Current Events > Any of ya'll playing Dungeons & Dragons 5e?

(+) Yeah! (+)

You bet! I've been playing the same campaign for a couple of years now and it's the most fun ever! My character is pretty powerful now.
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PMarth2002 posted...

I don't think fireball's that unbalanced. 20' radius area of effect and lots of damage means you really don't want to throw fireballs around in tight spaces.

Also, again, when the issue is a single spell, just nerf it yourself. The rules aren't written in stone, heck don't the books even encourage you to tweak stuff according to the DM's wishes?

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Plus, the new book that came out is basically a book that finally says do what you want. Its legal

ColZach posted...

Plus, the new book that came out is basically a book that finally says do what you want. Its legal

It also provides an entire suite of 'easy to run' summoning spells to encourage DMs to actually work with the players that want to use them. :P

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PMarth2002 posted...

I don't think fireball's that unbalanced. 20' radius area of effect and lots of damage means you really don't want to throw fireballs around in tight spaces.

you generally don't need massive AoE spells in tight spaces anyway. can't fit enough targets in there. the player who casts fireball to hit 3 monsters is wasting his slot. the issue is more that lightning bolt, a spell of same level, same damage, almost never hits more than 3 monsters.

scar the 1 posted...

Also, again, when the issue is a single spell, just nerf it yourself. The rules aren't written in stone, heck don't the books even encourage you to tweak stuff according to the DM's wishes?

boiling it down to a single spell is somewhat of an oversimplification on my part, but the broader issue I've got with the format is a spell scaling approach that is so arbitrary you'd need to buff a lot of other things to make them usable, and if you just nerfed fireball, all you'd see is people not want to play arcane casters very much

it makes for a lot of same-y experiences unless you break away from combat as most of your session, or take a really fine scalpel to all sorts of stuff.

i've tried things like making line spells shapable by the player, but you can't just give full free rein. going from 5'x100' to 10'x50' is a huge fix, but going further to 20'x25' just starts stepping on the toes of all the cone spells. and it's hard for a DM to just figure all that out.

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Sackgurl posted...

boiling it down to a single spell is somewhat of an oversimplification on my part, but the broader issue I've got with the format is a spell scaling approach that is so arbitrary you'd need to buff a lot of other things to make them usable, and if you just nerfed fireball, all you'd see is people not want to play arcane casters very much

it makes for a lot of same-y experiences unless you break away from combat as most of your session.

Alright that's fair. I do see your point that the combat is kind of bland. I think it's a strength and a weakness. Probably my favorite combat is Symbaroum, where the skills you get essentially have three levels, novice, advanced and master, which allow you to do different things. It's a really fun system and lends itself very easily to inventing your own skills to suit whatever playstyle you want.

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i think part of my burnout also related to the group i was playing with.

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Sackgurl posted...

the big thing that got under my skin was the absurd imbalance of fireball versus lightning bolt versus every other damage spell up until that point

as a spellcaster you're almost always better off using AoE debuffs and party buffs than straight up blasts

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I'm currently playing in a world of darkness game, but on the side i'm preparing for a homebrew d&d campaign that i'll be running in a few months when WoD is over

I've been playing pnp for 15 years, but I've only run 3 games in that time, so it's daunting still

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averagejoel posted...

as a spellcaster you're almost always better off using AoE debuffs and party buffs than straight up blasts

if the blast isn't fireball, yes true

but any sort of horde fight is benefited more from application of status: dead than status: restrained/incapacitated/frightened

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Sackgurl posted...

if the blast isn't fireball, yes true

but any sort of horde fight is benefited more from application of status: dead than status: restrained/incapacitated/frightened

8d6 is good damage at level 5, but think about it this way:

I'm gonna compare Fireball to Hypnotic Pattern and Sleet Storm, other AoE spells

say you have a level 5 party vs a group of, say, 8 trolls. I'm gonna assume for the moment that the trolls are close enough that all the trolls are within the area of effect of all the spells, and that none of the spells have the possibility of friendly fire.

at level 5, the person casting these spells probably has 16 or 18 in their casting stat, so that's a Spell Save DC of 14 or 15. I'll assume it's 14 for all the spells.

