D&D 5E Discussion

[Morblot]

Damage cantrips in 5E is the worst thing ever

Why?

 

[Lhynn]

Unlimited ranged at will elemental damage that scales with level?

Narratively speaking anyone that knows them has an amazing gun thats always loaded. Mechanically speaking its a ranged attack thats about as effective as your average melee attack

 

[J1M]

Unlimited ranged at will elemental damage that scales with level?

Narratively speaking anyone that knows them has an amazing gun thats always loaded. Mechanically speaking its a ranged attack thats about as effective as your average melee attack

I think it would be fine if it didn't scale with level.

 

[Akratus]

I'm in my first ever pnp campaign right now and it's 5th edition. Can't say I have any complaints but I've got nothing to compare it to of course. Also since we're in the Netherlands where everyone of our age speaks english we use english for in character speech and dutch for out of character stuff which is freaking ingenius in how convenient it is. I must say we have a very lenient DM. He ignores the rules on flanking for example and we've cleared a couple groups of enemies that I don't think a bunch of lvl 1 and 2's should have an easy time with. The last two we did almost have two casualties though.

I gotta say my main problem is that some of the other players are uncreative/cringy. There's me and someone playing a half-elf bard who have ALL of those great improv roleplay moments. The other three are two standard goody two-shoes, a monk and paladin. And the other is a bit of a cringy half-elf fighter with a dead bunny on his shoulder that he talks to with a generic name like bob or something. They don't really do much. At one point I was "interrogating" the thief lady we were chasing holding her up to a wall by her neck and I took two daggers from her. He actually sleight-of-hand'ed one back to her because he wanted her to be able to defend herself when we let her go even though I was still 'interrogating' her. Fuckin' what? Oh and our DM doesn't really describe all that much, and doesn't really use prose like I wish he would. No stench of mildew emenating from wet dungeon walls. .

Now, I gotta say I am still having a great time and none of this is enough to actually voice any concern, which would just be douchy I think. I did mention to my brother playing the goody two shoes dragonborn paladin that he should flesh his character and roleplaying out more and he agreed.

Oh and I'm playing a half-orc fighter with a maul named Gorbad. Figured I'd keep it simple for my first character. It's funny when all of the others who are mostly lawful/chaotic good follow me, a chaotic neutral airheaded half-orc around as I muck about, threaten people, start fights etc and interrupt everything when the talking goes nowhere.

The thing this campaign has taught me most so far is how much more potential there is to pnp rping and I plan to exploit that potential in the future. Hopefully with a more monocled group.

 

[deuxhero]

Blame 5E for the uncreativness (at least partly). The lead said people who look over rulebooks to find interesting combinations were "assholes" and you shouldn't make a game for them (This has also led to them publishing the bare minimum of content for 5E they legally had to to keep ownership of the Forgotten Realms). Everything in 5E has a handful of fixed paths with no options within them

 

[Akratus]

Well no matter the ruleset you can always roleplay an interesting character. That they're a dragonborn paladin and a tiefling monk, both lawfully good is all I know about them. That's all there is to them after almost 10 sessions. I think they have the wrong mindset. They don't push themselves creatively and just want a power fantasy hero character. I quickly realized the main thing that makes characters interesting is flaws and failures, which they don't really have. But then again at least they don't have cringy dead pet rabbits that they talk to. Although at one point we theorized it was the bunny that was controlling the half-elf, which was amusing.

Here's my fighter's backstory:

Spoiler

Gorbad finds his own way in life. He never met his human mother and he beat his own father to death when he was but a young lad. After that he had to leave the orcs he grew up with. He wandered the world, getting into all sorts of trouble. Being chased, naked, out of royal mansions for climbing in through a window to enjoy the company of the fair maiden inside, that kind of thing. He is happiest drunkenly smashing his maul around, earning gold and women. A taciturn man, he keeps to himself. The past is the past, it does not concern anyone. Except he will swear to Gruumsh that he once ripped a man's head off with his teeth for sneezing on him. True story. Also, his first love turned out to be a witch and put a curse on him. At least, that is what she claimed. He tells himself he never believed in it and he still does not know if she actually was a witch. But in the back of his mind he still expects her to kill him in his sleep one day.

Very minimal but if the others have as much going for them I haven't noticed it yet. They barely roleplay, really. Except for the Bard. He's great.

What would you guys say is the best currently supported pen and paper game? Pathfinder or something?

 

[hello friend]

Dragonborn, Draconian, Tarkhon

gay arse shit

Why does everyone want to be a dragon? Let mythical monsters be mythical monsters that didn't impregnate people left and right. "Look at me! I'm a sorceror from a draconic lineage, lollollol"

Curious how you don't see many beholderblooded options in the fluff eh? Man if I was gm-ing I would ban all that furry shit.

 

[Fairfax]

He ignores the rules on flanking for example

That's an optional rule.

What would you guys say is the best currently supported pen and paper game? Pathfinder or something?

D&D retroclones.

 

[catfood]

What would you guys say is the best currently supported pen and paper game? Pathfinder or something?

