Poll of the Day > DMed my second game of DnD yesterday.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ugh. Only a few more days left for me to plan out the next session. I need to sit down and just force myself through it before I'm sitting there the night before trying to make all the maps and import all the monster stat blocks into Roll20 in time.
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All right DnD crew, I was wondering if you could help me with something.

So higher level spells, there are a whole bunch of really cool stuff that can be used, and everyone just ignores it, unless there's a specific monster who gets counteracted by that spell. Like Stone to Flesh is a super weird, super powerful spell, that everyone blows over to Dimension Door, or whatever else.

What can I do, as a GM, to promote players to use these weird ass spells? Other than just wrecking any sort of spellcaster while doing that.

shadowsword87 posted...

Like Stone to Flesh is a super weird, super powerful spell.

What can I do, as a GM, to promote players to use these weird ass spells? Other than just wrecking any sort of spellcaster while doing that.

Constantly attack them with stone golems until one of them gets a very twisted idea.





To be fair, Stone to Flesh really isn't supposed to be an offensive sort of spell, it's meant to be the "antidote" to Flesh to Stone-type spells or Medusa/Basilisk-type effects.

Though if you ever want to see a bit of odd spell interaction, with spells being used in ways contrary to their original intent (including an odd use of Stone to Flesh), read Crewel Lye by Piers Anthony. You might glean some inspiration from it (or you might not).


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But honestly, yeah, that's always been a problem in D&D (and most systems where you can "choose" your level ups, honestly) - there are always going to be spells which are pretty much "must have", and spells which almost no one is ever going to take of their own free will, because they're sub-optimal as fuck at best, and utterly pointless or self-destructive at worst.

Generally speaking, you'll only see those spells get used if a given player a) likes them for flavor reasons, and are willing to "handicap" themselves for style, or b) the player figures out a devious spell combo (like, say, Polymorph/Disintegrate) and abuses them in ways most people don't think of.

The same holds true for Magic: the Gathering - if you play on the more competitive scene, you'll notice a lot of decks have similar themes, and people are always scrambling to make decks that are basically just copies of last year's winners. Though the developers have admitted that they actively create shitty cards sometimes solely to see if players can come up with creative or interesting ways to use them in combos.

I'd say you probably shouldn't be trying to think of ways to "force" players into using more uncommon spells if they don't want to. If you're really hung up on the idea of seeing players be more creative, provide a positive example - say, have a more powerful NPC use a particular spell combo or otherwise make them WANT to be able to do the same thing once they're that strong themselves. Or have a villain use those "weaker" spells against THEM. If you can make the spells seem more worthwhile, players are more likely to take them. But if they've only got two open spell slots and there are already at least two spells that are considered "must have", no one's going to want to "waste" that much potential on something they don't see as being all that worth having.


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Well, Stone to Flesh, I can't really think of anything where you would consistently need it. That's mainly what people are going for when they pick their spells, is something that they can and will likely use often.

Otherwise, I'd say the best way to get them to use other spells is probably to use them on the players in a way that makes them say, "That's a cool spell!" or have friendly NPCs support them with those spells.
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

Well, Stone to Flesh, I can't really think of anything where you would consistently need it.

If your DM is a dick and is constantly throwing gorgons and basilisks at you, you might need it fairly often.

But even way back in the day, when you were forced to choose a limited number of spells per level in Final Fantasy, the "Soft" spell usually got the axe for not being useful enough compared to other alternatives at its level, in spite of there being areas in the late-game where you could pretty much be Petrified to death by half a dozen enemies per turn (at least until you manage to equip the Ribbon). And D&D tends to be way more forgiving than that (and way more creative with the ways it can insta-kill you at higher levels).


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Oh, another option is if your player is playing a wizard or other prepared caster, in Pathfinder and probably 3.5 at least, you can leave some of your slots open. Then later in the day you can spend 15 minutes preparing a spell in that slot for a specific situation that you know is coming up where that spell is useful. So if that is an option in whatever version of DnD you're playing, you can remind your players of that.
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

Well, Stone to Flesh, I can't really think of anything where you would consistently need it.

