam (out of sight), sending a massive tidal wave down the valley the party is travelling through
>the caster Levitates himself above the deluge

Situation #3:
>the party has been surrounded by a tribe of lizardmen and forced to surrender. they are captured and put into locked iron cages
>the caster Dimension Doors away

Give me your martial work-around for each of these and present three martials-are-best situations in return. I will acknowledge all "there is an ever-present antimagic field / enemy with 10 casts of Dispel" conceits if you acknowledge the conceit that the caster has whatever spell prepared (or one of the many obvious alternates).

>>47190593
>You repeated an already trashed response that had no merit.

>>47191081
Not him, but if some guys are arguing about numbers, and Guy A says, "and five is definitely bigger than two, and don't even try to say it's not bigger than three, because four is bigger than three and five is bigger than four," and Guy B responds with, "you're wrong, because five is bigger than four," Guy B hasn't really added anything to this discussion.

>>47190510
>they watermark the pdfs on DMSGuild with your real name
Whoops.

>>47191156
Except in this case, guy A literally said 3 is greater than 2 as a simplification of X > 40 and Y < 65, therefore Y > X. Does that make the objection more clear?

>>47190997

OK
So, three out-of-combat situations where this caster can out-perform the example martial. I'll do Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue in order, listing their relevant archtype and stat/skill prof.

Barbarian,Bear Totem, level 10, Human, STR 20, prof in Athletics.

Having rescued a bunch of commoners from a yeti in the frozen north, the character must haul a simple wooden cart full of starved, half-frozen people across an icy wasteland, during a storm where huge balls of hail slap into them, disrupting concentration.

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So my first time DMing. Played with two people from a group I've been with for a few weeks. One is the our DM so he can help me out a bit if I make the enemies too weak
or strong or stuff like that.

Had an entire campaign set out. I tried to make it as railroad-less and interesting possible, I didn't hold their hand and let them figure out how to complete it with their own wits. Of course the very first thing my DM did was switch his CN character to CE midgame and murder the questgiver, burning down his home for lulz and rendering the quest completely undoable. One thing I didn't foresee was complete and utter destruction of the story line.

So now I'm pretty much playing it by the ear, using the meager world lore I established to cobble something together. As it is now, they're trying to take over a city that's essentially Australia, populated by rapists, pedos, and murderers that other countries just dumped on the shore rather than keep them in their own borders. It's run by a necromancer mafia that uses the undead as unskilled, tireless, foodless slave labor, mostly for farming and digging.

So, TL;DR it's a murder the BBEG and take his place as king of the hill episode. My question is, how do I make a necromancer king not cliche? I'd like some ideas about how to make a BBEG relateable.

>>47191062
As much of a mistake as it is to play on your terms

>#1
Trap doors opening usually give a dex save, which the rogue probably makes. The monk can make his save or just hit the wall and walk his way up, the fighter can reroll his dex save (which probably won't be low anyway with all his ASIs) and the barbarian, apart from having danger sense to gain advantage on jumping out the way, can rage and tank the fall with relative ease, before climbing out manually.

>#2
Punch your DM for throwing a 'rocks fall everyone dies' at you, or else curse for what can't be much less than failing the quest you're on, then curse your wizard for being a coward, then tie yourselves to some trees and start making athletics and constitution checks. Also hope that wizard doesn't get splashed too hard and lose concentration, or not float up fast enough at 20ft per round to avoid this 'massive' tidal wave, and also has something to push or pull against because otherwise in ten minutes he's floating straight back down into the water.

>#3
Bend the iron bars with your mighty barbarian rage, pick the locks, kill all the lizardmen in the first place because killing things is your jam. Also question why the wizard didn't use his dimension door spell slot to actually help while you were presumably fighting or falling into the ambush of the lizardmen, and possibly punch your DM if you've just been instantly imprisoned.


But that's ignoring the fact that all these situations aren't things that would ever happen in a game anyway. What DM throws a 100' deep pit at the party out of nowhere? Has them be in the path of a tsunami or captured by enemies without a fight without there being something the party can do about it? The only thing these situations have in common is that the ground falls away (literally in #1) from the martials in a way that negates only their powers. I therefore present you two scenarios of the same type for the caster...

>>47191253
Innante realized power (of will), rather than because of study.

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Thinking of using this in my games. Any thoughts about the power level?

>>47191062
Does dimension door have material components? If so, that puts a pretty big dent in plan number 3.

>>47191320
In fact, I was going to give you two but
>#4
You are assailed by four goblins every six seconds for the next 24 hours. Can you survive? How about 48?

Is functionally identical to what is the main thrust of my argument
>#5
A thief steals your spell book in the night, waking you from your rest. You're then attacked by a band of orcs with a balanced mix of melee and ranged weapons, and all the martials in the party have climbed a nearby smooth, oiled wall so they can watch and jeer and throw stones at you.

Obviously this scenario is bullshit, because all it is is taking away the source of a class' power while allowing a different one free reign to exercise its speciality, exactly as your examples did - and none of these would ever happen in an actual game.

(Incidentally, in #1 the wizard wouldn't have a chance to cast Levitate as it takes an action and falls are instantaneous, so in fact he'd probably be the only one that didn't survive - if he had Feather Fall prepared instead, and why would he because if he's in a dungeon he's probably not expecting to suddenly fall 100', then he would survive but in the process he might as well save everyone else anyway, because feather fall targets up to five creatures and is DESIGNED FOR JUST SUCH A SITUATION, and because you're a PARTY THAT'S SUPPOSED TO HELP EACH OTHER)

>>47191062
>I can't make a build that outshines every martial, so I'm going to bitch and whine while running away from the challenge

Should I be calling you kouhai instead?
Building a character is basic D&D desu

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>fighter in our party is insanely misogynistic
>went as far as to spit on a female knight for wearing armor and carrying a sword while being a female
>he found out recently the men in his family have served female commanders for centuries
>denied this but was shown proof

He had a heart attack and had to be revived by our cleric. Should we be worried of him going on a killing spree?

>>47191541
Things that didn't happen.

>>47191320
Don't forget that if the wizard has time to levitate out of the flooding valley, the Martials should have ample time to climb out as well.

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We're going to switching to a new DM in a month or two, and he wants to run Rise of Tiamat (we'll be about level 9/10 when the campaign starts, so should end up at 16ish, I think. I haven't read the adventure itself). Before I knew he wanted to run it I did have a quick gander over Tiamat's stats though, since they were bandied about online somewhere.

Is there a way that a party of 5 level 16ish adventurers could actually kill Tiamat? Or is it a macguffin fight?

>>47191552
At least it's not another caster/martial shitpost

>>47191569
Stop looking at the statblock desu.

