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I need to thank you for perfection 👌 my future DM will HATE MY GUTS, but that's totally fine by me😂 We have an Evil Campaign planned and i was looking for a good charlatan. Enter Eloquence bard with charlatan back ground. Since I want to be Evil, but have people think i am a good person😂 you just made that a whole lot easier to accomplish 👌😁
Could you list all the shows, animations, etc played during this video? Some of them look cool and I hate the fact you didn't make a mention of them in the descriptions...
thats the best analogy for this subclass ban for sure cause the zealot literally cant die, but like...whats he gonna do. sure as hell aint gonna force cage microwave your ass
That last message is very true. As a first time DM, a friend made a Shepherd druid. It was always annoying with all those summons, but we fell into a pattern and could get through turns quickly. Was always strong, but everyone else in the party participated well. He never was the DPS, just tank/support. I never realized how much he held back until I announced 'This will be the last session until further notice ' and did a massive boss fight/protect the castle from waves of demons thing at lvl 7. Low and behold, that meek shepherd druid rained hellfire down upon the world. Those demons never expected long extinct species to tear them to shreds....
A good optimizer will never go all-out unless the table or situation demands it, because the most important things to optimize first are fun and table etiquette. But oh boy is it satisfying when you get a justifiable opportunity to pop off.
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@@RaethFennec haha yeah, I love it. Hiding your true power to unleash at right moment must be one of the most satisfying things ever.
@@RaethFennec I've been playing an Arcane Archer like this. My DM loves to create magic items and he knows I like picking up little knick-knacks that my party is like "Eh, not the best, replace it". In my last session, 2 players slapped damage buffs on me and the DM was like "Well, the NPC you're trying to reach isn't doing very good", so I decided to 'pop off' to save an NPCs mother. 4 attacks (Action Surge)+Sharpshooter+Buffs= 153 damage in a round to a Yuan-ti Anathema at level 7 lol. Half the table was kind of slack jawed because normally the way I do combat is environment interaction, making creative use of magic items or just usable items in general or just provide simple cover fire for the more squishy party members. I don't like flexing despite my love of number crunching, so I do my part to roleplay more often than dunk lol.
@@thebenis3219 153!? Those were some powerful buffs for level 7. I'm thinking Dragonwing Longbow with Hunter's Mark and Flame Arrows and a crit or something. lol
Oath of Watchers gets to essentially be Dragon Senes at Lv 20. I get Lv 6 is early but banning anything is genuinely just retarded. DMs can always improvise, if youre creative you can get over being a shit DM
@@youtubesucks3490ou say that; But there's alot of bull some players can pull with some subclasses; especially with multi classing. If you as a DM know you can't handle a certain combo or sub class; it's fine to ban it or talk to the player about nerfing it/not using it in a certain way. That's what a Good dm does; Adapt and talk to their players and don't sit there taking all their Overpowered shit. If they know they can't handle it.
Surprised you mentioned Twilight Cleric and not Peace Cleric, which also gets banned often for making the entire party resistant to everything, giving everyone double bless, and making any enemy attacks strike a revolving door of HP pools
@@Kylora2112 Easy enough to sprinkle my encounters with magic users knowing Ice Knife. Not enough to entirely stopping cleric from doing anything and destroying the players fun, but get them playing smartly. Everything other than mass heal that a Twilight Cleric gets is able to be gotten easily with multiclasses that make cleric better anyway or races that already have proficiency in heavy armor. Being strong is fine. Being OP, where no one else has any fun is not. Those are the only things that should be being banned at a table.
@@vr4n4 Chronurgy and Graviturgy are both Critical Role quasi-homebrew, so I don't count them as *official* content (like any of their partnered content), even though both are incredibly stupidly broken.
@@Kylora2112 They aren't actually partnered content, they are fully official in the setting that is published by WoTC. They occupy the same position as Ebberon content. 100% official just a little off for forgotten realms content.
I once saw a Reddit post about how cows are cr1/4 so you can summon a bajillion of them, and you can summon them 60 above a creature so they fall and take like 6d10 damage PER COW
Funnily enough, i think we could build a pretty good party out this: Zealot barbarian as the frontliner, Twilight cleric as the “healer” (technically more like a force field generator), eloquence bard to trivialize social situations and add a little dex to the party, and either a chrono and/or divination wizard to trivialize everything else. Also, something something hexblade/paladin SMITE.