Dungeon crawl, turn the wall into flesh and then chop your way through?

shadowsword87 posted...

Mario_VS_DK posted...

Well, Stone to Flesh, I can't really think of anything where you would consistently need it.

Dungeon crawl, turn the wall into flesh and then chop your way through?

Better off with Stone Shape. Affects more, and a lower level spell.
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I hate adjudicating stone shape. Players are terrible at ballparking 3-D volumes for some reason, and since I can easily do 5x2x2 I always have to be the bad guy and say they can't affect all that.
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Lightning Bolt posted...

I hate adjudicating stone shape. Players are terrible at ballparking 3-D volumes for some reason, and since I can easily do 5x2x2 I always have to be the bad guy and say they can't affect all that.

You can't just let them eat their cake? It's not like that spell is going to do a whole bunch of broken stuff anyway.

Or even just a hole to crawl through and move on?

Stone to flesh is basically just the counter to flesh to stone and other petrify effects, thats why people rarely use it. I mean you could turn a stone wall into flesh but most of the time why bother? You've got a ton of better uses for that high level of a spell slot.
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Limitations are good for the game. I loathe just giving players the win out of pity.

For example, once I ruled they couldn't drop entire stone gates on people, they thought it through and instead set up a few premade massive stone gates which they would release with a single Stone Shape spell.

It ended up more tactical and rewarding for them than if I had just given them the power to do what they wanted for free.

(5x2x2 was the correct limit, they were arguing for like a 10x15x2 volume affected)
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PMarth2002 posted...

Stone to flesh is basically just the counter to flesh to stone and other petrify effects, thats why people rarely use it. I mean you could turn a stone wall into flesh but most of the time why bother? You've got a ton of better uses for that high level of a spell slot.

That's my point?
How do you get players to use it and other high level super weird spells?

Hrm. Postponing the game again cause one of the players can't make it.
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Bump?
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

Bump?

Duke of the Bump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VviHIVQhW2Y
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Well, it's Friday and the game is on Sunday, so I suppose I should start getting ready for it.

I need to figure out exactly how this assassination on the NPC the players are supposed to be protecting is going to go down.
Then I need to figure out who the next person they're going to ask for help is and how it's going to go down.
Then probably figure out what is in the mountains in the north and what they want when the players go up there probably either this session or the next one. (I kind of want to have a quirky good dragon blocking their path.)
And figure out minor things for the players to be doing between those three things.
And make an orc character since one of my players is looking for a friend of some sort that will eventually lead to something bigger. (He wants to start his own clan. I'm not so sure about this since it would exclude the other players, but maybe have it eventually leading into a kingdom for the players to run is probably fine.)

Before all that I should go through my notes and brush up on everything that happened in our last game 3 weeks ago.

And it shouldn't happen this week, but it might next week, but I should get a dungeon ready for them that they'll find in the mountains.

It's gonna be a long couple of days, isn't it?
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

I need to figure out exactly how this assassination on the NPC the players are supposed to be protecting is going to go down.

Do it old school ninja style.

While they're guarding the NPC, three people show up blatantly looking like assassins. All-black, leather straps everywhere, covered in knives, veiled faces, the works. They basically show up, kind of spread out, and generally draw the PCs' attention and focus, and ideally, the PCs immediately rush them to attack (and if they do, the assassins dart away down a nearby hallway/alley/etc).

And then the little old lady who runs the nearby fruit stand/is a drudge servant in the castle/etc hobbles up and shanks the NPC because that's how actual assassins work. Look as inconspicuous as possible, cause a distraction, do your job and slip the fuck away before anyone notices, blend into the crowd.

Bonus points if the real assassin just slips the NPC poisoned food or shoots a poisoned blow-dart at them from a balcony because the best assassins are never seen, period.