>>47191541
>insanely misogynistic
spotted the tumblr
props to him for playing a character that would have appropriate opinions for the setting

>>47191600
Depends on the setting.

>>47191569
>should end up at 16ish

What? My party is on the last episode and our highest character is level 12. The rest of us are like level 8-9. How fucked are we?

>>47191260
My best options would be to either use geas on a giant/goliath/other mountain dwelling creature of great strength and have it pull it for me, or use shape stone to carve a path into the mountain leading down the mountain and then use enhance ability to pull it myself. Feign death and healing/revival spells to keep them alive if needed.

>>47191569
The module is specified for levels 8-15 so it should be in your range

Having not read the module myself, but with PotA as a reference, you probably won't actually fight Tiamat, and there's no way 5 level 16 characters could do it anyway.

Make him run PotA instead, it's way better.

>>47191617
Any fantasy setting could accommodate it easily. Were it not for the rulebooks making gender irrelevant as far as mechanics go, no one would play a woman fighter because they just can't be as strong as men.

>>47191320
>#1
So "make a save"? The casters can all make Dex saves. They have equal access to the Resilient feat. The Bard also has Dex as a save. Dexterity is also an important defensive stat for unarmored casters, so it's not like the Wizard or Sorcerer is going to be an absolute slug on their feet. Putting aside the chance-based solution, climbing out of the pit is equally possible for our caster.

>#2
Hey, a giant tidal wave doesn't necessarily kill the party. This actually happened to my group in our PotA campaign when we traveled upriver by boat; one of the water cultist assholes summoned a storm and started sending Tidal Waves at us.
Leomund's Tiny Hut or Rope Trick saves everyone quite easily.

>#3
Raging doesn't make the Barbarian any stronger, it just gives him advantage on his Strength checks. In a world with a d20's worth of variance, it's entirely possible he fails, or someone with 10 Strength nonetheless rolls a 20 and beats a DC20. Enhance Ability can also give them advantage. And if the DC is higher, it's always possible for our caster to have the same Strength as the Barbarian (and not very unlikely either if we're talking Paladin or Cleric). Picking locks is also open to literally everyone.
Also, I don't mean to say the DM just surrounds you and says "you are forced to surrender," but something like you getting ambushed by literally 20 fucking lizards where the action economy is so against you that it's highly unlikely you'd actually want to pick this fight.

>>47191509
I didn't even think about that, but no, it's a free spell.

>>47191666
I still think there should be some mechanical difference between genders.

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>>47191626
>different level characters in the same party

>>47191664
Not that dude, but my group will be switching to 5E soon, and I'll be DMing. It's been a while since I ran games, so I'll be using some complete adventures to start with. What are your thoughts on them?
I really liked what I saw of Curse of Strahd, but it might be bit too non-battle focused for my group, and start seems very lethal. We used to have campaigns where at least one character died each game, and nobody liked that.

>>47191681
Our characters die a lot except for the 12th level guy who is playing a wizard but that's because when we are close to dying he goes invisible and runs away. DM refuses to scale everyone to the adventure because muh Adventures league rulez

>>47191714
>DM refuses to scale everyone to the adventure because muh Adventures league rulez
Are you actually playing in AL or is this a home game?

>>47191667

So your caster just happened to have both really high strength to climb out of the pit, dex to avoid it, and con to survive the landing?

This word be why its important to establish your caster, becuase 'all 20s and whatever spell I can think of' isn't a very realistic representation.

You can't even settle on what class your caster is. A Paladin might bend those bars, but he isn't casting fly to get out of the pit.

>>47191680
That would make playing a woman hard as fuck, since there is no teaching or child-rearing class. That's just not me being edgy with the sexist shit. In the real world men are statistically better at most of the things you do in DnD. They'd be decent Clerics if they stick to healing and out-of-combat support. Same with Bards.

>>47191667
Rage gives resistance to bludgeoning.

>>47191714
>when we are close to dying he goes invisible and runs away
I'm sorry, that's hilarious. But if you're really dying all the time, I can't really blame the dude.

>>47191627
Next scenario
The character is part of a gladiatorial competition.
His ally is up to fight next, and is in the prefight waiting area, which has no way to see out. He wants your estimation of his opponent, who has been chosen at random a minute ago, the more accurate information the better. He fights in 2 minutes. His opponent is visible to you, he just walked into the arena.

Halfling Fighter, Battlemaster, level 10

>>47191737
Actually, men are better at everything. Women just gravitate towards different fields.

>>47191667
>our caster

You don't have 'a caster'. You never picked a single one.

Casters as a whole can potentially solve a lot of problems. 1 caster is much more limited.

can you jump on top a creature to do damage to it?

>>47191787
Only if you're a plumber.

>>47191787
Mario can instakill low CR creatures this way.
Anyone else, DM call.

>>47191753
we just really suck some times. Our frontline fighters do other shit in the midst of combat (our Paladin stopped to examine the stone work of a building when we were fighting 4 vampires) our range fighters act like rogues and run away too much and the wizard does whatever the fuck he wants because hes a wizard. When he sees us getting our shit pushed in he just leaves and waits until we are all dead to resurrect us.

>>47191725
We are playing AL

>>47191883
>We are playing AL
This his hands are tied. If you want to have freedom in your campaign, don't play AL.

>>47191681
Happens all the time in my group. I see no reason to award xp to characters that didn't participate (dead, MIA, not rolled yet, whatever)

>>47191522
>#4
If you're a dwarf or smaller, Disguise Self into a goblin and bluff your way out.
Cast Fly and zoom straight up, hoping none of them can hit you or break your concentration before you're out of their effective range. Alternatively, Gaseous Form (damage resistance, advantage on Constitution [concentration] saves) and float out of their non-disadvantage ranged attack range before popping out, hitting Fly, and jetting off.
Turn invisible and sneak away.
Dimension Door 500 feet away. It will take several rounds for the goblins to catch up to you (assuming they aren't teleporting onto you every round), during which you can effect one of the above escapes. At level 9, you can double Dimension Door and have enough time left over to Leomund's Tiny Hut (one minute cast) even if the goblins sprint, and can hide there for eight hours. Recast the spell as a ritual before its duration expires and wait out the entire 24 hours. You could also Wall of Force yourself into a dome (one action) and then Leomund's Hut, since its casting time is less than WoF's duration.

>#5
Losing the spellbook is only an impediment to a Wizard. All the other casters function just fine. The Wizard also does not need his spellbook to cast, only to change his memorized spells. If his spells are the same as the day before, he's good, while changing a list only requires a few minutes per individual spell (varied by its spell level), so a level 10 could knock everything out in just 36 minutes (though if he wanted a high circle-heavy lineup, just under an hour). Interrupting his rest is enough to prevent full recharge of spells, but he still has all unused spells from the day before and could escape, fight back, or wait out the band (or just Dimension Door to his party).