And the objective of these legendary heros, the ones who can rivalize against the gods, are none other than... Get fame and funds to open a local bakery called "the cutie pie"
@@its_sisha_not_chair505form pointy hat ideas (((or objective of legendary hero to figth family of lich of ever class (lich of bard=intoner),(lich of druids=bligth),(lich of artificers=necromaton) and head of family (lich of corcerer=hierarch) and they ally family of monk way of the flesh))) form pointy hat ideas
Funnily enough, in the game I am in, we have a zealot barbarian/glory paladin multiclass, an eloquence bard/hex blade multiclass, a moon druid, a friendly NPC is an artificer, the backup character of one of the players is a chronurgy wizard, and (something i think is an underrated class that if people looked at more would be banned more) my character, an echo knight fighter/soulknife rogue
The whole "use X mind-control spell on the king so he gives us money" thing should have been dropped a long time ago. There's no way that a king does this without someone on his council, or even his Queen going like, "Hey, wait a minute..."
Right? Suggestion has both verbal and material components. Everyone in the room watches you very obviously cast a spell on the king, and they're like "Huh, ok, I guess.."? Nah fam. In my game that would be an instant roll initiative.
I would never ban an Eloquence Bard. Persuasion is not mind control, and you only get to roll when the DM calls for it (the appropriate situation). I've never heard of Moon Druids getting banned. That made me laugh.
I never banned Moon Druids (or any subclass really), but I run almost exclusively low level D&D, and they do kinda overshadow many other characters at low level. It's fine if you go for long-term progression where other characters will have their time to shine, but otherwise I see how it could be frustrating.
@@Darkprosper - having different abilities between the classes is a good thing. In what way besides survivability do you see them overshadowing other classes?
@@sleepinggiant4062 Basically, they are on par with the best melee warrior builds, while still being a strong caster. It may be frustrating for a fighter or a barbarian to see another character as strong as them with still a whole bunch of class features on top, or for a paladin to be completely overshadowed in every possible way. On top of that, they are incredibly versatile, but to be fair that's a druid problem, not specifically a moon druid problem. In fact they are probably the least versatile of the druids.
@@Darkprosper - Every possible way? No. They are not as strong as the other melee classes at level 1. Once they get wild shape, they are as strong only twice a day (not stronger). To Hit is comparrible, and damage is on par with using a 1 handed weapon (2Her is better). Granted, they do have a huge HP pool to go through, but that is the only thing that overshadows other melee classes. Their AC sucks, they can't communicate, and cannot cast spells while wildshaped. Fighters and barbarians are 'always on', and not a twice a day thing.
One of my players is a swashbuckler rogue with expertise in persuasion and deception. With reliable talent, he can't roll less than a 23 in those skills. It is quite challenging to prep fo my sessions because of it. Whenever the party is in a social encounter, he is basicaly the only one to play, which is borring for everyone else. Because he is intelligent and a great roleplayer, I have to make most of the fights mendatory by trying to create narative reasons justifying why he wouldn't be able to resolve them diplomaticaly, otherwise he just would. I also have to keep some encounters solvable through social interactions, otherwise his build would be worthless. He clearly is the character that require the most work from me, even though he is the weakest of the party when it comes to combat.
Having watched Fantasy High, I honestly stan the divination wizard. With the right player and the portent coming in clutch, it can make for some amazing moments
This, so much this. A lot of DM'ing comes down to moments of pure pressure: party is near death, nearly out of options, and you crit the cleric, knowing it's probably the start of TPK (those aren't fun from the other side of the screen either) only for the Wizard to go: NO. It's a 2. I feels just a good as the DM when that moment is created, something that will be talked about for years.
I remember using one of THOSE Eloquence bards to make think a few bandits that a small cup was actually a magic item that sucked everything it was pointed at and forced on them "plane shift" so they thought that we had a cup that could send you to another dimension
Imagine a random homeless person that was really REALLY eloquent walked up to your car and "rolled a 20" in explaining to you that his magic banana could end the world. And he will totally do it, too, unless you get out of your car and hand him your keys and wallet. You would laugh and drive away no matter what he said. If it was your mom or whoever you would trust the most in the whole world you would not give her your car. If it was the Pope or the President or whoever is the person you consider the greatest authority figure in the world you would not give that person your car. This is why the implementation chosen for social skill rolls in 5e is a stupid game design decision.