Double bonus points if the actual assassin is a pixie that flies into the victim's window in the middle of the night and pours poison into his ear while he's sleeping, because then you're basically using the character I was going to play as a PC years ago, and I'll be happy.


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Welp, my gf is now super into the idea of playing a centar, but replace the horse bits with unicorn bits.
Great.

shadowsword87 posted...

Welp, my gf is now super into the idea of playing a centar, but replace the horse bits with unicorn bits.
Great.

What would the difference be?
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Lightning Bolt posted...

What would the difference be?

Mechanically? I can handle that if I need to by reskinning a half orc or a elf or whatever, that's not the problem. We will probably use 5e, so I can handle it easily enough.

The problem is any sort of semblance of part coesion, or a reason to actually be together, that's just out of the window for the biggest weirdo over (she even mentioned it would only happen once every hundred years or whatever).

I mean that the bottom of a horse and the bottom of a unicorn are the same thing. How would a centaur with unicorn legs be any different from a centaur with horse legs? >.>
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Oooh, take a centar and swap the horse bits with unicorn bits.
I'm not sure what the best way to describe it is.

Lightning Bolt posted...

I mean that the bottom of a horse and the bottom of a unicorn are the same thing. How would a centaur with unicorn legs be any different from a centaur with horse legs? >.>

It means the horsey would have pretty pastel legs, like the magical unicorn Twilight Sparkle.
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shadowsword87 posted...

Welp, my gf is now super into the idea of playing a centar, but replace the horse bits with unicorn bits.
Great.

That's not necessarily a terrible concept. Unless she's a full-on glitter and rainbows unicorn fetishist.

I'd probably work it mechanically as an actual unicorn that can shape-change (because they can usually do that in the mythology), then sort of go the White Wolf route (because I go the White Wolf route as often as possible) and have her work like a Garou - ie, she can shift between full on horse/unicorn form, normal human form, and an in-between were-unicorn form where she's basically a centaur.

Then you have it where her horn is a full, large horn in unicorn form, it retracts down to a smaller nubbin in her cross form, and it disappears entirely while in human form (because the whole point of that form is to be disguised).

Depending on my mood, I might even give her a few other "traditional" unicorn abilities, like magic resistance (which is a door that swings both ways, since it would limit healing and buff magic cast on her as well as harmful magic), with the strength of the effect based on the current size of her horn (so most resistant as a unicorn, none as a human, medium as a centaur). Limited healing magic or "purify water" type spells/abilities might work as well, as would some form of Detect Good/Evil (since unicorns only appear to the pure of heart, etc etc). I'd probably do a deep dive on the lore to see if there's anything I'm forgetting, and work it in, or add anything else that seems to make sense (like, say, ruling that her hooves count as magical footwear for purposes of resisting floor-based element or magic damage, or having her horn be a +X weapon that she can use for charge attacks and have it level up in strength as she levels).

(Basically, I'd probably build Uni-taur as a unique race/character class combo, wherein the player has to forgo picking a specific class to gain the demihuman advantages. So you can't multiclass Wizard to gain Magic Missile, but each level up makes you slightly more incrementally powerful as you slowly grow into your unicorn powers from unicorn adolescence. I'd probably work the build around Cleric/Druid as a base, then jump off from there and try to balance as well as I can.)

The flip-side of this is that unicorns should be relatively rare and hard to find even in a D&D-ish fantasy world, and it should pretty much be a given that there are going to be plenty of people of Evil alignment who would want to hunt them for sport, so the more blatant she is about assuming unicorn form (or even centaur form) where people can see, the more people are going to know the general area to look for her (or at least start putting together the clues to track her down over time), and the party will have to start dealing with stronger and stronger assassins, evil rangers, and the like coming to kill them.