And you're right, the scenarios are bullshit, but that's why I told other Anon it's pointless to ask the "casters are better" side of the argument to come up with exactly how, because this is what happens.

>>47191709
Start them at 12th level. Hug it out, little teddy bear.

>>47191926
A more fair representation of #5 would involve totally disarmament, which would include spell books, materials, and foci, along with the obvious weapons. Doing so would dramatically reduce caster options, but realistically they still have superior damage output. They would be much much easier to kill though, which at least shows a difference in impact.

>>47191926
>You could also Wall of Force yourself into a dome (one action) and then Leomund's Hut, since its casting time is less than WoF's duration.
That one doesn't work because Wall of Force needs concentration and Leomond's Tiny Hut has a more than one action cast time.

How should I stat my Wizard, who is a father of three?

>>47191667
Yes, but putting points into those things and taking Resilient (Dexterity) is using up the casters' ASIs which they could be using for, you know, wizardy stuff. Sure, they can all roll out of the way like the martials, but they have a worse chance at it, no features that support it and the scenario is bullshit anyway for reasons I've already stated.

The tidal waves are all well and good if that's what your DM is doing but being quite familiar with PotA myself, I know that's not something that's actually mechanically defined as a spell or ability of a creature or even mentioned in the module so well done to your DM for some creative gameplay but unique situations like that can't really be used to meaningfully gauge the differences between classes.

Advantage gives a pretty big bonus, and the Barbarian gains it without having to have learned and prepared a spell, and then used a daily resource just to cast it. He has to rage, but if he's breaking out of a cage he's about to fight guards anyway. Yes, anyone can try to pick the lock but the rogue will have the highest Dex, he'll have proficiency in thieves tools and possibly even expertise in them (something even the bard can't poach) so he's going to be the one picking the lock. Furthermore, considering Paladins a caster class is obviously ludicrous, and even Clerics have a completely different niche with their spell list than Wizards and Sorcerers and Warlocks - and here we come to the crux of the issue, which is that 'caster' and 'martial' are poorly defined terms each covering a wide range of classes within which there is arguably more difference than between the groups themselves. All the classes rest on a spectrum, each contributes to the party and a balanced party will outperform a monoparty in most well-written adventures - but not by much, because 5e is a well-balanced system unless you're a ranger.

>dm actually rolls for how much time passed after we leave the feywild

f u c k i n g
m a d m a n

>>47191729
Please find anywhere in this thread or the past thread where someone on the "casters are better" side of the argument has said that a single caster of any particular build can outshine a martial in all situations. I'm pretty sure it hasn't happened, and I certainly haven't said that.

What we've been saying is that casters in general have such a huge repertoire of abilities that they can trivialize out-of-combat encounters (and some combat encounters) or effect solutions that the martials will SIMPLY NEVER HAVE A CHANCE TO by virtue of having access to a specific spell or magic in general. The amount of ways you can be creative with a spellcaster is enormous, and while still finite, it is much larger than the amount of ways you can be creative with a martial (and every way you can be creative with a martial CAN ALSO BE DONE BY THE CASTER). That's all this argument has ever been about. Everything else is a bunch of shitty strawmen by willful fucksticks or unfortunate idiots.

So this isn't about a specific caster beating a specific martial at a specific task, but a general, amorphous caster being able to beat the general, amorphous martial at a specific task. Obviously you don't mix spell lists within a single solution (unless there's a class that does that or you want to involve multiclassing), but solving a problem one way as a level 10 Transmutationist Wizard and another one as a level 6 Life Cleric is fine.

>>47192030
I was on the fence, but then you brought out the all caps. Color me sold, rhetorical genius.

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>>47192027
>tfw you've been in there 23 years

>>47191988
I believe Concentration only drops if you begin another spell that is also Concentration. The actual casting time doesn't matter, allowing you to, say, concentrate on Enhance Ability for an hour while also casting Clone (which takes a whole hour to cast) or a ritual.

>>47189501
Blue board, anon.

>>47192068
thankfully it only came out as 8 months but so much shit is fucked like goddamn
the kingdom is at war, a town we didn't save ended up spreading a plague of undeath to a major city which is practically wiped off the map now and there's like 20 other time sensitive things we have to deal with

he's a very methodical, everything-happens-for-a-reason dm, so we all expected him to have a pre thought-out time period already accounted into the story but he rolled it and had to advance his world and all the stuff we were dealing with 8 months in the few days between sessions

>>47192030
But that is why your argument is silly anon
Nobody plays the amorphous caster
Nobody plays the amorphous martial
They don't exist
Because it's a team game anon.

>>47192030
>So this isn't about a specific caster beating a specific martial at a specific task, but a general, amorphous caster being able to beat the general, amorphous martial at a specific task. Obviously you don't mix spell lists within a single solution (unless there's a class that does that or you want to involve multiclassing), but solving a problem one way as a level 10 Transmutationist Wizard and another one as a level 6 Life Cleric is fine.
But that entire idea is irrelevant on the whole, individual classes have stronger/weaker aspects, and aren't inherently divided along martial/caster lines.
Prepared casters are vulnerable to night time ambushes, prolonged campaigns, and unexpected combat on "downtime" days, sorcerer style casters are vulnerable to unusual circumstances, and lack the "i can overcome anything" aspect. Clerics aren't generally as blasty, nor can they help with travel. Druids spells are dangerous to use in large combat situations, especially those with civilians around, such as hostages.

Not using a specific caster means you can just pull anything from anywhere, which is equally viable for any other option. My rogue can steal horses, my fighter has access to an airship, my ranger befriended a Roc, and my monks order has teleportation rooms, martials can help us travel too!

>>47192079
Casting a spell that takes longer than an action requires your concentration.

>>47192026
Regardless of how blurry the line between caster and martial gets for Warlocks, Paladins, and Clerics (yeah, we're not even going to consider the Ranger as relevant) the fact remains that whatever spells they do have on their list opens possibilities that the martials simply can't touch. Anything a martial can do as far as getting advantage on a save or check or skill, having proficiency in whatever skill, and using X item, is also available to the caster. They can, if they wish, allocate to the same extreme in a physical stat or two, even if it is unlikely that your Wizard would want 20 Strength--he could do it, he has the capacity, he could cast spells to get it in a roundabout fashion and so all those possibilities are also open to him.

But now I'm just repeating myself with slight rewording. "The set of all out-of-combat things martials can do is contained within the set of all out-of-combat things casters can do" Anon is abrasive and his image is considered nothing more than bait, but the basic statement is true. There are some people who say that's completely OK and this is the price martials pay for combat effectiveness, but others say that's shit. The real faggots, though, are the guys saying it's absolutely not the case and then failing to put up exactly how without resorting back to "in combat".

