D&D 5E Discussion

[tdphys]

Yes, online only via play by post. I've played as a Paladin and as a Wizard, though did not get to play much as the latter. I like the system, it's quite clean, though I wish they would have toned the power of feats down slightly but offer a feat choice every other level. Still, I find it better than 3e and it's descendants, including Pathfinder. The magic system has finally been 'fixed', the slot system this time around is much better than anything before. And the Paladin class got a pretty sweet boost.

They fucked up with the Warlock though.

I'm currently playing a warlock6/fighter3 pact blade ; what do you hate about the warlock?

 

[Lhynn]

Ive found warlocks of the chain pact too powerful at low levels, and not powerful enough at high levels. It definitely needs tweaking.

 

[tdphys]

I'm not sure... It kind of depends on how willing your DM and party pays attention to the short rest/long rest mechanics, since you've got to compete with the other casters. I think they could have made 3/4 spells per rest come a little faster in levels then it did. Did you think the chain pact too powerful at early levels from the status effects of the familiar?

Also, aside from blade pact, damage has gotta come from eldritch blast (add hex and char-mod from invocations is pretty powerful) , spells notwithstanding, which kind of makes warlock = arcane archer + cool invocations + a few high level spells / encounter.

I don't think the tome-pact really offers much though, but my group almost never uses rituals.

 

[Lhynn]

Well, you have unlimited minions (in that its almost free to resurrect it every time it falls) that can become invisible at will, fly and do more damage than a great sword with a single hit.
They can be teleported back to the ownder with whatever they have on them, making them the single best thieves/assasins around.

 

[Don Peste]

WotC has announced that it will be closing its community forums as of October 29th, 2015. This includes the messageboards for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering, amongst others, citing a focus on social media as the reason. EN World has set up an "Emergency WotC Evacuation Lifeboat" forum so that valuable content can be saved from the WotC boards. Additionally, EN World's Character Builds & Optimization forum is beginning to be populated with the many guides and other material created by WotC community members. Already, hundreds of WotC forum members have created accounts at EN World and have be gun the process of migrating their content, or simply moving over.

Additionally, a new D&D Adventurer's League forum has been created on EN World to replace the one that will be soon deleted from the official boards.

Of course, EN World already has busy D&D 5th Edition and D&D House Rules, Homebrews, & Conversions forums.

Here's WotC's full announcement:

Choosing to retire a former foundation of our community was not an easy decision, but we feel that we must adjust our communications structure to reflect where conversations about Wizards of the Coast games are taking place.

Social media has changed significantly over the last ten years, and discussions about games aren't exclusive to company-hosted forums. The majority of community conversation takes place on third-party websites (such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and many other fantastic community-run websites), and it is up to us to evolve alongside our players.

We encourage past and current users to retrieve any information you want to retain from the Community Forums for both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. The shutdown will occur on October 29, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. PT. We want to provide enough time for our forum members to move their content, and we recognize that given our forum's vibrant user base and extensive history, this may take time. Any information still on the forums on the cut-off date will be deleted.

Thank you to all of our past and current forum users. You helped build our community into what it is now, and we look forward to continuing to interact with you on our many active social platforms.

Read more about the announcement here. And please welcome the new EN World members we'll be seeing between now and October 29th!

 

[Caim]

So no more offiicial platform for the hardcore optimizers because it's all about the casual social media.

GG, WotC.

 

[Andhaira]

Wow...I guess they made the right decision. If this didn't include M:tG I would assume they were in serious trouble, but I guess they are right in that most people use ENWorld or RPG.net rather than their official forums, which are shit. Still, I don't get why they are including Facebook...I mean seriously? People use Fagbook to talk about their hobbies like normal people use messageboards?

tdphys Lhynn The Warlock in 3e was much superior. In 5e they attempted to give warlocks spells and spell slots, while at the same time making invocations much weaker. They are nearly useless. The Warlock should be all about the invocations, it should not have spell/spell slot access. That is what makes it unique; why would I play a Warlock now when the Wizard or Sorc can outperform it in every arena? I am not talking about pure damage though speaking of that while only a Warlock with a buffed CHA can pump out a stronger Eldritch Blast than any other magic user can do with a cantrip, the Wizard and Sorc more than make up for that with their spell power and access to higher level spells.

This can be fixed by offering a variant Warlock without slots, and more and better invocations. At least bring back Baleful Utterance.

 

[tdphys]

I can't speak for the 3e warlocks, but I played a bit of 4e warlock and now my current one... and I agree that the 5e warlock seems a little muted, especially at higher levels compared to some of the other spell casters. Invocations are key, and I'm enjoying my char, but I got a spell ring to handle those little spells I don't want to waste on by 2 level 3 zots per short rest. Otherwise, I felt handicapped. I also pretend my char has killed some little bug that he's hexed every morning, so that hex is always up, and doesn't cost yet again a spell slot. I think that one invocation should be that you don't need to concentrate to maintain hex anymore.

man, I tried to google Baleful Utterance and got some crazy forum talking about *hardness* of magical items vs *mundane* ones and so forth. My 3e experience is restricted to only playing icewind dale 2, but it seems to me that 3e was a little heavy on simulation/ruleset...