Worse once you throw in wizards or evil nobles who really, REALLY want a unicorn horn (because they're usually portrayed as powerful talismans, or as superlative alchemy ingredients if you're willing to grind one into powder and use it in a mixture), it can become a real pain in the ass to BE a shape-changing unicorn, but also to travel WITH one - so the party may not be entirely happy with her. And if she's actually ROLE-playing and not ROLL-playing, there's also the potential for angst due to the fact that she's basically an outcast in two worlds - other unicorns shun her because she's too interested in/tainted by the human world, while she can never entirely relate to humans (and vice-versa) because she's essentially a monster (a pretty, "good" one, but a "monster" in D&D terms nonetheless).

Other weaknesses can factor in as well (again, look into the lore) to help balance the OP issues.


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Person106 posted...

It means the horsey would have pretty pastel legs, like the magical unicorn Twilight Sparkle.

That's just a My Little Pony thing, though.

99.44% of the time, when you're dealing with unicorns in fiction, they're going to be pure white. So she'd probably have to be a centaur with all white horse parts, and likely long flowing white hair (or at least really pale blonde) on her head.

Depending on the interpretation, she might also have weird eyes, because some people give unicorns eyes that look more like a goat than a horse, while others go full on prissy fancy Mary Sue fae and go with violet eyes or some other anime rainbow color that immediately marks it out as unnatural. It's actually very rare that someone draws a unicorn as having normal "horse" eyes, so presumably they wouldn't translate into normal human eyes either (which would mostly just make you a brown-eyed girl in human form for the closest horse-analogue).

Which again ties into the whole "people will hunt you" thing - it's hard to hide what you are when you're a woman with shock-white hair and neon-violet eyes even in human form. People are going to REMEMBER you, and they're going to instinctively know that something is off about you. And when that hunter fellow rides into town a week from now, they're going to tell him exactly which direction they saw you leave town in, or remember that they overheard you and your friends mention where you were planning to go...



Side-note, that reminds me of something else. I could make a case for unicorn PCs having either a Charisma bonus or penalty as part of their design. In lore, unicorns tend to have a sort of aura of majesty, which could potentially be used to awe humans into inaction or obedience (or worship). But the idea of a monster in human form that is absolutely unnaturally DIFFERENT is the sort of thing that creeps out your average normal citizen NPC in even the most magical of fantasy worlds, so that might make it harder for you to win them over in conversations.

Could even split the difference - maybe you gain a Charisma bonus to non-magical humans or other "normal" people when you're in unicorn form (but this is counterbalanced by the fact that you can't speak common and basically have to get your point across entirely via graceful gestures), but in your human form you suffer Charisma penalties because people instinctively know there's something wrong with you and dislike/distrust you for it.

Or could go even more complicated, and rule that you get penalties to persuade in human form because you creep people out but gain bonuses to intimidate because you creep people out. Unicorn form could be the reverse of that (because your calming majesty and awe makes it hard to dislike/fear you), or could just be a straight bonus to unicorn form mitigated by the inability to talk (and I'd rule that spells that allow you to talk or extremely complicated/non-graceful gestures or attempts to write/etc break the awe and you lose the bonus).


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Also also as a side note, while writing most of that, the flip-side came to my mind that if there's a magical unicorn girl PC, there's always the possibility of antagonistic unicorn NPC enemies that get all the same benefits and can screw the party over, so creating this class isn't necessarily the bestest thing ever for your PCs.

Whether as a straight-up mirror with a "good" unicorn that is either deluded, a bit of a well-intentioned extremist, or who sees the world in a completely different light (possibly a nature-based, dark druid, fuck all humans one), or as a "dark" version where you have an "evil" unicorn type (almost certainly black-hued, with optional flame-motifs) with mostly the same abilities only flipped (to continue the oldschool D&D Cleric riff, if your unicorn has the Heal spell and Cure Poison, then the evilcorn has Harm and Poison), it could make a nasty enemy for PCs to deal with.