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>>47191569
>15th level Divination Wizard
>Roll three <10 portent rolls
>Feeblemind. Tiamat has advantage on her save but swap both her rolls with your portents to ensure she fails
>Her Int and Cha are now 1
>Magic Jar (which you cast ages ago on a volunteer and your soul is in an amulet around his neck or whatever)
>Cha save. She still has advantage, but her Cha save is -4 and you have a portent if she passes one but not the other
>Tiamat is now trapped in an amulet, the volunteer gets his body back

And that's how you turn into a CR30 Dragon Diety in twelve seconds.

>>47191774
So I don't mind playing along with this little game your presenting, but your basically setting up a scenario only a BM fighter could succeed in here, and even then it's not because he is stronger or anything, but because he has a very specific class feature that works with this situation. Don't get me wrong, I love the feature, but the only other way to get stats from enemies is with nature / insight checks, and even then it's up to DM fiat. So with that said I'm going to propose insight check with guidance to size him up. That or the cleric feature / cleric spells that let me talk the my God/deity to ask them to tell me their strengths and weaknesses.

As for the fight itself, I'd buff him up with warding bond and some temporary hp in the prep area. Why fight fair when you have the gods on your side?

>>47192068
>>47192119
>realizing you never got to see your kids grow up because you were gone so long
>they never stopped believing you didn't abandon them
>they grew up and became adventurers, with the hope of finding out what happened to their father
>the only reason you managed to get out was because of them
>tfw you've been gone 20 years and you missed experience of watching them grow up
>you will never experience the joy of watching them learn, teaching them lessons about life, and watching as they become independent, happy, and successful human beings

Our DM did this once. Never had more feels from any RPG, and I don't think I had ever cried before or since while playing. Having a DM who was basically raised into theatre is great.

>>47192137
>Prepared casters are vulnerable to night time ambushes, prolonged campaigns, and unexpected combat on "downtime" days, sorcerer style casters are vulnerable to unusual circumstances, and lack the "i can overcome anything" aspect.
i'll take shit the average DM never ever ever bothers with for 400

last time our group got ambushed in the night, the sorcerer was the one at the least disadvantage because he had all his weapons and armor (his spells) right with him

>>47192200
>pick the background that makes you a reincarnated gold dragon
>Bahamat sees that you've basically defeated Tiamat for good

How does he respond to the now Lawful Good Tiamat, who is still a goddess, but now with the soul of one of his disciples?
lewdly?

>>47192253
>DM is one of those weirdos who pays careful attention to resting and travelling, frets about spell components, and puts the party on a time limit that hinders casters
>is also groggy enough to stipulate that the other characters can't sleep in their armor without penalty and have to maintain weapons, food, drink, etc.
>Rangers still somehow aren't useful
Even when you do wind up with a DM who can put the kibosh on caster shenanigans, they're just as liable to stifle everyone else.

>>47190019
>Eberron
GIEF PLOZ!!!! Eberron is the Shadowrun of fantasy arpegee-ening and I love me some Shadowrun.

>>47192253
And if your DM puts every major city under an anti-magic dome, your casters can't contribute either, keep on cherry picking.

>>47192200
Obviously first you get the rest of the party and your other spell slots to burn through her Legendary Resistances, because otherwise you're boned.

>>47192355
So why would the male wizard want to be a female dragon diety anyway?

>>47192371
True Polymorph yourself a real dick, who cares, you're a CR30 dragon and soon to be Epic Master Whizzard Deluxe who can call in favors from Big Baha Blast.

>>47192371
I-It's not lewd or anything, Anon-kun!

>>47192018
Put you best stat in strength, second best in constitution. Put your worst in charisma or intelligence. Take the Duelist fighting style. Use a shield. Play a Fighter.

Best weapon for a v. human paladin? I'm torn between the glaive (NEVER A HALBERD) and polearm master or great sword/great weapon master feat.

I want to run a game in Zendikar following the release of the setting PDF. I spent some time looking up lore and it seems like the having minotaurs as a PC race option would be an excellent fit.

Is the UA Minotaur race OP? If so, what can be done to balance it?

>>47192018
>Wizards
>completely immoral, power-mad narcissists
>having families
A Wizard who wants to extend his line just clones himself, Anon, and that's only if he hasn't figured out ACTUAL immortality yet.

>>47192475
Go full Hexen 2 and use a battleaxe until you find a cross-shaped staff that shoots explosive energy balls.

>>47192119
>whole kingdoms' fates depend on a bunch of murderhobos
Well, at least he's doing the 'stroking the players' egos' part well.

>>47192488
>Is the UA Minotaur race OP?
No, but idiot powergamers with very fluid ideas about words mean like to pretend it is.

>What can be done to fix it?
Decide before you start whether horns count as an unarmed strike or not.

>>47192564

I guess I'd rule it as a weapon attack so monks aren't rolling two 1d10+mod attacks from level one.

>>47192587
Good. Explicitly state that during character creation.

Also, you might consider replacing the boats/navigation proficiency.

>>47191600
>appropriate reaction
>dude's family served female commanders for generations
>generations of female commanders being a thing
>appropriate
Anon...

>>47192500
>clones himself
And then makes babies with his clones.

>>47192215
You are totally right, and it is unfair. I'm mostly doing this game to point out there ARE places, mostly inconvenient situations (no rest, capture, no time, ect) where martials are highly relevant, especially during play levels. This previous one wasn't very sporting though, and I do apologize.
If you still feel like playing along, here is the last one:

The character is in a dungeon, standing in front of the treasure room. The entrance is a iron grated portcullis, which only opens with the pull of a switch to your immediate left. 30ft into the room, there is a locked chest on a platform. Upon entering the room or interacting with anything in the room, you have 6 seconds before the portcullis slams shut, and time inside the room rewinds, returning you outside in an instant. How do you loot the chest?

Elf, Rogue, Level 10, Thief, Thief Tools prof, Sleight of Hand prof, Dex 20

>>47192740
Why level 10 thief? Any rogue with 30ft of movement could do it. Move into the room, action to unlock and loot, bonus action to dash.

>>47192740
Wizard 3.

Walk in, loot the crate, chill out. Misty Step out whenever you're ready, since a portcullis doesn't block line of sight

Stuff like the Caster/Martial debate is why in the homebrew hybrid of 3.5e/5e/Dark Souls I'm going to have a two-class system. One class has all your in-combat stuff, and whose casters will have offensive spells and the like. The other class is your out-of-combat stuff, including skills and advanced class-specific utility abilities, along with toned-down out-of-combat magic.

>>47192875
You missed

>time inside the room rewinds

Which means after you open the crate and sit around, you get shunted back out and it's like you never opened it at all.

