D&D Next

[hentzau]

Are attack rolls modified by the strength modifier AND the proficiency bonus (assuming a proficient weapon)?

That seems...huge.

Correct. At first level, fighter with 16 strength is going to be at a +5 to hit. Don't apply the proficiency bonus to damage. And proficiency bonus only goes up every 4 levels. It seems to climb correctly, from what I have seen.

[GreenGoo]

Armor classes seem higher than when I used to play, so maybe that offsets the +25% bonus to hit at level 1.

[Blackhawk]

Are attack rolls modified by the strength modifier AND the proficiency bonus (assuming a proficient weapon)?

That seems...huge.

Yes. It isn't as huge as it seems, though, as most melee-heavy characters will max out their melee stat fairly quickly. Proficiency is what grows as you level, and what the game is balanced around.

Or more specifically, all attack rolls are modified by an ability score. By default that is strength.
If it has the 'Finesse' property, it can be either strength or dexterity (player's choice)
If it is ranged, it is dexterity.
If it is thrown, it uses the same modifier that you'd use to make a melee attack with (so most thrown is strength, but a thrown finesse weapon could also use dex)

If you have proficiency with the weapon, you add your proficiency bonus as well.

All weapons gain a damage bonus that is the same as the stat you use to attack with (but no proficiency bonus.)

Longsword: Prof + str to attack, damage + str
Bow: Prof + dex to attack, damage + dex
Finesse weapon: Prof + str OR dex to attack, damage + str OR dex

[Redfive]

Are attack rolls modified by the strength modifier AND the proficiency bonus (assuming a proficient weapon)?

That seems...huge.

Yes, that is exactly how it works.

Finesse or ranged weapons use Dexterity instead of strength as well.

EDIT: Somehow I missed the other answers before I posted...

[Redfive]

Armor classes seem higher than when I used to play, so maybe that offsets the +25% bonus to hit at level 1.

Armor class is flip flopped from when you used to play.

In the old days a lower number was better and all attacks used at THAC0 ('to hit armor class 0') so the roll was made and any modifications were added due to the target's armor class and then it was determined if a hit occurred.

It's much more intuitive now.

[Blackhawk]

Which was the single greatest change that 3rd brought about - standardizing rolls. It used to be that attack rolls, ability checks, saves, and special abilities each used a different set of rules. Even if they used the same dice, some would have you subtracting bonuses, others adding bonuses, some you rolled over, some you rolled under. It was a pain in the ass to teach to new players.

Now it is 'add the bonuses together, and roll equal or higher than the target number on a d20.' That's it.

[Redfive]

So for the first time in 25 years I've been playing (as DM) with a steady group for about six months now. I'm running a homebrew campaign over Fantasy Grounds with packaged modules periodically modified and dropped in as needed.

I can't say enough how fulfilling and rewarding it is to have players that are consistently enthusiastic about not only their characters but also the tropey(tm) world I created. I want to do a full write up and AAR of the story so far but I also understand that if you aren't involved personally it can and probably does look...tropey

Some high points:

-One of my players took my old graph paper world map and converted it in photoshop to a full color version and as we have adventured in different parts of the world he has created a more detailed regional map for each place. It's not professional quality but it is way better than I ever would have done and the art style is right up my alley.

-That same player also DMs a side campaign for us (where I get to be a PC) and I gave him a corner of the world to do whatever he wanted with and he took it and ran with maps and political factions.

-That same player runs a bard in our group and given a background story I clued him in on he created an actual bard epic poem that tells the story perfectly (and in many cases with rhyming lines) to anyone that had never heard of it.

-The group has defeated (not killed) two young dragons (One of them was in The Lost Mines) and they now have two potential long term enemies.

- One of my players has come face to face with the elf captain that gave the order to hang the player's younger brother. That story line is still developing.

I go to bed at night thinking about the campaign and I haven't done that about games in years so I'm taking that as a good sign!

I just dropped the party into the Underdark using the Out of the Abyss published adventure. It is massive and designed to take players from level 1 (!) to level 15. I haven't decided how far we will go as I have other plans for them before they reach 15th.

Fantasy Grounds has been awesome. I don't consider myself an expert but I have a great deal of familiarity with it and would be more than happy to answer any questions or even give a tutorial (via the OO Discord server) to anyone interested.

