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Old 05-09-2018, 02:33 PM   #11
DocRailgun
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

How about a High Elf (so you get a cantrip for free - maybe Fire Bolt) fighter who will become (or is, if you start higher then 3rd level) an Eldritch Knight. Their gimmick is that despite being a fighter they refuse to use weapons (though they might wear heavy armor and carry a shield) - only magic in combat. Luckily, blasting things is all an Eldritch Knight can do.
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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
I've looked though the Player's Guide but have come up with only vague ideas. I'm looking first for something that's basically functional but then I need some sort of "shiny" element to hang the character on.
5th edition is a much different beast than 3rd or Pathfinder - in 3.5 there was no reason not to take a level of monk if just to be able to use a Monk's Belt someday, and fighter levels were just for certain feats needed for the best prestige classes. There's no reason to do that in 5th edition. Fighters are just as viable at any level as wizards, clerics, or rogues.... and I mean FIGHTERS, not rangers. WotC has shown great design restraint in not making books full of broken things for munchins to chase down. There WERE things in the playtest people were going to exploit the heck out of - improvised weapons being 1d6 damage (why would wizards carry daggers for 1d4 damage when they could whack people with frying pans for more damage?) and the Alchemist feat making it possible for anyone to make healing potions on the fly. Who needs clerics at that point?
Even better, the game is still a challenge for players even at high levels - magic items are a lot less powerful and PCs don't have armor classes in the 40s (since there's no natural armor) so even swarms of kobolds have the potential to hit and wear down 20th level PCs.

And... there's no possibility for Pun-Pun to be created.
"As I understand it the whole point of 5e is to eliminate the “best build” strategy. There are supposed to be multiple avenues to effective characters,with no option a must have or must not have." - Tanksoldier
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Old 05-12-2018, 05:29 PM   #12
DAT
 
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

Just finished Curse of Stahd with a Dwarven Barbarian Battlerager. A few of the interesting ones I have been considering are:
> Wood Elf Monk (Open Hand) with the Hermit background but focused on Herbalism, using a dump stat of Intelligence - i.e., a stoner Elf played like Chong of Cheech & Chong
> Half-Elf Warlock (ArchFey)with Guildsman (Cartographer's Guild) background, who is interested in discovery and generating new maps, but isn't really a very good cartographer - sort of a whiney snooty guy who does the hex+eldritch blast solution a lot when frustrated or attacked
> Goblin Fighter (Two Weapon - Short swords) and Outsider background, a samurai from Kura Tura on a mission from his master who has become separated from his party and is looking to earn enough money and find directions in order to travel "home" (I found a picture of a samurai goblin miniature) - does the more civilized than though with people, and argue logic in the face of anti-goblin
> High Elf Druid (Moon) could be useful in SKT
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Old 05-19-2018, 07:22 AM   #13
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

Just a quick question if anyone's still following this. Do you think a party really needs a cleric in 5e?

Our potential fifth player just bailed on us and by early declarations we've got a Tiefling Warlock, a Human fighter and a Human Sorceror. In earlier versions of D&D I would have been sure that we needed a cleric but in 5e I'm not sure.
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Old 05-19-2018, 01:34 PM   #14
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Just a quick question if anyone's still following this. Do you think a party really needs a cleric in 5e?

Our potential fifth player just bailed on us and by early declarations we've got a Tiefling Warlock, a Human fighter and a Human Sorceror. In earlier versions of D&D I would have been sure that we needed a cleric but in 5e I'm not sure.
Not really. Even if you have a cleric it's only occasionally worth it for a cleric to spend slots healing people instead of just burning down the opposition. It is good to have some healing though, so unless the Sorc or Warlock is doing a build with some heals (I think both can, at least with UA), it would be good for the last player to have some. There are plenty of classes to chose from to get a few heals though.
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Old 05-19-2018, 06:55 PM   #15
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

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Not really. Even if you have a cleric it's only occasionally worth it for a cleric to spend slots healing people instead of just burning down the opposition. It is good to have some healing though, so unless the Sorc or Warlock is doing a build with some heals (I think both can, at least with UA), it would be good for the last player to have some. There are plenty of classes to chose from to get a few heals though.
The DM promised us an NPC if we needed it.