>>47190965
Again, this is not how the game works. If you decide to homebrew these rules for invisibility, go right ahead, but know you are making it way more powerful than it's supposed to be. I'll repeat myself, all that invisibility does is it lets you try to stealth whenever you want, it gives disadvantage on attacks against you, and advantage on your attacks. That is all.

Just because you go invisible doesn't mean every creature suddenly has no idea where you are. That is what stealth is for.

>>47192995
Doesn't it also give you advantage on the stealth check?

>>47193031
That would also be a homebrewed rule, but one I'm fine with.

5eg, I want to ask you, what do you think is the common appropriate response of a commoner witnessing magic?

In Low, Medium, and High campaigns?

I've just been kind of running it as your generic medieval fantasy where they all react with wonder and awe and don't even consider the effect they might be viewing magical, but I just recently realized that most D&D worlds, like forgotten realms, is RIFE with magicians.

Is there a point, be it the size of the settlement or the number of magic-users in their midst, where the average layperson looks at dancing lights or minor illusion or tenser's floating disk and say "Psh, whatever, my grandmum on me dad's side could do better than that", and stop acting like it's the first time they've EVER seen something like that?

>>47193031
Not that anon, but I personally rule that it does. Nothing says "advantage to stealth" like being invisible. You're still audible and trackable, but it's much harder than normal to keep track of you since you're invisible, so you get advantage to stealth checks.

Seems pretty okay to me.

>>47191541
roleplaying flawed characters is fun anon. It seems like your player is doing a fine job, as so often the reaction when prejudices are confronted by opposing facts is extreme.

Fellow DMs, would you allow a swarm of rats or ravens as a ranger companion?

One of my players has mentioned it in passing and I'm inclined to allow it, but would like to know what you guys think

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>>47192234
>fathers in our village and left on an adventure when we were young
>they never came back
>23 years later, we leave, looking to find their expedition
>track them down to the feywild
>find them in the feywild
>release them from their captivity
>defend them on their escape with cold iron, song, and fire
>see them through the portal
>and then it closes, trapping us
>daysmonthsweeksyears later
>our children find us in the fey
>our children set us free
>our children defend us on the escape with cold iron, song, and fire
>our children usher us through the portal
>on the other side, as close to home as we've been in years, the portal closes before they can come through.

>>47193102
Yeah, it sounds like he could do some creative/fun/good shit with it, and that's always nice to let rangers have, since they're lacking creative/fun/good shit.

I'd even let him take levels in warlock and pick individual rats out of it to kill and regain hp.

>>47193102
The problem with that is that swarms can't regain hit points at all, explicitly.

So I mean, sure, but it's going to be worse than a normal companion unless you houserule that bit out.

>>47193257
You sick bastard, that's a forbidden meme!

>>47192995
All that invisibility does is make you invisible. Think for a moment what that entails.

Yes, exactly. It means others can't see you. And what does it mean when others can't see you? They won't know where you are. Unless thet have a supernatural way of tracking you, or can look at the environment and see your tracks, or can pinpoint you by hearing, or can sniff you out. All of that however takes some effort to figure out.

>>47193102
>>47193272
Give him the Pipes of the Sewers from the DMG (Pg. 185). That oughta do it.

>>47193102
Sounds like a neat idea. Also prime for roleplay stuff, since he can send them out separately to perform tasks.

>>47193308
"An invisible creature can’t be seen, so it can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, however, and it still has to stay quiet."
>try to hide
Meaning it still has to roll Stealth.

"When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or you’re targeting a creature you can hear but not see."
"If you are hidden—both unseen and unheard—when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses."
>targeting a creature you can hear but not see
>hidden—both unseen and unheard

Being invisible makes you unseen, not unheard. That is why anything attacking you has disadvantage, but they can still hear you and know your general location. Actually being hidden (as in taking the Hide action) makes you both unseen and unheard, in which case other creatures indeed have no idea where you are.

>>47193308
Think of it this way.

There's a guard standing on the other side of a wall, near an archway. The player doesn't need to go through the arch, but wants to walk past it.

The Guard is facing away from the arch, but can still listen.

If it was a Rogue sneaking past, he'd make a Stealth check with his talents to slip by silently.

If it was a Fighter in full plate sneaking past, he's going to make loud noises and alert him for certain.

If it' was a Wizard sneaking past, he's better off than the fighter, though he doesn't know how to move as silently as the Rogue. Thus, he makes a Stealth check as normal with around 50/50 odds to slip past, we'll say.

Now, imagine the guard is turned around facing through the archway instead. Obviously, nobody can sneak past the archway that way, as he's looking right at you. There's no cover in the way, thus there's no way to take the Hide action.

Then imagine the wizard casts Invisibility on someone. Now the situation is back to where it started. The Rogue is going to still slip past silently, the Fighter will still clank loudly and alert the guard that there's an invisible Fighter in front of him, and the Wizard still has 50/50 odds of being silent in his footsteps or not.

If they get detected, the guard will still have some extra trouble striking them, but there wouldn't be any sort of Advantage or Disadvantage for Stealth or Perception

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>tfw playing a goliath druid horse rider that primarily uses wild shape to turn into a bear

The entire battlefield trembles when I ride

Once.

Just once I'd like to step into one of these threads and be able to discuss a system I quite like without drowning in fatbeards clamoring to tell me I'm stupid for having fun.

>>47193565
Who is telling you you're stupid for having fun?

>>47193487
Thanks for explaining it in a much more sensible way. Something tells me they still won't accept it, because muh magic makes me automatically better at everything.

Seriously, people overpower spells and houserule them into doing way more than intended, then come here and whine about caster imbalance...

>>47192740
You are very right. I'm only doing this out of boredom. I love martial more than casters, but more recently I've been dabbling is some caster shenanigans.

With that said, I have nothing solid to solve this that I can think of atm. At best, I could geas some sorry souls to rig up a conga line of people. Each of which would run in and basically hand it down the line until it gets out of the room. In theory it would work with how initiative works but it's also a DM fiat thing.

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So I've got a rough idea for a character background but I have no idea how I should implement it. Basically it's a knight of some lighthearted order, all lofty and adventurous, Order of the Unicorn type shit, y'know? Except here's the thing, it's all bullshit. Now the character isn't a con artist by any means, he just sorta made a pact with [something, I don't really know yet] and now he has the look, the signet, proper papers, etc of an actual knight. Thing is, it came at a steep price (when don't these things, amirite?), and the character's having trouble keeping up the facade for too long in one place. tl;dr, I guess it'd be like Aladdin, minus all the confidence at pulling off being a Prince, and if Genie were a massive asshole.

What would the best way to go about this be, if at all?

>>47193487
IMO, not being able to use all your senses to look for something does impose disadvantage. You can see this in the rules for low light: if the check relies upon sight, then they have disadvantage.