@@googiegress The difference is we don't live in a world of actual magical items. If the same homeless man approached you in an alley and "rolled a 20" to convince you that he had a gun and would kill you if you didn't give him your wallet and shoes, you would walk home barefoot.
@@abonynge You are proven wrong by reality, my friend. While there are carjackings on occasion, it is not simply a matter of anyone walking up and "making their roll" and 5% of the time walking away with literally anything they want. Reality is just not like that. Secondly, the homeless guy with a gun has a wild power imbalance vs. a typical office worker on their commute. That power imbalance lends credence to the scam. Guns are outsized int heir leveling-out capability; if guns didn't exist and the homeless guy convinced you he had a knife, you'd just run away. It's a lot like a pair of 1st level Humans in D&D facing off but one of them has a Wand of Magic Missiles, or there's a 1st level Human facing off against a 10th level. So it is that a piddly-ass crapsack Bard who picked a build off Reddit approaches someone with a title of nobility or ownership of a business, and there's literally nothing that Bard can do or say that would elevate him in the eyes of his betters TO THE POINT THAT THEY GIVE HIM EVERYTHING. Furthermore, it is bad game design policy for that to be a possibility, because if one PC can do it then we must assume there are significant numbers of NPCs who do it too. Which means the world is only and strictly populated by all-powerful low-level Bards and the remaining 99.99999% of the population can possess only the things those Bards can't be bothered to take. Nobody wants a game like that. Ergo, Bards must not be enabled to do that, not even once. So it doesn't matter what your arguments are, because the end result is BS that no reasonable person would stand for.
@@googiegress You really underestimate how successful carjacking attempts are. Firearms are only present in 38% of carjackings. In 41% of carjackings, the offender is unarmed. You live in some kind of fantasy land where people do not have a fear for their well being and it is crazy. No one is arguing that a lord should give a Bard everything they own. This dude just said he convinced some thugs he had a cup that could suck them into another dimension. In a world with magical items this is very comparable to convincing someone you have a gun you don't have. Nearly every DM agrees that a Nat 20 does not simply mean the impossible happens. You are screaming into the ether about an argument no one is making. No one has the expectation to walk up to the BBEG and say "Kill yourself or I will kill you." then roll a Nat 20 and the campaign is over level 1.
@@googiegress It's not 5e's problem, it's DM's problem. DM can always tell them: ok, bandits believe you but they are too desperate/high on some underdark shrooms/mind controlled by the lich so they don't care and will attack you anyway. But since they beleive you - you can use the cup to effectively cast fear on them once, for one turn.
I think siobhan in fantasy high proves that its mostly up to the player to not break the game, not the subclass. Whenever they would use a portent roll it was always spur of the moment rather than "hey I got a nat 20 lets go do something absolutely insane and auto succeed". It actually was very fun to watch.
Yeah I play a div wizard and the idea of basing my actions around portents has never occurred to me. those rolls are for giving my PC's girlfriend better initiative rolls and saving throws bc she rolls terribly
Tbf because of the pace at which a D20 campaign moves there aren't that many long rests. As a result, there's less scope for abusing the power of just waiting around in a village until you get a nat20 one day and going off to do something. Plus Brennan (in his usual brilliant DM way) in Sophomore Year made the party scared of taking rests, which made lessened the effectiveness of the portents even more
@@SciFiPhiChiPsi Again though, that's the player abusing the subclass, not the subclass being wildly unbalanced. If div wizard is making the game less fun for your party or DM because everyone just takes long rest after long rest waiting for the pocket nat20, it's not that div wizard is making the game less fun, it's that the people at the table need to have a talk about metagaming.
Im running this exact PC rn (only diffrence i also took a dip into fighter for action surge and got sharpshooter aswell). This effectivly turns me into a minigun and is mighty fun to play
Played this build as a Monsters of the Multiverse Bugbear not too long ago. Also added some levels into Assassin and eventually 2 levels in Fighter for Action Surge. Safe to say, I oneshotted pretty much anything I could sneak up on. Coupled with the extra turn I gave my team from surprise attacks and the fact I could scout 300 feet ahead while also being a backup Cleric made the DM have to kill off my character through an untreatable disease in one of the final battles. It was sad, but understandable. He let me play as one of the NPC's who just so happened to be a polymorphed dragon so I wasn't really complaining. The last boss fight was pretty epic.