[Zenn7]

It's been a rough few months in real life since last we met to play D&D. But we finally met on Saturday. The DM is playing a character (newly introduced 1-2 sessions ago, when we swapped out several characters). That player is now DM-ing (he's our original DM, bit more standard/stable, not so off the wall).

We resume where we left off and Krogg the dim-witted half-orc barbarian (me) comes up with a great solution to a problem... that nearly ends in a scene somewhat reminiscent of Alien...

Spoiler:

Wave Echo cavern - we beat the flaming skull. The former DM player sweeps some shards from the skull into his pouch. We go to a safe room and rest. Skull reforms. We beat it again. Thinking quickly (???), Krogg grounds the bones shards to dust, mixes with water and drinks it down! Former DM player remembers from the module that holy water was a way to beat it so they gave Krogg a vial of holy water. DM said otherwise, Krogg was going to have a stomach and BOOM outta his stomach...

It was great!

[Blackhawk]

I just found an exploitable sorcerer ability.

I have the vicious mockery spell, which does 1d4 psychic damage on a failed save and requires only a verbal component.
I have the Subtle Spell metamagic ability, which allows me to cast spells without using their somatic or verbal components.

I researched it. They work together. For 1 sorcery point, I can do 1d4 psychic damage undetectably from 60' away. Repeatedly. At 5th level, it's 2d4. It continues to go up afterward.

I could walk down the street talking to a friend, or sit and drink a beer while across the street commoners' heads explode without any trace or explanation. Literally. Just 'pop, pop, pop!' Good thing that I'm not the type to exploit that.

[Smoove_B]

If you're going to have a campaign that includes psychic attacks, you need to include magic helms, rings or medallions that block and/or reflect them back at the caster/user. I'm of the mind that players should be allowed to do all kinds of things. Until they become abusive or problematic. Then, I'll create a solution. At least, that's how we did it in my day. adjusts onion on belt

[Blackhawk]

If you're going to have a campaign that includes psychic attacks

That's pretty much all campaigns. It isn't a psychic attack (like optional psionics rules bring in) as it is just a type of damage. 5e has a bunch of damage types like force, fire, slashing, and psychic, and all damage has a type. All sorts of things do psychic damage. A geas spell, for instance, does psychic damage if you resist the command.

[Smoove_B]

You kids today with all your new rules! In my day it was poison and death rays, dragon's breath, magic wands, turning to stone or paralysis and spells or magic staff!

[Blackhawk]

Why... why in my day, you didn't have warriors or warrior subclasses or archetypes. You had Fighting Men. And if you were an elf, why, that's all you were! None of this 'elven this, elven that!' We were just an elf, and by gum, we liked it!

[IceBear]

Isn't the whole point of that spell that you are weaving magic into an insult directed at the target which then causes psychic damage. If this was abused in my campaign I'd rule that you'd need to do more than just give a dirty look at someone to cause damage; no insult no damage. I know that's not what the rules say but reading various threads of players essentially being dicks and using it on NPCs indiscriminately that's what I would rule at my table (after first talking with the player and failing to get the problem player to tone it down).

[Blackhawk]

As would I. I specifically brought it up on my group's page just to address it before it ever became a thing. It's one of those 'rules as intended' vs 'rules as written' conflicts that comes from them tying the actual act (an insult) into the components (verbal.) Add in a way to get rid of the verbal and, as written, you also remove the theme from the spell. Every other comparable spell with (V, S) actually creates a damaging something that is visible, like a bolt of fire.

It doesn't come up often, as most sorcerers don't have access to it. I only have it because I'm playing a Devil's Tongue tiefling.

[Blackhawk]

Although I do plan to have some fun with a subtle spell version of Create Bonfire. That has potential.

[Zenn7]

By some incredible quirk of fate, we were able to meet again already to play some more.

Favorite part of today (other than entering a giant cavern that had 2 buildings in it, and many skeletons, where Krogg decided to start smashing skeletons cause they keep popping up to attack us in other rooms, until the party called him over to check out the buildings)...