The proper way to rule this then becomes a question of how much the guard is going to be using their other senses. An unalert guard, or an inexperienced one might use only sight, and thus have disadvantage, or even automatically fail if there's no other visual indicator (such as tracks). A monk who trained for years blindfolded to be able to sense people's heartbeats by hearing them would probably not have disadvantage.

Figure out the middle conditions on your own as a DM.

In some ways you can reflect this with the NPC's proficiency bonus, but I rarely stat out NPCs, so I'd just do guess work most of the time. Even if the guards were proficient in perception checks to find intruders, I'd let the player combine good roleplaying with invisibility to get around it: they might spike the guard's water supply earlier, to keep everyone happy, satisfied, and unaware. If they succeeded in doing that, then I'd let them automatically succeed on stealth checks against the drunken guards, if they were invisible.

>>47193710
Hmm...personally I'd go for the Knight background and take a level in Warlock. Fey or Fiend pacts could both fit, depending on how dark you want the deal to be.

From there, I'm not sure if it'd be better to take more levels in Warlock, eventually going for Blade pact and using spells and magic to keep up the facade, or go Fighter for some extra fighting prowess.

The main issue I see is a lack of heavy armor, which might not mesh well with the whole Knight theme.

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>be in two-man party
>barbarian stomps face in combat, moon druid wildeshapes into spiders n shit to do recon and stealth
>meets up with barbarian and tells him what's ahead so he can punch their faces
>druid occasionally turns into bears n shit to fight alongside barbarian
>barbarian is in bad shape from getting hit after hitting people
>druid homie has cure wounds for that shit
>druid gets sold to a half orc in a tavern
>barbarian beats the shit out of orc, saves druid
>both players have fun

Why can't martials and casters just get along? It's a fun game when you're not being a dick about how somebody else has fun.

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>>47193710
Feylock sounds good, maybe.
Those bastards love romantic stories, and I'm sure being the lord/lady/patron of a lovely knight would be up their allies.
In order to actually get armor and melee capabilities, maybe multiclass Paladin. Oath of the Crown for more Arthurian flavor, Ancients for fae/light goodness, or just go in 2 levels so you have the basic spellcasting and smites.

>>47193487
That is not the earlier premise. The discussion started from a wizard using fly and invisibility, to which the guy I'm arguing with (I assume) said that he needs to roll stealth which needs to be higher than passice perception of any potential observers. In the middle of combat.

This is not some sneaky stealth stuff, this is going invisible in the middle of combat and not being even in contact with the ground. I'm completely fine with having a stealth roll made if the wizard is trying to actually sneak with invis.

>>47193710
He's not trained as a knight. He doesn't fight as well as one should, or in a manner that a knight would. His stories about his time with his comrades all are unverifiable, and he avoids talking about the past of his order. He has trouble removing his armor, and walks in it oddly.

Gameplay-wise, go Fighter, maybe with some sort of background saying you have a boon = and link to some genie of sorts.

>>47193812
Except that's not how the rules work. You're not hidden if you don't take the Hide action, which is all being invisible allows you to do.

Also, I'm pretty sure both of those spells are concentration anyway, so unless another wizard casts one on you while you cast the other, you can't even combo them.

If you want to houserule how the spell works, that's fine, but complaining that Invisibility invalidates skills because you changed it to is silly.

>>47193458

First of all, you're misunderstanding the rules.

You cannot sneak if you're being observed. The spell makes you invisible, so you cannot be observed, so you can sneak.

You don't need to sneak if you're not concerned with sound. In combat, you would not be.

Having a disadvantage to attack something you can't see only applies if you manage to get into melee in the first place, and getting into melee with something you can't see is not an easy task. You can attempt a perception roll to get close enough to even attempt to hit, or you can take a guesstimate and rely on your luck, but you do need to get within the range or you'll miss outright.

If you want to shoot a ranged weapon, the same applies. You use perception or you take a chance.

Second, the scenario had the mage fly as well, so he would have no footsteps by default.

>>47193877
Read below you.
>Also, I'm pretty sure both of those spells are concentration anyway, so unless another wizard casts one on you while you cast the other, you can't even combo them.
Are you illiterate or jumping in the middle of the conversation? I already pointed that out.

>>47193946
>jumping in the middle of the conversation

Yes.

>>47193812
Even if you manage to have two casters concentrating so that the same character can be invisible and flying, that character still has to take the Hide action and roll stealth. That is how the game works.

Invisible means you are unseen.
Hidden means you are unseen and unheard.

As long as you can be heard, you can be directly targeted by attacks (with disadvantage) and any creature has a general idea of your location. I even quoted the relevant rules a few posts back. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

>>47193933
>>47193933
>You don't need to sneak if you're not concerned with sound

[citation needed]

>>47189667
Wasn't looking, but...

The world is inside a glass sphere, held up by six stone pillars, the six fingers of a stone "angel" by someone's definition, at least. He climbed through a breach in the sphere and climbed down the pillar.

He had cursed himself to undeath to survive his journey. Though his wings could carry him across the world in a day, though many men would bow down and worship him even in the face of true gods, even he feared, clinging close to the pillar.

On his journey down, he encountered the many strange and horrid sights, things that had been rejected and throw out during creation, the things that weren't meant to be. And, worse, he found the things trying to climb up. Those are the things found in the writings of His disciples, the things even He refuses to name.

But what he found most abhorrent was what He found when he reached the bottom of the pillar, after countless months under the world. It is there that he found the names of the creator, and the truth of the world. He saw where mortal souls finally found their rest.

Now the Gatekeeper has returned, declaring himself a god of the dead, and his first act was to shatter the Reaper and to bind the shards to the darkest and most lost of places.

He is no god, but the true gods do not challenge him, for he forged the heavens and the hells for them. He keeps the gate which mortal souls are bound to travel through, and he has locked it tight.

>>47192740
Well, first of all:
>dispel magic the room, stop this time rewinding nonsense. Remove curse if that doesn't work.

If that doesn't work:
Second
>planar binding an imp
>enhance its ability with strength
>it transforms into something small enough to get through the gate
>at the same time, pull the lever and let it grab the chest
>it flies out with the chest as long as the chest weighs less than 180 lbs.

>>47193933
I'll repeat myself. Again:
>Invisible means you are unseen.
>Hidden means you are unseen and unheard.

In combat, it is assumed, everyone has a general idea of where everyone WHO ISN'T HIDING is. Even if a creature is invisible, even if they're flying, if they aren't actively trying to be stealthy, everyone has a general idea of their location. That's how it works. Invisibility doesn't invalidate skills, as >>47193877 said. You are houseruling it to be way more powerful than it should.