@@reokado4783 I did something similar, except I specifically went Echo Knight as well. At level 9 I rarely go below 70 damage on average in the first round of combat
Here's my build by endgame, campaign ended at level 16. Played a dragon for the last session since my boy was too good for his own good. - 5 gloom stalker, 4 assassin, 2 twilight cleric, 4 brute - Feats: stalker, piercer, sharpshooter - Damage modifiers for first turn: (I think I got them all, tell me if I didn't) - 3 attacks: extra attack + dread ambusher - Action Surge: + 1 action after every short rest - Assassinate: crit on surprise attacks (roll damage dice twice) - Used a longbow: + 1d8 damage - Ability modifier for dexterity: +4 - (Bugbear Racial Skill) Surprise Attack: + 2d6 damage if I have the higher initiative - Sneak Attack: + 2d6 damage for one attack - Dread Ambusher: + 1d8 damage for one attack - Brute Force: + 1d4 damage - Piercer: + 1d8 damage on crit since I used a longbow - Hunter's Mark: + 1d6 damage - Sharpshooter: +10 damage flat - Potential damage for the first turn: (assuming I hit all attacks and land a surprise attack which wasn't hard for this build) - Basic attack + bugbear + brute + hunter's mark = Avg/Max - 1d8 + 2d6 + 1d4 + 1d6 = 15 to 30 per attack (I got 3 so x3 = 45 to 90) (x2 for action surge = 90 to 180) (x2 again for assassinate = 180 to 360) - Piercer + sharpshooter + ability modifier = Avg/Max - 1d8 + 10 + 4 = 18 to 22 per attack (I got 3 so x3 = 54 to 66) (x2 for action surge = 108 to 132) - Sneak attack + dread ambusher = Avg/Max - 2d6 + 1d8 = 10 to 20 (x2 for action surge = 20 to 40) (x2 again for assassinate = 40 to 80) - Average: 180 + 108 + 40 = 320 damage / Max: 360 + 132 + 80 = 572 damage I probably botched the math somewhere, but doesn't change the fact that this build did way more damage than I initially thought it would when I was going for a surprise attack build. The strength of the build was supposed to come from the extra turn provided from surprised targets not being able to act on their first turn. It was too OP lol.
Twilight cleric haunts my dreams. I played with one and I felt bad for the DM the whole campaign. We just couldn't die, even fighting CR10 stuff at level 4.
@@DarkMark-cf1ec Doesn't actually help that much? Part of the power of the Twilight Cleric is that they give buffs to the rest of the party (passive healing, etc.) but the buffs don't stack, so multiple Twilight Clerics kind of interfere with each other.
@@Guy_With_A_Laser They can also share their hideously overpowered Darkvision, which can turn encounters into long-distance shooting galleries where the enemies are dead before they can even charge close enough to see you. I houseruled that trying to range in infrared (darkvision) is unreliable past 150 feet because our eyes are too close together. You can still see oncoming enemies without a problem, but if you try to shoot at them you'll have Disadvantage (canceling the Advantage of them not seeing you, and leading to taking the shot with Vantage). This doesn't negate the cheese tactic of sniping from a quarter mile away, but it does mean the enemies occasionally survive long enough to actually see the party.
@@mal2ksc As the DM , just make the encounter in an enclosed space like a castle. Use hallways. Twilight cleric while strong is far from game breaking.
Imagine a party stacked with Divination Wizards. A party of six would have TWELVE foretelling rolls between them PER LONG REST. Heck, any more than one Divination Wizard would be like having the Fates or the Norns in your adventuring party. ...By the Gods, imagine a DM setting up a party against enemies who are Divination Wizards.
The one Divination wizard I've had in a game (I was the DM) made very good use of the spell slot efficiency. It really did help him feel like he was a diviner, because he could use these mid-level "is this a good idea" and "what is going on?" and "Spy over here" spells (not to mention the few divination damage spells) and not feel like he was blowing THAT many resources. So he was pretty liberal with them.