We come upon a 20' deep chasm with 4 bugbears digging at the other end with shovels and picks, and another bugbear and elf supervising on the opposite side. Krogg gets highest initiative, rages, jumps down 20' (taking 4 pts of damage) and charges up to the bugbears. All 4 miss and the bugbear up top misses with the crossbow. Good thing I took 4 pts of falling damage or I wouldn't be raging any more.

DM has the bugbears focus on me all the way to their deaths. They did actually get me down, but Relentless Endurance got me back up to 1 point, where some more healing insured I stayed up until the end. Spectacularly bad rolling on the DM's part considering after the first round, I used reckless attack every round so all the bugbears, which had surround me after the first round and before the rest of the party caught up, so they had advantage on me.

Even better, the party starts AOE'ing me so they can hit more of the bugbears. (Only once or twice, but it was rather comical).

I am rather liking this guy! Hella tough dude! (Bear totem barbarian).

[Blackhawk]

I remember that chasm. It was part of the half of the complex my party completely ignored. That group had a knack for stumbling into the plot stuff while skipping all the side stuff (and it wasn't all the same person calling the shots, so it wasn't a player who knew the content, just luck.)

In fact they did the entire castle (being careful with spoilers here) by entering exactly one hallway and one room - the very room that their target was in. Rescue ensues, back into the hall and back out the door.

[Redfive]

Well, I killed two of my characters last night.

They ran into a medusa after being given ample warning and even the means to somewhat protect themselves. I won't go into any details since it is an encounter that is part of the Out of the Abyss campaign, but suffice it to say that I even fudged a little by giving them an extra ability check that was not spelled out in the rules.

I had not really given much thought to PC deaths other than if it happened, and it wasn't due to something random or stupid (from a rules perspective--they are on their own if they take stupid risks) I was just going to let it happen. I don't want the players to feel like they are on a theme park ride on rails and no matter what happens they are going to come out okay on the other side. If it were me I would want there to be some genuine risk.

All hope is not completely lost though. There is a way back, but I'm not going to make it easy or guaranteed.

Both are considering other characters just in case.

I think I'm as bummed out about it as they are and I'm pulling for them to make the last chance recovery happen.

[Holman]

Story is story, and sometimes character death is story.

[Zarathud]

Medusa should be pretty scary. Sometimes a character reset is helpful in the long run.

[Zenn7]

We met again Saturday and finished the original module finally!

Since we have 7 players (only 5 made it this time), DM beefs up the encounters a little. Few scares here and there (Krog the Half-Orc barbarian once again gets to use his Relentless Endurance to avoid death's door). Ranger got incredibly lucky on managed to move next to where he thought the invisible (for the 3rd... 4th... time?) main enemy was (after many rounds of dealing with his crap, ranger had put hunter's mark on him), and actually hit/killed him.

The ranger player wasn't there but the one of the other players played him as he was the former DM and didn't have a character in this game yet. The ranger player is going to be very unhappy at a few rules mistakes we realized about how the 2 weapon fighting ranger works, though we did realize a bonus for hunter's mark. We hadn't realized the 2nd attack he was making was a bonus action - so either 2 attacks or 1 attack and cast/shift hunter's mark. And we hadn't been doing spells with concentration right. So now every time he gets hit, see if he can maintain concentration on the spell... But we thought he had to move it immediately in the next round to a new enemy. Just says a subsequent round, so that's good.

Then we moved our characters on to the new DM's campaign. We apparently missed several treasures somehow and the finishing intro module DM decided to try and balance things out by making sure every one had 1 (and exactly 1) magic item of note (not counting healing potions and 1 immovable road the original DM thought it would be amusing to give us). I got a bonus and did not have to count my bear cloak of protection that I got the DM to let me have (+1 armor bonus, but it's not "armor" so I am still unarmored - can use my Con bonus for AC).

Traded in my great axe for a +1 glaive. 1d12 down to 1d10, but +1 to hit/damage and... REACH! Opportunity (attacks) knocks.

New DM makes up his own campaign so we start w/ a lot of background on that. There's an island kingdom in an archipelago of islands, they are on a really good one, a few other occupied ones and hundreds of unoccupied and not explored other than an outline map. The only slight problem they have is their dormant volcano that made it so fertile is not dormant any more...