As a side-note, I once had an "evil unicorn" character in a game I ran - it was a White Wolf game (of course), where the players were Dark Ages characters in a really complicated dual campaign (I was running two interrelated games in two different places with two different groups, and the actions of one group affected the world for the other group, and vice-versa). The one group (with two vampires and one mage) wound up accidentally falling into the Underworld, and for a while they were basically sailing around on a ghost ship through the Tempest.

Because the Tempest was so chaotic (and because I owned the sourcebook that references it), I was deliberately random-rolling encounters for them as they traveled between locations (something I almost never do in any game), and I wound up rolling a "Legendary", which is basically a sort of spirit being that takes on the form of some magical creature of myth and legend, and I used a different WW book (the one that lists/stats out a bunch of magical creatures of myth and legend) to random roll and came up with a unicorn.

But I figured that an actual "unicorn" unicorn would be thematically inappropriate for the bleak shadowy tainted underworld of the World of Darkness, so I basically painted it black and made it less "pure and good" and more "amoral as fuck". She could shapechange between human and unicorn form, and traveled with them for a while as a dark-haired gothy-looking woman who would occasionally help them when she could be bothered but who didn't seem overly concerned over whether or not they all got themselves killed (but she was more concerned than she seemed, because she was secretly scheming to help them find the gateway back to the material world so she could sneak through it with them and escape the underworld). Also, she was a bit snippy and acerbically sarcastic.

I used to refer to her as the "hellicorn", though she was less "hell"-ish in the classical sense (no flames, brimstone, or evil) as much as she was more reminiscent of how D&D handles the Shadowfell (because D&D's Shadowfell and WW's Underworld/Dark Umbra are pretty similar in a lot of ways) - dark, shadowy, broodingly ethereal, with a tendency towards decaying architecture and death-motifs, etc.

Though I could easily see someone make a literal hellicorn that is more like the Magic: the Gathering card "Nightmare", complete with flaming mane and hooves and flesh-eating tendencies as a full-on Evil creature. Sort of like contrasting the Paladin versus the Blackguard.


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OH, also also:

As much as I know how you LOATHE Alignment (and I assume you probably don't really use it in games you run), I might work it into a unicorn demihuman character class if I were making one.

ie, unicorns are inherently Good creatures (and potentially exclusively Chaotic Good, because they represent the purity of nature, as opposed to the imposed morality of civilization), so a PC who goes around murdering people or doing terrible things and basically acting "out of alignment" would, in a metaphysical sense in-game, be "losing touch with their unicorn nature". In essence, they would be allowing the "human world" to corrupt them, as they gave in to their baser nature and lost their moral balance.

The upshot of which could be that they might find it harder and harder to shift out of human form into unicorn form (and if they fully "Fell" Paladin style, they might be permanently trapped as a human forever, with potential prerequisite need to start over as a level 1 human Fighter or Rogue), or they might start taking "alignment penalties" to their unicorn powers (a la Light Side/Dark Side Force penalties in KotOR). The ability to cause awe might fade, they might start "weakening" (ie, losing spell slots), or whatever else works in tandem with how the build was designed. But basically, the less pure and unicorn-y you are, the less of a unicorn you are.

Physically, it could even be reflected in ways like having the horn and hooves start to "tarnish", or the coat and mane start to "fade", growing greyer or more grungy-looking (or almost mangy) to symbolize the loss of innocence/purity. Or maybe in pure unicorn form the unicorn actually smells like a fresh spring breeze or sweet morning dew, but as they lose their purity they just smell more and more like a real horse (and start drawing flies).

Ultimately, I'd treat it like a Paladin Falling, giving the player a chance to notice the degradation in advance and potentially correct it, but also give them a chance to atone or redeem themselves later if it happens so they can regain their true nature. But if the player either doesn't want to make the effort or simply doesn't care, they'd eventually get hit with the hammer of mundanity, and lose their legendary nature entirely.

Bonus points if a unicorn's "Fall" also involves a slow fading of memory, so after a time (whether it be rapidly, or over a longer period of time) they eventually forget they were ever a unicorn in the first place. To them, they were always human, never special, and a little more light goes out of the world forever.