So I went with the Monk. We got through our first encounter alright. I got all my HP back after a short rest. If we have some downtime and some GP I can make healing potions.
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Old 05-19-2018, 11:10 PM   #16
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Just a quick question if anyone's still following this. Do you think a party really needs a cleric in 5e?

Our potential fifth player just bailed on us and by early declarations we've got a Tiefling Warlock, a Human fighter and a Human Sorceror. In earlier versions of D&D I would have been sure that we needed a cleric but in 5e I'm not sure.
Well, we’re about to start so I can’t say for sure bit it would seem you’d need SOME healing.

I’m not sure how healers kits work... you can heal without a medicine check, but do you need some kind of skill or proficiency?

Anyway we’re starting at 3rd level and we have two aasimar paladins ( Siamorphe and Sune, oath of the crown/ oath of devotion, noble and acolyte respectively) , a helf wizard/ fighter- faction agent, a tiefling scout/ fighter - faction agent and a lizardman ranger/ Druid - outsider.

Three characters have healing ability, we’ll see how it goes.

I’m playing the paladin of Siamorphe.
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Old 05-20-2018, 08:58 AM   #17
Fred Brackin
 
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Well, we’re about to start so I can’t say for sure bit it would seem you’d need SOME healing.

I’m not sure how healers kits work... you can heal without a medicine check, but do you need some kind of skill or proficiency?
The basic function of a Healer's Kit appears to be to stabilize characters at zero HP without any rolls but with limited uses per kit. Medicine Proficiency does the same with a roll but requires no stuff. Then there's a Feat that allows you to give back some HP with a Kit and maybe a Roll too.

Then there's something about Stabilizing and Inspiration that I don't feel like looking up right now.

I was reminded yesterday that 5e is really not organized brilliantly. Even beyond the horrible "see other entry" index.
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Old 05-20-2018, 05:30 PM   #18
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

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I was reminded yesterday that 5e is really not organized brilliantly. Even beyond the horrible "see other entry" index.
My copy has the index hand-amended with proper page cites (and sometimes margin notes with page cites for key cross-references.) And I only had to deal with fighter stuff -- not the spell lists.
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Old 05-23-2018, 08:51 PM   #19
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

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Just a quick question if anyone's still following this. Do you think a party really needs a cleric in 5e?
My Yawning Portal game didn't start with a cleric, but they did have a paladin (lay on hands) and a ranger (with herbalism).

In the first adventure, they rescued a NPC acolyte, whose limited healing powers proved very handy in the rest of that dungeon--enough so that they decided they wanted to keep him in the party. So I converted him to a regular PC cleric, a little behind them in XP, so that he would scale with them. Erky is pretty hit-or-miss as a combatant, but has a handful of support spells that come out every session.

(And can I just say how awesome it is that Aid went from being one of the most useless spells in 3E to being something a 5E cleric wants to cast every single day?)
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Old 05-31-2018, 10:52 PM   #20
DocRailgun
 
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Default Re: D&D5e Characters-What has worked for you?

In 5th edition one can take a short rest (at least an hour) and roll a number of hit dice they shoose, up to their level. They also add their Con bonus to this roll (if this reminds you of rolling hit points, there's a reason for that - it's the same). Obviously that's not so much for low-level characters, but also remember that even wizards are d6 hp now.

Taking a long rest (8 hours) restores ALL hit points.

There are also lots of options for combat healing that isn't clerical or druidic - paladin laying on hands, bards have access to Cure spells, other characters can take a Feat after 4th level that will allow them to take a small number of druidic or bard spells (Magic Initiate)or maybe the Healer feat (with which a healing kit can be used to heal 1d6 + 4 + the healed character's max hit dice).

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Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
Well, we’re about to start so I can’t say for sure bit it would seem you’d need SOME healing.

I’m not sure how healers kits work... you can heal without a medicine check, but do you need some kind of skill or proficiency?

Anyway we’re starting at 3rd level and we have two aasimar paladins ( Siamorphe and Sune, oath of the crown/ oath of devotion, noble and acolyte respectively) , a helf wizard/ fighter- faction agent, a tiefling scout/ fighter - faction agent and a lizardman ranger/ Druid - outsider.

Three characters have healing ability, we’ll see how it goes.

I’m playing the paladin of Siamorphe.
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