So they have a contest, groups looking for a new suitable island. We got to see about 11 other groups, meet our partner who's from the island, pick out our map etc. Our partner is providing a boat - a Viking long boat basically. Sounds like fun so far. There was a lot more background and bit of roleplaying in there, no encounters yet.

Krog was worried about food to get to the island (2 weeks) and during the journey for the contest. After verifying that no dogs/ponies/horses etc would fit on the boat (fresh meat for when the current supply runs out) and that there are no rats on the boat, Krog comes up with the brilliant idea to get a few rats. Puts them in one of the storage boxes (underneath each sit) with a little food. Expecting to have a plentiful supply of fresh meat. But dang the bad luck, his rats disappeared (he's still looking for them after we get to the island).

And rats would have been so good. Dwarf priest is to a homebrew diety - one of the features of which is gathering recipes, she mostly got rat base recipes from everyone she's encountered. She knows at least 1/2 dozen ways to cook rats.

[Blackhawk]

FWIW, 1d10+1 and 1d12 do effectively the same damage (average of 6.5 damage per roll), plus you gain the hit bonus and the ability to bypass resistances. Oh, and reach, I believe.

[Isgrimnur]

Can I just take 1d2+5?

[Blackhawk]

Not in 5e!

[hentzau]

When you can, look closely at the Sentinel feat when you hit 6th or 8th level. Nasty when combined with a pole arm. Pole Arm Master is pretty nice too, you can get an alpha strike as a reaction against a creature when it enters your reach.

[Zenn7]

So reach is not really that exciting in 5th ed as I'm reading it more.

I can reach 10' which in some limited instances might let me make an attack I would not otherwise be able to make.

My reach is 10' for Attack of Opportunity. Not quite understanding how that works. If someone moves from 5' (next to me) to 10' away from me, they are still in my reach, so no AoO right? Only when they move from 10 to 15 (assuming they are not disengaging or some other method of evading AoO) would I get an AoO?

[hentzau]

Remember, you also get opportunity attacks if someone/thing leaves your area of attack. So you now have this 10’cube around you that if something moves through it, like trying to get to someone else, you get a reaction to whack them.

As far as the moving out of melee, I can’t see a real reason to only move out to 10’ range and stop. But I guess that technically if they only move out to the 10’ range they are still engaged so no opportunity attack.

Also, look at pole arm mastery. That allows you to take a reaction swing when they move into melee range.

[Blackhawk]

Having complete control of 25' cube can be huge. The other thing is that you can attack from behind someone, leaving the enemy taking two sets of attacks, and you unable to be hit.

[Zenn7]

Somebody is in front of me, trying to get to the party member 10' behind me. With a 5' reach, they have to go through me, get AoO or go around that 5' range.

10' reach, they walk right on past me, but stay in 10' reach, totally unscathed?

Not seeing a good zone of control for 25' in this scenario.

Feats - will look into it for 8th level (just reached 4th, Barbarian, not getting to 8th any time soon).

2nd row attacker - I did joke about the other fighter (Eldritch Mage) and Ranger being my meat shields now (instead of me being the meat shield).

[Zarathud]

I recall the rule is if you disengage from combat with YOUR reach, any enemy who HAS reach to you can attack. So the enemy 10 ft away engaging your neighbor in a shield wall retreats, you get an AOO as well as your neighbor. The extra range gives you chances to get AOO triggered--and you can maneuver within a battle without leaving reach (avoiding AOO even though you're moving.

[Zenn7]

We met again Saturday.

DM has a NPC wizard going with us (we have a Sorcerer but he was worried we might not have the arcane area covered well enough, he had planned to send a healer, but we have a cleric, a druid, a bard and a ranger who all have healing spells).

Krog worked to gather up rats and put them in a few separate under the seat bins on the boat to insure our food supply. The new wizard lady found a dead rat and reported to our boat captain, requesting he do something about it. The druid began some effort to encourage the rats to leave the boat (many did). Krog attempted to grapple the druid to stop him (missed it by 1). Krog was very unhappy.

We take off for the nearest island (the wizard lady was the daughter of the lord/leader of the town we were questing for, she brought 4 weeks of rations for each of us, plus Krog still have 46 rations from when we started).