Conversely, if it's a setting where "hellicorns" or other Neutral/Evil unicorn breeds exist, perhaps the lost of morality and the tainting of unicorn purity is what ultimately leads into a hard transformation into one of those types. Rather than powers growing weaker and appearance growing "impure", the unicorn actually starts to darker and their powers slowly begin to shift to reflect their more amoral or sinister nature.



Also also also!

While writing all of this, it occurred to me that I keep writing "human" as the unicorn's alternate form, but really, there's no reason why a unicorn couldn't choose a different race to manifest as (but maybe this should be set permanently at the time of their "First Change", and determined by whichever race it is they encountered that made them want to take on mortal form in the first place). So you could potentially have an elf-unicorn centaur, or a dwarficorn, or whatever.

Though if a girl player decided to make an elf-unicorn, I feel like the twee levels would shoot so far off the charts the entire universe would explode in a massive fireball of giggles and glitter. So that might be a bad idea unless the player is VERY mature.


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(I have now officially spent WAY too much time thinking about unicorns).


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

(I have now officially spent WAY too much time thinking about unicorns).

I'll say. It normally takes me at least 45 minutes to properly think out and make a character limit post, and you made four of them.

Playing a game right now with a few weird moments. As a weak little mage, I managed to beat down a giant on my own by whacking him with my staff. I mean, I hit him with Hold Monster first, but it still counts.

Since that happened, I decided to trip another giant as it ran past me towards our paladin. It did not work and made him quite angry with me.

Later on I cast Hold Monster on a dragon and our rogue successfully coup de graced him. After I thought, "Hm, are they immune to mind-affecting affects?" Checked, nope. But they are immune to paralysis. Time to retcon!
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Wow. We're taking a quick break from the game I'm DMing. They are currently fighting the assassin who is trying to kill the guy they are supposed to be protecting and he <strikeout>is</strikeout> was winning. As I was typing that out, we got back and the person who's turn it was and ended up knocking him out. He was level 3, against a party of level 3s.
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

I'll say. It normally takes me at least 45 minutes to properly think out and make a character limit post, and you made four of them.

I write stream of consciousness. It probably takes me about 10-15 minutes of typing to max out a post.

Normally, I basically start typing and then don't stop until I get to the end, then I have to go back and break up one massive post into however many it takes to get it all posted within GameFAQs character limits.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I write stream of consciousness. It probably takes me about 10-15 minutes of typing to max out a post.

Normally, I basically start typing and then don't stop until I get to the end, then I have to go back and break up one massive post into however many it takes to get it all posted within GameFAQs character limits.

Yeah, I normally spend a fair amount of time minimizing redundancy and making sure my thoughts are clear and concise while making sure I've said everything I want to say. (And I'm still pretty awful about that all...) So I suppose it would take longer for me than most people despite my very fast typing speed.
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*returns to this topic*

It looks like unitaur gets to be a term now. Then again, pegataur had already happened, so -- *shrugs*

Rare gaming find of the day (though I did not buy it): Was picking up Munchkin Fu for the family, and the game shop had received a trade of a very old copy of Ironclaw (i.e. the tabletop RPG for furries). Same edition as the one my university game club tested out back in the day. Felt a little nostalgic. ... Then again, I guess it is hard not to be nostalgic about playing a horny kleptomaniac goat.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Person106 posted...

It means the horsey would have pretty pastel legs, like the magical unicorn Twilight Sparkle.

That's just a My Little Pony thing, though.

99.44% of the time, when you're dealing with unicorns in fiction, they're going to be pure white.

Fine, so she'll look like this:


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I_Abibde posted...

the game shop had received a trade of a very old copy of Ironclaw (i.e. the tabletop RPG for furries)

Reminded me of a time long ago and far away, when this was a thing and I almost kinda-sorta played it, except none of the people involved could maintain their interest past the character creation phase:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%26_Other_Strangeness

Which in retrospect is kind of a shame. Because that happened during a period when one of my friends was actively trying to get into GMing games (because up to that point, I was the one running 99% of the games anyone was playing in our immediate area), but he kept picking game systems that everyone thought were terrible (either because the system itself was bad, or because the setting was meh, or whatever), so none of his games ever really got off the ground and he eventually stopped trying.