Fireball uses a Dex save. Trolls have +1 to their Dex save, so they have a 7/20 chance of making that save. that means ~3 of them make it and take half damage. but then all of the trolls, including the ones that failed that save, can still attack your party (trolls have 8d10+40 HP, which is well beyond the capabilities of a Fireball).

Hypnotic Pattern uses a Wisdom save. Trolls have -1 to their Wisdom save, so they have a 5/20 chance to make it. that means probably 2 of them make it. but the creatures that failed this saving throw are incapacitated and can't move. so by casting this spell, we've reduced the number of creatures attacking the party. the other party members can now focus on the trolls that can move, then pick off the incapacitated trolls one by one

Sleet Storm creates Difficult Terrain regardless of whether or not those trolls make their saving throw, so their movement is halved, meaning that fewer trolls can get to the party in the first place. but the ~3 trolls that fall prone (Dex save again) have their movement halved again, and while the trolls are Prone, the party can attack them with advantage. how effective this is really depends on your party, but this really helps out the damage dealers. Fighters want the extra crit chance; Rogues want that guaranteed Sneak Attack. so if you increase your party's damage by more than 8d6, you've effectively done more damage with this spell than with a Fireball

Fireball also scales very poorly. creatures in higher level encounters have higher HP, meaning that Fireball is proportionately less effective against them. but Hypnotic Pattern and Sleet Storm continue to have the same effect for higher level mob encounters

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yah damage spells are a trap in most cases. I have a lot more experience with 3.5 than the other editions, so it's possible things are very different in 5e, but transmuters were the most OP wizards and evokers were notoriously bad in comparison to other types of magic

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ImAMarvel posted...

How do you play? I want to get into it but not sure where to start tbh

Get a group

Get the players rulebook

Get paper pencils and copies of character sheets if you don't wanna make your own sheets

Read the rulebook and watch tutorial videos to understand rules

Teach players the basics and make characters

Create your first dm session with outlines and dice check number outlines/treasure/encounters/npc traits (or forgo roleplaying for dungeon delving to learn rules in first few sessions)/etc

Have fun. Stressful fun

@ImAMarvel

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PrideOfLion posted...

https://www.dndbeyond.com/essentials
This is a good way to get acquainted with the gist of the game.

Past that, reddit, gamefaqs, discord, etc. have plenty of people who are willing to play with people online

Yep! There's a very active community of DND players on Discord!

https://discord.gg/8NVa9uqugJ

That's the most inviting Discord I know of.

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I've been a player and was a DM, both games kinda trailed off and last year really caused them to stop. I've had the itch to play again lately though.

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averagejoel posted...

say you have a level 5 party vs a group of, say, 8 troll

horde = 20+

yes, obviously against small and medium sized groups of powerful monsters, disables are better

my point above was that direct damage against a huge group of kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc is preferable

these monsters continue to be relevant into high levels, just in ever greater numbers.

if your DM only ever runs battles with action economy mostly equivalent to the party, yeah AoE is not needed, but when you're way, way down on actions compared to the enemy

for your troll gang example also keep in mind that despite the best damage of its level and the best shaping of its level, fire damage also stops troll regeneration.

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also a level 5 party probably gets obliterated by 8 trolls

that's four times their daily recommended maximum

worth noting that AoE disables tend to be 'main' saves (wis/dex) while single target disables cover a wider gamut of stats, so against a smaller group of tougher enemies you use a more precise tool if you have learned their weakness. and bosses inevitably would be boring if they failed one save and were just done- so direct single target damage and party buffs are preferable.

against hordes of weak enemies, none of the above stuff is very useful, and my complaint with 5e is that there's basically no spells other than fireball that are really all that worthwhile for such challenges until much higher levels.

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SableWolfAngel posted...

You bet! I've been playing the same campaign for a couple of years now and it's the most fun ever! My character is pretty powerful now.

The same campaign for years! Legend. That seems to be a fairly rare occurrence. Are you in Forgotten Realms or a homebrew world? What level are you all, and what sort of level progression system does your DM use?

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Sackgurl posted...

yes, obviously against small and medium sized groups of powerful monsters, disables are better

my point above was that direct damage against a huge group of kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc is preferable

these monsters continue to be relevant into high levels, just in ever greater numbers.

if your DM only ever runs battles with action economy mostly equivalent to the party, yeah AoE is not needed, but when you're way, way down on actions compared to the enemy

I mean if you're talking enemies like that then it's probably just as effective to use Sleep

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_Kowalski_ posted...