 

[Lhynn]

tdphys Lhynn The Warlock in 3e was much superior. In 5e they attempted to give warlocks spells and spell slots, while at the same time making invocations much weaker. They are nearly useless. The Warlock should be all about the invocations, it should not have spell/spell slot access. That is what makes it unique; why would I play a Warlock now when the Wizard or Sorc can outperform it in every arena? I am not talking about pure damage though speaking of that while only a Warlock with a buffed CHA can pump out a stronger Eldritch Blast than any other magic user can do with a cantrip, the Wizard and Sorc more than make up for that with their spell power and access to higher level spells.

This can be fixed by offering a variant Warlock without slots, and more and better invocations. At least bring back Baleful Utterance.

Well, running a low level campaign and the warlock is owning shit, but yeah, i can see how his powers wont keep up in the long run. Hes a chain warlock and eventually his familiar will fall into uselessness. But right now hes doing extremely well.

 

[Andhaira]

Free WOTC pdf of new backgrounds for Hillsfar for use with Rage of Demons ( part one of which is Out of the Abyss) storyline, or ofcourse you own games. It's pretty sweet, and 99% flavor:

http://dndadventurersleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hillsfar-Regional-Character-Options.pdf

Eldritch Blast tends to scale up in level, I mean it's a cantrip that does 4d10's of damage at higher levels. You can even add your CHA mod to it I think with an invocation.

But Warlock seems to be a dip class. People like making fighters with bladelock, because summoning weapons and shit is cool. And the fact that EB is based around levels, not spell slot levels. God dayum!

All attack roll cantrips are based around levels, including fireblast. EB allows you to add CHA to damage with an invocation which you can take at Warlock level 2. Also, in order to use the cantrip most effectively (aka make a spell attack) you need to have a decent bonus in the requisite stat (CHA for Warlock, INT for Wizard, etc). This is why Warlock is preferred for the dip, because the CHA can be used for both Spellattack mod as well as extra damage with invocation, not to mention patron features. It's also combined effectively with the Paladin class because that also uses CHA for spells, despite the retardation of having a multi-class Pally/ Warlock, something which I personally would never allow. And fuck using classes as guidelines/toolboxes, there are limits. Both Paladin and Warlock are flavor oriented classes, diametrically opposed in their flavors. Yes I know you could roleplay a vengenace type of Paladin who also serves a demonlord and dips in Warlock, but such a munchkin retard player should be thrown out the window from 10 floors up at least.

 

[tdphys]

Come on now, I was thinking a vengeful anti-devil Pally/warlock tiefling who had made a fey pact to combat his demonic heritage...

Munchkining is the well-spring of imagination...

Another combo is warlock/sorcerer and/or warlock/bard ... both charisma based spellcasters.

 

[Lhynn]

Bards already get access to spells from other casters. sorcerers arguably shouldnt care for it.

Also warlock doesnt do 4d10. it gets 4 attacks of 1d10 + CHA mod per round. which is fairly different because we are talking about a base +20 to damage.

 

[L'ennui]

So does one really need to buy the Player's Handbook to get a good grasp of 5e or are the basic rules (and the basic GM rules) enough for an exploratory session with three or four players? I've
introduced some friends to tabletop RPGs and figure their education would not be complete without a taste of the monolithic D&D, but I really don't feel like actually paying for such a system.

 

[Neanderthal]

They released a free taster of 5e some time ago didn't they? Don't know if it's still downloadable.

Have a quick Google.

 

[nikolokolus]

The basic rules are entirely playable and completely free.

 

[Alchemist]

Yeah the basic rules look quite usable for an introductory mini-campagin, and it covers all of the main D&D archetypes. I think the main things you miss out on are a wider race and class selection, multi-classing rules and feats.

 

[Caim]

There's a lot of expanded stuff online as well, with more races and options for classes.

 

[Andhaira]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2917-First-DnD-extra-life-preview-unlocked#.VgyGBJfQt96

 

[Andhaira]

Great, literally only one chapter of new content relevant to the games mechanics.

3 Chapters technically. Chapter 3 with races, Chapter 4 with class options, and Chapter 5 with Backgrounds.

 

[Ninjerk]

You're not that big of a deal.

 

[Ulminati]

Bards already get access to spells from other casters. sorcerers arguably shouldnt care for it.

Also warlock doesnt do 4d10. it gets 4 attacks of 1d10 + CHA mod per round. which is fairly different because we are talking about a base +20 to damage.

...and more chances to miss and do 0 damage

 

[Havoc]

Better to miss 2 times out of 4 than to miss 1 out of 1.

 

[Lhynn]

...and more chances to miss and do 0 damage

More chances to average damage actually.

 

[tdphys]

More chances to average damage actually.

More chances to apply modifier damage and hex bonus damages. But seriously, I hit level 6 with my warlock ( + 3 fighter) and there's almost no single shot *attack* spells for the warlock spell-list (great old one) that is a spell attack to synergize with getting advantage off of Entropic Ward. The ones that do, witch bolt and vampiric touch, both use concentration so I lose hex. So I've had to swap eldritch blast out to get the 2d8 out of chill-touch. What I wouldn't give for a chromatic orb.

 

[Andhaira]

Table of contents unlocked:

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/SCAG_ToC_2k33.pdf

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/dd-extra-life-update

edit: Greenflame Blade

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/SCAG_GreenflameBlade_ma9d.png

Good boost for bladelocks and Eldritch Knights, not to mention the Bladesingers for whom this cantrip was really intended.