Had he succeeded, he might have established himself as a good GM and run games that I could actually have PLAYED in (rather than almost always being the GM myself), and I might be more comfortable as "just a player" today. Instead, because so much of my RP has always been me as the one running things, I always feel a bit out of my comfort zone when I step down and let someone else take the reins.

Then again, that friend sort of became an asshole to everyone about six years later anyway, so it might not have mattered much in the long run.


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We generally use these sorts of topics as general D&D/RPG topics above and beyond their actual initial purpose, so here's a question for everyone just because I was bored and sort of thinking about the idea.


Let's say you were going to play in a 5e D&D game, and the DM told you that the premise for their game was that every player would play a dual class character. You'd start the game at level 2, taking the first level of two separate classes, and with each successive level up, you'd have to choose one of those two classes to level (but you also have to keep them balanced, so every time you level one, you have to level the other next level up - basically, you'd pick one of your classes every odd level, and the other would get leveled up every even level).

The DM suggests that they'd LIKE you to choose two classes for story reasons and combine them to make an interesting roleplaying character concept (like, say, making a Fighter/Mage who is a combat battlemage or a Cleric/Paladin who is a militant church-knight for their god), and not just power game and choose two classes that synergize best for optimal combat utility mechanically, but they can't straight up stop you from being a filthy munchkin if that's what you really want to do.

Given the traditional starting classes to choose from
(Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard), which two would you choose to combine, and what would your overall character concept be?


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Like most of my stuff, it would depend on the serious level honestly.

Higher seriousness: Bard Warlock. I like the idea of someone making some sort of pact with the devil for ultimate power, but then using it to help people out whenever possible but the corrupting nature of the devil deal makes things more interesting.

Mid seriousness: Fighter rogue. I honestly just like having bow characters, deal with it.

Low seriousness: wizard barbarian, because I want to see how that plays out.

I don't really know a whole lot about 5e, so I can't really comment on what I'd do. Since you're not doing classic gestalt though, I'd say that two martial classes would be the best option. At least, that's what I would do knowing what I know about Pathfinder and 3.5.
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

I don't really know a whole lot about 5e, so I can't really comment on what I'd do. Since you're not doing classic gestalt though, I'd say that two martial classes would be the best option. At least, that's what I would do knowing what I know about Pathfinder and 3.5.

Ironically with 5e, with the exception of extra skills, it basically is just gestalt. Base Attack Bonus (and similar things) actually scale up with your overall level not class level.

Mario_VS_DK posted...

I don't really know a whole lot about 5e, so I can't really comment on what I'd do.

It shouldn't really matter, since I'm more asking which two classes seem to go together well for flavor reasons than how well they mesh mechanically.



shadowsword87 posted...

Bard Warlock. I like the idea of someone making some sort of pact with the devil for ultimate power

Nah. You'd clearly have to play them as a 1980s heavy metal vocalist who sold his soul for ROCK.

Also, they obviously travel with a Bard Barbarian who has a guitar made out of a battle-axe, which they can use to cleave people, but which also shoots lightning out of the neck.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

The DM suggests that they'd LIKE you to choose two classes for story reasons and combine them to make an interesting roleplaying character concept (like, say, making a Fighter/Mage who is a combat battlemage or a Cleric/Paladin who is a militant church-knight for their god), and not just power game and choose two classes that synergize best for optimal combat utility mechanically, but they can't straight up stop you from being a filthy munchkin if that's what you really want to do.