>>47192832
No reason, just a red herring

>>47193632
Actually, there IS a way. I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I came up with it on a lark BUT:

Cleric moves into room, cast Meld into Stone to fade through the floor in front of the chest.
Wait, pop out of floor, grab chest, move out of room, open chest with brute force. I felt bad about the last one, so I didn't want to specify the materials of the floor.

>>47194086
Oops, I forgot the portcullis slams shut. Meld in stone again, then reach through the grate and hit the switch? But would the chest count under equipment carried? Hmm

>>47194086
Haste is way more simple. Move in, grab the chest, use the second half of your movement to run out. And you still have an extra action to try and unlock it with thieves' tools.

>>47193997
Common sense. If there's ongoing combat or other great source of sound, the difference of sound levels between "I am walking normally" and "I'm trying to be as quiet as I can" is negligible.

If you walk around normally at a gun range, nobody will notice. If you walk around normally in an empty and quiet stone hall, someone might.

Classic rules lawyer attitude, no common sense and inability to grasp the difference between circumstances.

>>47194147
Haste isn't on a level ten arcana clerics list. Though it would generally moot the problems posed by the room.

>>47194135
Well provided DM is cool with Meld into Stone trick and you have the Mage hand cantrip from being an Arcana cleric, you should be good.
Can't believe I overlooked the portcullis shutting when I came up with it.

>>47190778
Scrolls/potions/magic items?

>>47194177
Common sense also dictates that falling 200 feet will kill you no matter who you are, but the rules say otherwise.

It's a game. If you want to houserule it, that's fine, but it's still just a houserule.

>>47193974
Well stop it.
>>47193711
This is exactly what I'm trying to say. Skill checks are never automatic, they are always prompted by the DM. If you're invisible, and move around in an extremely noisy environment or around untrained individuals, no skill check may be necessary.

The same applies to combat. Trying to tell the location (down to 5ft by 5ft square) of an invisible individual by sound alone is extremely hard, and doubly so when there are other interfering sounds around. Like screams, metal on metal strikes and explosions.

>>47194284
People have fallen from airplanes and survived.

>>47194073
The imp plan would work very well, however the arcana cleric, while having Magic Circle and Planer Binding, does not have a way to conjure the imp in the first place, unless I am missing something.

For dispel I'm gonna say the the DC is 19, being that time stop is a 9th level spell. So that, with many repeated attempts, is a possibility.

>>47192200
Illegal, since Tiamat is not a Humanoid.

>>47194543
Does Feeblemind specifies humanoids? I think not. The real problem is both her high saves and legendary resistances. Your party will probably be dead before you can make her use all of them.

>>47192197
No, the real faggots are the ones who continue to prolong this completely fucking pointless fucking argument.
SO ANONS, how's your campaign going?

>>47194650
Magic Jar does.

>>47194667
My DM seems to be running on fumes, one player makes us wait a good half hour to start every session to finish up whatever game hes playing, and the other is a cool guy who contributes food and tries to RP, but is too new for me to and him to carry the sessions.

I even bought CoS for the DM and/or other players if they wanted to run it, but it sits on my shelf instead.

I feel bad about not just running it myself, but i've learned through trial that i am a poor DM, and don't want to turn off the new player or scare off the only other one we have in mr gamer.

>>47194667
I for one already moved on to arguing about invisibility and the necessity of hide action.

I'm running Phandelver for my little brother, two of my childhood friends and one woman.

Sadly, one friend had his firstborn a couple of days prior and the woman (the playing friend's girlfriend) got sick so they both missed the session. But still had fun between the three of us.

>>47194684
Oh, you're right.

>>47194667
Currently slogging a little bit as some of my players are being unreliable and the group generally doesn't want to play if there's more than 1 person missing. We have fun when we get together, though, I just wish we could move a bit faster to get to the more interesting stuff already. I don't want to be a harsh DM, but I may have to let some of them go if they keep missing sessions like that.

Also, one of my players is cheating - using roll20, he marks proficiency/expertise when he doesn't have it, thinking that I wouldn't notice. Seriously, is +2 to Deception worth losing your DM's trust?

>>47194684
Can you work around that with polymorph?

>>47194667
It's been sporadic with meetings. Another guy in the group took over GMing from me. He's doing a solid job, but I still often get asked when I'm gonna run something again. I always answer that I'm working on settings or looking over rules. And that's been my answer for months now.

I've lost the drive.

Is there any beast that can take disengage as a bonus action?

>>47194910
I don't know about disengaging as a bonus action, but some beasts such as Owl, Giant Owl and Flying Snake have Flyby, which also means no opportunity attacks.

>>47194488
The arcana cleric can eventually find an Imp with use of locate creature, or alternatively, the DM could provide one upon discussion with the players about their goals for their character. RAW there is no way I can think of for the cleric to bind an imp short of finding one in the wild or asking the party to summon one for him.

I've always though pen and paper was interesting but somehow never worked up the courage to roleplay anything. I'm considering an online system, either using 5e or PF, but both feel like a lot of book keeping.

Furthermore I am worried that if I don't know what I am doing at character creation I will end up making a useless character, or that I'll take skills that just don't apply for the adventures being used

Can the DM lie to you with contact other plane? I don't see anywhere in the spell that says the DM has to tell the truth or answer truthfully, like with divination.

>>47194966
Warlock is an excellent beginner class. You only need to take 1 invocation and raise charisma, and you'll be effective at damage the entire game. The rest is free for you to do whatever with.

>>47194990
"Effective".

>>47194990
don't most spell casters have either the 5 minute workday problem or the useless after 10 am problem?

>>47195013
That's what cantrips are for.

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What sounds like the most interesting campaign premise?

A bunch of newly hired ratcatchers finding a monstrous invading force in the city's sewers and it's up to them to save the town since no one else will believe them?

A group of adventurers hired by a black market apothecary that uses their services to hunt down and harvest parts from both monsters and humanoids (especially humans) alike for her clients?

A gang of slave shipwreck survivors washed up on the shore of a new continent dominated by Lizardmen, dinosaurs, Amazonian (both the Greek and South American kind) inspired cultures trying find their way back to a lonely outpost of privateers that may or may not end up with them back in chains?

>>47195261
Obviously the last one.

>>47194177
You aren't walking around normally, you're in combat. If you want to walk around like you aren't in combat, then you have to act like you aren't in combat.

>>47194385
>Trying to tell the location (down to 5ft by 5ft square) of an invisible individual by sound alone is extremely hard,
You only believe that because 3.x told you it's hard. Have you heard of surround sound? You can tell where a sound seems to be coming from, even before everyone gets their hyper awareness in combat that removes facing and lets you track each goblin to remember which one you hit last turn.

The rules say there's no difference between a one on one battle and a 5 on 15 battle, in terms of awareness of threats. It's just applying the same standard to hearing as gets applied to vision already.