The same campaign for years! Legend. That seems to be a fairly rare occurrence. Are you in Forgotten Realms or a homebrew world? What level are you all, and what sort of level progression system does your DM use?

Thanks! Just a homebrew world of the DM's design. I'm level 11. We use story progress as leveling rather than experience points.

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Do any of you know of any simple 3rd party adventures that would make for a fun night in roll20? Not really looking for an extended campaign.

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averagejoel posted...

I mean if you're talking enemies like that then it's probably just as effective to use Sleep

sleep has a HD max and stops being useful around level 3

the idea here is you've got single target direct damage and party member buffs for the dragon since it'll make all its saves anyway, single target removal with stat selection for the pair of clay golems or illithid since they've got one weakness and you want to slam that, AoE disables with general saves for the pack of trolls or ghouls.

but against a horde of kobolds, you're really only going to use one thing, and that's fireball. that's the design issue I have.

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Kobolds tend to have a high Dex save so fireball against them is going to be suboptimal. They tend to be stupid, twitchy bastards so dropping a Slow spell on their wisdom saves and letting the rogue and barbarian go to town is probably the better play in the long run.

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Cowthief posted...

Kobolds tend to have a high Dex save so fireball against them is going to be suboptimal. They tend to be stupid, twitchy bastards so dropping a Slow spell on their wisdom saves and letting the rogue and barbarian go to town is probably the better play in the long run.

what do you figure the odds are that kobolds who make their saving throw survive a fireball

would it surprise you if i told you the answer was .00005%

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what are kobolds HP in 5e? I'd expect them to likely die even if they did make their save.

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PMarth2002 posted...

what are kobolds HP in 5e? I'd expect them to likely die even if they did make their save.

5

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red dragonwrought kobolds have entered the chat

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Sackgurl posted...

5

So yeah, dead no matter what, unless the DM boosts their HP

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PMarth2002 posted...

So yeah, dead no matter what, unless the DM boosts their HP

Fireball is 8d6, so if you roll a 1 on all the dice and they make their saving throw, they survive with 1 HP

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averagejoel posted...

Fireball is 8d6, so if you roll a 1 on all the dice and they make their saving throw, they survive with 1 HP

whoops, yeah was just thinking 8 minimum. extremely unlikely though. I don't think i've ever rolled all 1s on a fireball in 20 years of playing D&D before.

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PMarth2002 posted...

whoops, yeah was just thinking 8 minimum. extremely unlikely though. I don't think i've ever rolled all 1s on a fireball in 20 years of playing D&D before.

if I understand the math correctly, the chance of it happening is 1/(8^6), or 1/262144

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averagejoel posted...

if I understand the math correctly, the chance of it happening is 1/(8^6), or 1/262144

(1/6)^8.

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PrideOfLion posted...

Exactly. It's why Fireball is not that amazing, an enemy at 1HP is just as dangerous as one at 50HP.

right, which is why you mostly use it on hordes of enemies with <20hp

the issue is there's not a lot of other spells worth using in such circumstances

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mattymad posted...

damage mitigation/boosting usually outweighs raw damage/healing spells

Still a good idea for someone to pack Healing Word though. That lets you get party members back up with 1hp from range.

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mrgoatthief posted...

anyone?

I know of a site where you can find tons of resources both first and third party but I'm not sure it's allowed to discuss here. And I can't make any recommendations other than the Essentials intro campaign which is a bunch of short adventures up to level 6.

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life clerics' non-combat healing is somewhat underrated though- disciple of life makes prayer of healing into a very strong spell for those times you can't take a short rest but do have a break from direct combat

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mattymad posted...

Yeah, for sure.

Just I've seen Life Clerics build to be healers, as in they actively use Healing Touch - then they get annoyed/disappointed how bad they are at being a "healer", like they don't even have enough spell slots to heal one person.

When if they'd used like 1 Shield of Faith or Bless, they'd probably have mitigated more damage.

I don't see much of people using debuffs or buffs for their allies and that's a little disappointing. Bless is great! That can be done as a ritual too, right?

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