Ugh, so one of those games where I'm not even supposed to try to win? Why even put monsters in if I'm not allowed to try?
Fine! Fine. It's fine! *cough*

In a vacuum my first instinct is a Paladin/Ranger and go all RIGHTEOUS FURY smiter of evil people. (Rangers still get things for tracking and hunting specific targets in 5e right?) I've never gotten to play in a campaign so unsubtle that it would work, but the kid in me just loves the idea.
"Good is that which evil fears, and justice is making those fears a reality!"
>.>

Realistically, I'd assume a more "intelligent" setting and go for something like Druid/Monk and go pretty fierce with it, Rogue/Wizard because nothing is more infuriating than a sly bastard who knows magic, or Cleric/Fighter and just play it as Cleric because Cleric has plenty of versatility for storytelling in its mechanics to make up for the the Fighter's 'none'.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Nah. You'd clearly have to play them as a 1980s heavy metal vocalist who sold his soul for ROCK.

Also, they obviously travel with a Bard Barbarian who has a guitar made out of a battle-axe, which they can use to cleave people, but which also shoots lightning out of the neck

Oh right, that's why people don't play bards, the GM demands singing from the player.

I hate singing bards.
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Lightning Bolt posted...

Rangers still get things for tracking and hunting specific targets in 5e right?

Yes. Both stuff like general "favored enemy" bonuses which give you advantage on all rolls versus your enemy type, as well as more specific stuff like Hunter's Mark, which allows you to track and deal extra damage to targets for a short period of time.

Just a generic "evildoers" might be a bit too broad a category to apply favored enemy to, though.



Lightning Bolt posted...

Rogue/Wizard because nothing is more infuriating than a sly bastard who knows magic

That one is arguably canon - it was more or less the basis of the Arcane Trickster class in older editions.

Same for combining Wizard and Ranger - that's the Arcane Archer (sort of).



shadowsword87 posted...

Oh right, that's why people don't play bards, the GM demands singing from the player.

I'd never demand it, because I always feel like players shouldn't be forced out of their comfort zone. If a player WANTS to speak exclusively in first-person character voice, all the better, but if they're self-conscious and would prefer to say "My character says this, my character does this" or even something like "Bob the Mighty swings into the room and then says that he's there to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and bubblegum hasn't been invented yet", then that's fine, too. Same for singing.

Though I might not entirely welcome singing even if the player WANTED to do it, if only because I have sensitive ears and a string of sour notes and off-key bellowing would probably have me wincing and grinding my teeth the whole time. Though I could probably put up with it better if it was a mostly comedic style of game and the lyrics were funny, if the player was just so bubbling up with musical creativity that they felt like they absolutely HAD to do it.

I've always sort of thought about making a bard who has zero aural component, though (ie, no singing, no storytelling, no musical instruments, etc), and who channels everything through physical motion. Basically like the Dancer class in Final Fantasy Tactics or the Macabre Dancer class in .hack. Where they're basically just a bellydancer (maybe a Vistani?) who moves sinuously and generates the same effects as bard song (with maybe the sole concession towards sound being castanets used to keep rhythm).

I have no idea if that's ever been published as an official version of the class (I'm dead certain there's probably a dozen different web-original homebrews, but I don't really care about any of those sorts of class write-ups), but I know there was no option for it in the old AD&D Bard's Handbook (which I own).


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Just a generic "evildoers" might be a bit too broad a category to apply favored enemy to, though.

Just "humans" works. The anti-evildoers bit comes from the Paladin side. They do have a pile of anti-evil abilities right?
I don't know the 5e mechanics terribly well.
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Oh, not sure if I'm just super late to the party or what, but I recently made up some rules for a random stat generation for cities, and holy crap I forget how much fun it is to just roll some dice and see what happens.

Yeah man. Sometimes I roll dice just to roll them!
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

The DM suggests that they'd LIKE you to choose two classes for story reasons and combine them to make an interesting roleplaying character concept

I find the idea of a cleric mage interesting. Give me all the magic. But seriously, cleric spells used with mage spells can make for some pretty neat scenarios.
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