>>47194488
Dispel Magic only ends spells. If the rewind effect isn't caused by a spell, it wouldn't (technically) be a valid target. It's pretty reasonable though.

>>47194809
True polymorph could give her the proper type. Polymorph only turns things into beasts.

>>47195459
So could you true polymorph, magic jar, and then I guess punch yourself until the polymorph form drops? I don't think forcing the polymorph form to drop by running it out of HP counts as it "dying" for magic jar.

>character backstory idea for chaotic neutral wood elf fighter
After reaching adulthood they got tired of home and spent nearly a decade traveling through both wilderness and civilized regions. Along the way practiced the wilderness survival techniques they were taught as child. Worked odd jobs in as city while paying for training in fencing before eventually going back to working in the wilderness.

Worked as a trapper and guide through the wilderness for a while, until one day hired to guide a party of adventurers to some remote location. Hunting for treasure sounded interesting enough, so they ask to join the group.

Is a strong believer in some weirdo wood elf religion, but doesn't really talk about unless asked. Also values personal freedom very highly, is slightly claustrophobic, and really hates feeling trapped, either physically or in terms of situation.

>>47195507
If you're the one that cast True Polymorph, you just need to stop concentrating on it.

Have there been any more options for sorcerers as of yet? Like fey, celestial, fiends, etc.?

How do a owlbear and a manticore both have a challenge rating of 3? The manticore is clearly much stronger

I've read all the mechanics for challenge rating but there is just some stuff like that that I don't get.

>>47195850
just storm sorc in scag afaik

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How are psionics coming along? They seemed interesting, but hadn't been fully leveled up to 20 yet. Anybody played with them? What are they like? Are they actually balanced?

>>47195858
Because they don't. Owlbears are CR 2.

How do I play a low INT high WIS character? Specifically a half orc barbarian true neutral mercenary.

>>47195979
someone with a lot of experience and who draws upon the teachings of others, but sticks to tried and true methods, is challenged by new things, and generally takes an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach to life

>>47195999
nice desu

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So can I make up for a warlock's limited spell slots by picking up those at will spell invocations?

>>47195999
Zang. That's actually fantastic. Thanks anon, you get a gold star.

>>47195858
>How do a owlbear and a manticore both have a challenge rating of 3?
They actually both come out to CR 2 if you use the DMG's CR calculations. The final CR of a good number of the Monster Manual creatures came from playtesting and not from the DMG calculations proper, and those that did come from the CR calculations don't necessarily include the final adjustments that the DMG has.

>>47196065
Make up for your limited spell slots by playing him like a dexterity-based fighter.

>>47195873
>>47196093
well they're both 3 in the monster manual

guess challenge rating is only a very broad categorization?

>>47195869
I have no idea, but order of the immortal seems like my dream class and I can't wait for mystic/psi to be a full thing

>>47195979
think of someone like Bronn from GoT.

world-wise and has lots of experience, but their actual level of intelligence is low

>>47196065
that + the pact bonus (chain blade etc) are supposed to make up for a lock's lack of shit.

unfortunately pure locks are going to do nothing but cast Eldritch Blast 90% of the time.

If you want to make a lock I'd multiclass into sorcerer or another charisma class, pact magic spell slots can be used for the other classes stuff and vice versa.

paladin with like 3-4 levels of lock would be solid too if you wanted melee

>>47189501
>Zendikar book

I don't know if this was discussed already, but $40 for a book with 38 pages, 50% of which is filled with art that was not made specifically for the book? I mean, full-color books are more expensive, but the actual material made for this book probably could have been done by the fananon of your choice. This pamphlet should be like $10 max.

>>47197200
Ah, realized my derp. nvm.

>>47194966
5e is pretty beginner friendly. Unless you're in a high-level group of optimisers, it's almost impossible to gimp yourself into uselessness. Don't sweat it, make something cool that you'll have fun playing.

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>>47195979
I always point to Karl Pilkington as the perfect example for low Intelligence but high Wisdom. Everything is viewed through the lens of "common sense".

What's a good justification for an Elf to be using a Greatsword? Would a typical Elven society think an Elf using raw strength was some sort of weird fuck? Why are Elves seen as huge pussies these days?

>>47197489
>justification
He/she wanted to.

>Would a typical Elven society think an Elf using raw strength was some sort of weird fuck?
Maybe, probably, yeah.

>Why are Elves seen as huge pussies these days?
Memes.

>>47197489

The elves in Witcher 3 use huge swords, heavy armor, and massive shields. Elves don't have to be pussies. Make your elf metal as fuck. Flip the bird as you do so.

>GM didn't read the manual
>comes up with inconsistent rules that clearly have zero thought behind and that change 5 tines over the course of a single combat
>excuses himself with "I'm the GM, I'm god"
>99% are due him refusing to read the PHB, MM or DMG
>we leave at the middle of the 2nd session
>he calls us whiny babies
Why people like this exist

>>47197489
depends on the setting, so go nuts.

>>47197635
They were abused I their childhood, and reading is hard

>>47195261
I mean, I use the latter in most cases where the party doesn't want to help come up with a premise.

>>47197635
>GM didn't read the manual
HERESY
>comes up with inconsistent rules that clearly have zero thought behind and that change 5 tines over the course of a single combat
Dumb noob
>excuses himself with "I'm the GM, I'm god"
Accurate, but kind of rude just to say so
>99% are due him refusing to read the PHB, MM or DMG
HERESY
>we leave at the middle of the 2nd session
I see you have Wisdom, Intelligence, and more Patience then I
>he calls us whiny babies
meh
>Why people like this exist
I suspect it is because their confidence is enough to get them laid once, like it was enough to get you into a single session.
They then repeat this multiple times to spread their genes through simple probability. Just my theory.

>>47197963
>Accurate, but kind of rude just to say so
Entirely inaccurate: You can't leave God's domain.

The DM is just a special player with the responsibility of moderating the rules, not making them up. Anybody who plays that card constantly is going to find themselves without a group.

>>47195869
What role are psionics supposed to fill? Sort of Sorcerers for every attribute?

>>47198137
Sorcerers that use INT basically

Currently thinking about writing an Adventure for DM's Guild, here's an outline of the story, do you guys think it works?

>Adventure happens in a lone island, isolated from the world
>After the 3rd Crown war, some innocent dark elves isolated themselves on the feywild to escape the Drow's curse
>Main villain is a Dark Elf magician, has spend years plotting his revenge and "sold" his daughter to the fae to keep her safe from age and harm
>maaaaany milennia later
>PCs are escorting an elven diplomat to Evermeet or just plain navigating near the Sword Coast with a Sun Elf NPC
>Villain conjures a storm, PCs end up in the island and must find their way out or helping the villain to accomplish his revenge on all other Elvenkind.

I'm no expert on Forgotten Realms but I wanted to use the setting.