We get there, set up a base camp. Some of the benches come off the boat to set up around the fire pit. As the captain is opening them up, swarm of rats coming running out, off the boat and scatter around the island. Turns out to be the only signs of animal life we see (as people are exploring the 2 streams, gathering wood/rocks for fire pit, they do see periodic signs of the rats we brought). We eventually find the foundation of a long gone (60-100 years ago) town. There we found a dead rat (one that came with us we believe), with several puncture holes, totally drained of internal fluids (Krog was most disappointed that one was no longer edible). Finally come across some odd looking large tracks that we deduce is probably large insects of some sort.

Head to a cave, it's weird cave. Crackle surface that we tend to sink through into a slightly stick muck. As we go further in, the muck gets deeper, harder to move through. Walls are covered in some sort of strong vines (it takes significant effort from Krog to pull some off and see just rock behind). Wizard lady is able to climb around easily on the vines as we take a few more steps in. She shrieks and kills a largish spider (like a foot or two in diameter). We are getting stuck in the muck, so we finally leave. Get attacked while camping by a horde of spiders (small enough to have 5/square). Some of us had eaten some odd but very tasty fruit we found earlier. Turned out to protect us from the spiders venom. We slaughtered the 60-80 spiders, no problem.

The wizard lady says these are too small. ??? Yes, those spider webs in the cave (those weren't vines on the wall, but very think spider webs!) would have come from something much larger than these!

We were about to go back to the cave after camping, but then Krog points out that one of our goals for finding a good island is to find a safe island. Idiot though Krog is, he's lived enough to realize it would be nearly impossible to kill every last one of these spiders. They will always eventually come back. So we'll be heading back for another map to another island when we resume playing.

I very much enjoyed the fact that the DM kept referencing my rats. Since we didn't explore the cave in depth, no real combat to truly test out the glaive. Had lots of fun overall though!

[Blackhawk]

Don't underestimate how much arcane the bard can handle.

[Zenn7]

I'm not. Though the Bard had one level Rogue and is mostly focusing on being a skill monkey and amusing himself (not to hurt the game, but in offset to my powergaming mentality, he's taking a very un-powergamed approach to his character).

Overall, not entirely sure why the DM felt the need to add a wizard. Worked well though in that his daughter came to watch today so he had her play this character (mostly just in the combats, making rolls for her - he did the roleplaying portions).

[Zenn7]

We met again today. We started a new island of exploration.

Turns out this island was full of weird undead. When the cleric tried to turn them, their eyes turned green and green light lit up on a hill several miles away.

We eventually find a castle on the island that is full of undead. The green light beacon from far away is meeting the castle and creating a green dome of energy around the castle. Not sure if the castle is sending the beam to the beacon or vice versa.

We end up getting in via an underground tunnel. In an unusual burst for us, we do 4-5 combats w/o a long rest (one short rest). Started getting a little tight towards the end as after the last fight, we had just a couple 1st level slots left (my barbarian is the only person in the party w/ 0 spellcasting - and even then I have the ritual beast sense/speak with animal spells from my animal spirit thing). We're 4th level (except the DM's wizard, which is 5th - she rolled amazingly well on one fireball - exact number of HP the ghouls she was hitting a bunch of just happened to have (open die roll) and created 3 out of 4 rolls with twin dagger attacks during the evening).

We did discuss that she's a good bit more powerful than us. But we will be level 5 after the next session, so should balance a little then.

We eventually get in the castle full of ghouls, some skeletons, a few ghasts and 4 wights. After we clear the rest of the castle, in the last room, we find a sphere the green light is shining into, this room is filled w/ the green energy emanating from the sphere. As we move to investigate, the elaborate door behind us wakes up and attacks (it was an earth elemental). Ultimately, after trying a few different ways to cover/block the sphere, our cleric ends up smashing the thing. The rest of us are fighting the earth elemental. The thing explodes, concussive force knocking us into the opposite wall and knocking us out for some unknown length of time (it was maybe 5PM game time when we had started the encounter; when we came to, it was dark). Earth elemental was gone and the remaining undead hordes have dropped and are slowly disintegrating. Green energy is gone.