Hello. Do you have a minute to talk about our lord and savior: OSR?

 

[Sacibengala]

Dragonborn, Draconian, Tarkhon

gay arse shit

Why does everyone want to be a dragon? Let mythical monsters be mythical monsters that didn't impregnate people left and right. "Look at me! I'm a sorceror from a draconic lineage, lollollol"

Curious how you don't see many beholderblooded options in the fluff eh? Man if I was gm-ing I would ban all that furry shit.

I would like to see beholder lineage, born from dreams and stuff. Some succubus in the mix to spice things up a little. Wait, that would be an oniric mindfuck porn movie.

 

[hello friend]

You mean descended from a beholder that got fucked in the eyestalks lmao

Succubi kill their lovers

Let monsters be monsters

 

[Akratus]

Yeah at some point I realized, there's not a single human in our party. I'm the closest as a half-orc.

 

[Sacibengala]

Yeah at some point I realized, there's not a single human in our party. I'm the closest as a half-orc.

Disgusting

 

[Akratus]

Agreed. I've got a couple character ideas and one of them is a crusader type who hates filthy beast races. Definitely looking forward to playing that one.

 

[Sacibengala]

You mean descended from a beholder that got fucked in the eyestalks lmao

Succubi kill their lovers

Let monsters be monsters

We could "share" a dream and have little basebolders.

 

[Ninjerk]

Agreed. I've got a couple character ideas and one of them is a crusader type who hates filthy beast races. Definitely looking forward to playing that one.

Play a misogynist incel paladin.

 

[hello friend]

Listen, there's nothing wrong with being an orc.

 

[Sacibengala]

Listen, there's nothing wrong with being an orc.

The half human part that troubles me.

 

[deuxhero]

Dragonborn, Draconian, Tarkhon

gay arse shit

Why does everyone want to be a dragon? Let mythical monsters be mythical monsters that didn't impregnate people left and right. "Look at me! I'm a sorceror from a draconic lineage, lollollol"

Curious how you don't see many beholderblooded options in the fluff eh? Man if I was gm-ing I would ban all that furry shit.

3.5 actually had playable True Dragons with Steel Dragons. Their LA and RHD were low enough you make a pretty sweet gish with them provided your game started at level 6+ (or you killed/retired a character then) and it made sense fluff wise. Dreamscarred Press made the Savage Species monster classes work and published a True Dragon class that also worked, though age was linked to levels and fairly wonky because of it. It would be easy enough to create a fluff for a type of dragon that had weird aging (Dragons native to a plane with weird time flow that keep that aging rate outside their homeplane even across generations, some cursed group of dragons, ect.)

Beyond that, I'm surprised "Dragontouched" was never really expored. It seems a natural extension of half-dragon and planetouched existing.

 

[Morblot]

Dreamscarred is great. I wish they made their own game.

 

[Akratus]

I've just worked out a Druid character who personality/background wise is a swamp dwelling hillbilly/redneck. This guy is gonna be so awesome to roleplay as. Oh and the group I'm playing with now has decided on a party name: Natural Wanderers. (Natural One-Derers.) That's gold Jerry! GOLD! I think creative players and characters are tons more important than the setting and ruleset you're playing with, even though those are also important.

 

[Wayward Son]

I've just worked out a Druid character who personality/background wise is a swamp dwelling hillbilly/redneck. This guy is gonna be so awesome to roleplay as. Oh and the group I'm playing with now has decided on a party name: Natural Wanderers. (Natural One-Derers.) That's gold Jerry! GOLD! I think creative players and characters are tons more important than the setting and ruleset you're playing with, even though those are also very important.

I rarely have players this creative. As a consequence, I use generic Sword Coast for most campaigns.

 

[Akratus]

As a half-orc you throw an extra weapon dice on a crit. As a brute you throw an extra 1d4/1d6/1d10 depending on level. With great weapon fighting you can reroll 1/2s once. If you're using something like a maul you're throwing two d6's on any attack. And then there's the str and profiency bonus.

At level 3, depending on the str stat I could do this in damage on one attack: 1d6 + 1d6 + 1d6 + 1d4 + 5 = a maximum of 27 damage. And 37 if using a 1d10 instead of 1d4. And if I don't throw any 1/2s a minimum of 17.

As it so happens I am playing a half orc brute in my current campaign and am very much drunk on power. I also have relentless endurance and second wind for survivability. I didn't even check all of this stuff out beforehand I just thought half orcs are cool for a bloodthirsty fighter and found the brute later on when deciding on my martial archetype. Do you guys think this is overpowered?

 

[Morblot]

Do you guys think this is overpowered?

Are you and your party having fun? If so, who cares. The DM can always throw more monsters at you.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Looks to me like high single-target DPR with low out-of-combat utility, no AoE, no real versatility, and doesn't step on the toes of similar classes within their niche (Battlemaster has maneuvers and Barbarian is tankier, and I assume Paladin-types have better nova damage). So, solid, but probably not that OP?

I mean, my experiences with D&D since AD&D 2E tell me that Fighters should be able to do resourceless and consistent damage, and if the kit does that... then that's great?