The -5/+10 mechanic is seriously one of the most annoying mechanics for me as a DM. Especially when a gloomstalker ranger gets four attacks that each hit stupidly hard, and the party kills a CR 8 demon in the surprise round.
Itâs very dumb but also very good - it also gives my character an effective range of 300 feet because of the clause in Sharpshooter not imposing disadvantage on long range shots.
My next feat is Lucky rather than whatever is optimal though as my guyâs a paladin of Tymora
Iâve not yet seen a satisfactory fix for it. The -prof/+prof*2 common one generally turns it into a âalways useâ option rather than something you decide on with each attack which isnât really ideal.
My perspective is that, if this homebrew is made for a specific group, that it would be best to have some discussion with the players as to what theyâd like to play.
Chances are, theyâll be more engaged in the world youâre building if theyâre allowed to input their desired race which is then written into the setting.
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Over in Mathfinder, similarly melee types ALWAYS take power attack which is more or less the same thing. And you can take it from lv1. Itâs nuts.
Best fix I have found is to just quietly buff HP behind the DM screen if I feel a monster is getting mauled too fast. Thereâs a thing called pacing and some high damage attacks can quickly chew through health and make a fight finish in a single round. Which just isnât fun.
Or throw in bodyguards and adds. A lot of newer DMs I see drop a single super scary monster but the players just drown it in action economy. And many âminmaxâ damage characters are focused on single targets.
Sadly though I just wish GWM/SS didnât exist. But Iâm not huge on REMOVING character options if I can help it.
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Adds are great. Angry GMâs âParagonâ Monsters also work. Canât kill it in one round if itâs damage is capped taps head
Theyâre also the bane of the Hexsorcadin who smugly deletes your bosses in one turn.
Then you tell them the BBEG is actually a whole council, not just one guy⌠and they have golem pets.
It still doesnât fix the problem of that one player outshining all others.
Sadly not, I have considered just taking out the power attack element from each feat. Maybe then adding it back as a generic attack feat or something for any weapon attack. That way anyone can use it and it requires an ASI by itself, so itâs a heavy investment for that AND the benefits of SS/GWM.
At least that way people who want the -5+10 thing can use it no matter the weapon type. If everybody is OP, nobody is.
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I played DnD today for the first time, after playing DSA (Das Schwarze Auge / The Dark Eye) for years.
I do not think I will play it again. Sure, the rules are rather simple and nice, but three points really irk me.
1.) How combat-focussed it is. Of course, I know that it was always supposed to be a dungeon delver, but that it revolves around it to such an extreme degree I did not expect. I do not like Pen and Paper RPG combats in general, so that might be the true problem here. I am more interested in social conflict, riddles, arcane mysteria and such.
2.) Nat 20âs and Nat 1âs. They happen too often for my taste. In DSA you have to roll two ones or twenties out of 3d20 to critically fail or success. I thought it kind of ridiculous for our characters to be that successful so many times.
3.) The complete disconnection between the rules and the setting. DSA is a beautiful, extremely versatile and awesome world coupled with nice, though overly complicated rules, in one package. You donât get one without the other. I might be spoiled in that regard, but DnD just felt so ⌠eh. So interchangeable. Now, this might be the homebrew setting of our DM, but I have the feeling that this lack of idiosyncrasies and little quirks that can be found in the world and the rules simultaneously and make this well-developed setting truly noteworthy will be encountered in any setting, due to the nature of the beast.
Question to all you DnD nerds out there: Should I give it a second try, perhaps with another DM, or do you think that these problems will persist no matter what?
If the issues youâve mentioned are dealbreakers for you, thatâs not gonna change with a new DM. Sure, some DMs will do more political/social focused stuff but the game is designed for dungeoncrawling primarily.
Though I will say that DMs will often start combat focused with new people to get them acclimatised to the mechanics, so potentially second sessions onwards can be more flexible.
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Combat focus depends on DMs, you can absolutely do a social based game with DnD. But admittedly there arenât a ton of mechanics associated with it. But I find that to be a good thing, makes the players roleplay and talk more rather than just constantly refer to character sheets or use abilities to cheese their way out of every talking scenario. (Though abilities to help with social things definitely exist)
Regarding crits, only attacks can crit succeed. Crit failures are not a thing in the default rules. A 1 on an attack is just an auto-miss. Skill checks cannot crit succeed or fail, even at a 20 you can still not meet the DC of a skill check. The odds of getting a 20 is only 5% anyway, so odds are people just got lucky. Youâll usually only see one, maybe two crits a session in my experience.
The âconfirmâ of an attack crit is the extra damage dice you roll. You may get more damage than your normal max, or you might not.
The rules admittedly are very flexible, but thatâs rather the point of them I suppose. Only the Arcana skill seems hard rooted in the DnD setting.
Iâd say give it another try at some point, perhaps with a different DM that is advertising a more social based game rather than dungeon crawling. Or even just something more atypical. One short-term session I did was entirely stealth based, using rounds and initiative to stay out of sight rather than murderhobo every problem away.
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Apparently warlord is mentioned in a recent official survey. I suppose thereâs hope yet!
Edit: Just checked. Warlord is listed under âfavourite classâ but so are a bunch of other things from old editions and some questions relate to older editions.
Iâm curious how theyâd do Warlord since Purple Dragon Knight and Battlemaster have both taken elements from it.
Warlord is the only thing I want them to retain from 4e. Iâm glad others are as enthusiastic too.
Iâve played a bard who cast all of his spells and abilities strictly by shouting at people and thatâs basically a warlord right
Itâs not far off, honestly. Bards, Battlemasters or Paladins can often be refluffed into Warlords but Iâd still appreciate a separate class thatâs short rest focused, non-magical and party-buff/enhancement focused. I really like the idea of sacrificing your own damage/attacks to give damage/attacks to your party members, from a player dynamic perspective.
Itâs a good idea but honestly they could just rework PDKnight/Banneret to be not terrible and youâd be very close to the same thing. Just give it all the supporting Battlemaster tricks as short rest abilities and more ways to buff and restore HP and youâre a Warlord. Saves them having to do a whole new class, how long did it take to get artificers?
Battlemaster even has stuff to make your party move more and fire more attacks. Wasnât that the bread and butter of warlord?
I really love Captain type warriors in RPGs but 5e has done this weird thing of giving it to two different subclasses already to varying amounts of success.
Theyâve redone classes/archetypes before (looking at you, Ranger) so it wouldnât be out of left field for them to do something similar again.
Hard-topic switch, Conquest Paladins are a really neat idea that I love, but whenever I try to figure out character concepts for them they always seem to be the sort that would justâŚdominate the direction of campaigns. The other oaths donât really have this.
Anyone had experience with Conquest paladins that did work well without being the main driving force behind the partyâs actions?
Paladins as a whole can end up being party leaders or drivers just by nature of being a frontliner, having auras that benefit being the leading figure in an encounter and usually having the most charisma if your party lacks a bard or similar.
Itâs just how the class tends to end up, supported by both lore and mechanics. They tend to be the default protagonist leader type no matter what, Conquest is just an antihero take on it. (Or villain)
Thereâs nothing inherently wrong with that though as long as the player isnât a donkey about it and theyâre mature, and if the party is okay with having someone keep things rolling at a reasonable pace to stop the party spinning their wheels for multiple sessions in a row.
Totally get that, but Devotion (âdefaultâ paladin) or Crown just seem like theyâd slot into any party fine, and donât need to take centre stage from a story perspective. Like they could just be supportive side characters if needs be.
True enough I guess. Probably the sort of thing to speak to DM about during character creation about aim of the narrative.
Theyâre definitely my favourite oath either way.