Cool encounter moment of the night - AOE spell target Krog!
The other teenager (host's (original DM) daughter) was not there today either so I played her Sorcerer. She has the twin spell metamagic ability. Used that with Ice Knife (non-PHB 1st level arcane spell). Krog the raging Half Orc barbarian, in this particular fight has managed to get himself surrounded by 6 ghouls (think there were 12 plus maybe 12 skeletons too). Ice Knife 1 is on Krog (missed fortunately, and with Danger Sense providing advantage on dex saves, made the save for the aoe burst). Ice knife 2 on one standing next to Krog (saved on the aoe again). DM has his caster get in on the fun, throws a shatter - "You can just save against that too right?" "Um.. is that dex based?" "Oops...". Saved and only took 1/2 damage (5 out of 11, which got reduced to 2 because of raging bear spirit resistance).

I love that raging bear spirit! That whole fight I took 12 points of damage including the friendly fire.

All and all, fun night.

[GreenGoo]

PSA:

Not sure if this matters to anyone, but I'll drop it here. If anyone shops at D&D Beyond, Idle Champions has a sale code.

It is: IDLECHAMPS

They tell me it's worth 25% off.

Just putting it here in case it's of use to someone.

[Zenn7]

We met again for a shorter session. Went to an island where we found another group in the contest was already at. Their ship was burning and they had been nearly wiped out. We ambushed a group of natives that were rolling carts of boulders up a hill to drop on the few survivors of the other group that were pinned in a defensive location. Took them out (they all had hunters mark and over 30 HP, tough natives!). While we were doing that, the natives below that were shooting arrows at the survivors finally overwhelmed them. 20 people we ambushed with surprise. We didn't think we'd be able to take out the 60-75 or natives that captured them.

We did have 6 natives surrender when we were clearly about to finish them off. Ultimately, we found a necklace (of tongues or something, the wearer could understand and be understood by the natives). We fixed things w/ their whole tribe, got the survivors released and resolved the problem (one group had gotten here first and told them waves of invaders would be coming to steal their island; said group modified the maps so the coordinates on all the maps lead to here).

Since everyone else was casting spells, Krog wanted to join that fun so he started casting "cut in half!" when swinging his glaive. That was after the first roll was a crit. Next roll missed (Krog concluded that one had made his saving throw). Never actually cut anyone in half though.

This all got us up to 5th level. 2 attacks per round, +3 proficiency and fast move! YAY!

In looking into 5th level, discovered the 5th Ed Unearthed Arcana. Apparently WotC puts out PDF play test rules that get poll voted and can get added to future releases. These PDFs are called Unearthed Arcana. Has a couple new classes (Artificer and Mystic (aka Psion)) and an alternate Ranger that looks a bit tougher. A few spells and other stuff. Anyone else ever use this stuff?

[hentzau]

My daughter is currently running a Raven Queen patron warlock from UA. So far she’s pretty happy with it.

[Zenn7]

Our Ranger player was interested in it when I mentioned it. He's not real good at getting the rules right and we had his rules down wrong initially for his 2 weapon fighting second attack (bonus action) with hunters mark (bonus action). Also enforcing hordebreaker - 5' of original target.

So he'd love some powering up.

Though he still seems pretty powerful as a damage dealer to me, but I can see where that limited him a little.

I was mildly curious about the Mystic (in case Krogg finally runs into something that can kill him). Need to look at it closer and see what it can really do and how powerful it feels. The brief look last night suggested OK at lower levels, but a little concern about how it all pulls together and not sure about power curve as we level up.

[Blackhawk]

Apparently WotC puts out PDF play test rules that get poll voted and can get added to future releases. These PDFs are called Unearthed Arcana. Has a couple new classes (Artificer and Mystic (aka Psion)) and an alternate Ranger that looks a bit tougher. A few spells and other stuff. Anyone else ever use this stuff?

I've used the alternate ranger in a campaign I ran with no issues, but there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, a lot of the stuff in UA is exactly what it claims to be - playtest rules. They've released a lot of stuff in UA that ended up being completely unbalanced and was ditched. Many GMs (myself included) don't allow UA material by default. There's enough well-tested material published that I don't see the need to risk campaign balance with experimental stuff. I do make exceptions if a good case is made by the player, it looks solid, and the player understands that if it becomes an issue during play, I'll expect us to sit down together and alter it.

Second, a lot of the stuff in the older UA books has been revised and published in official sources (example: the swashbuckler and storm sorcerer were introduced in UA, then revised and published in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.)