@RaethFennec I was gonna say something negative about Artificer, but how can I say anything negative when this comment exists. Legit the best thing I've seen today & my Barbarian did over 300 damage in a single turnearlier, so that's a high bar.
I kind of want to see the campaign done with all of these broken classes and give them a mission impossible esque campaign where everyone has one job to fulfill and they do it really well.
Portent does not get used to replace a roll that had already happened. You have to decide before the roll happens that you are going to insert the result of your portent, and that will be the roll. Still very powerful, but makes it less so because now the ally or enemy COULD have succeeded or failed, but now you're going to be certain of what they'll roll.
I once played an Artillerist Artificer in the forgotten realms setting and we managed to make them work. They were a high elf, used a bow and the majority of their spells were them shooting arrows they enscribed magic runes on. And for their Eldritch canon it was basically a ballista they strapped wagon wheels on and gave a magical core. That was a fun character.
Any technological construct can just as easily be an earth elemental or a golem your character created. I don't get the hate at all. Artificer might as well be a magical Enchanter and you'd get the same effects.
@@LupineShadowOmega for a hobby all about creativity and storytelling you'd be surprised how many TTRPG players are mid at storytelling and being creative.
That is literally what Artillerist Artificers do. Their Arcane Firearm isn't an actual magic gun, it's a wand or staff engraved with runes to aid them with casting spells. Artificers are magic craftsmen mixed with engineers. They aren't people who make guns.
It annoys me when everyone goes to steampunk for Artificers, and I blame the illustrators for the class. You can play an Artificer as a witch who brews potions and has a familiar made from sticks and clay, or a runesmith who etches symbols of power onto items (like the Rune Knight, which has never been accused of being steampunk).
I have a lizardfolk artificer. He lost an arm, so he collected the bones of his enemies and enchanted them into a magic skeletal arm. The bones have runes carved into them that he channels magic through.
Honestly Divination wizard hasn't seemed broken with our group. Its rare we can wait 5+ days so we go out with a nat 1 or 20. and most the time 1 crit isn't going to win the entire arc by itself.
Yeah, as a DM, if your campaign is so lacking in urgency that the party can unironically afford to sit around for a week without doing anything so they can fudge a single roll you probably need to add stakes lmao. Obviously a time crunch isn't always desirable but just making the party aware of something as simple as 'we think the bandits/cultists/monsters are going to attack kill everyone in the surrounding villages soon' or 'X npc is dying of a disease and needs a cure as soon as possible' is an incredibly easy way to add urgency to a plot. Honestly I think this generally makes for more interesting storytelling anyway, disregarding mechanical reasons. And like you said, one high roll doesn't decide entire the outcome of an entire story. If it does then your plot thread was susceptible to being completed by a single lucky roll even without features like this, which you probably don't want in the first place.
People generally try to misuse the portent as a reaction re-roll, but the wording specifically states that the portent must be used before the roll is made. When used like that, it's a lot less of a threat.
Regarding the Zealot Barbarian is countered with a sleep spell, it affects the lowest hit points first and your level 14 zealot that is at zero hit points goes down first and ends his rage
@@CJWproductions I was simply pointing out that there are ways to counter this ability, anything that will incap a character would work. Hypnotic pattern would do the something and that might fit your needs better as it is a crown control spell.
@@lschantz64 Honestly, it's a pretty big brained play. If you have a villain that has studied the party, but you don't want to slap them too hard and make it feel like you're purposely trying to kill them, sleep might be a pretty good spell. You still have to have gotten the barbarian down to that point though, so it's not like it's cheese. Maybe town guards have a scroll of Sleep to try and subdue criminals. Town guards getting sleep off on the barbarian is a bit of a stretch, but it's important to think of other mundane places where killing the party isn't necessarily the goal.
@@cameronlancefrii7356 I never set out to kill the party and i agree that the likelihood of a high level wizard having sleep prepared is very slim. I was just pointing out that it is not as full proof as other people like to think it is, not to mention the rage also still only last 1 minute. Can a Zealot take a ton of damage and keep on dishing it out, yes and personally I think that is amazing. Think about the story of the last party member able to keep the fight going until the bad guy was dead, saved the world, his anger fueled him to defeat the bad guy. Epics tales.
As a dm, I love seeing how my players try and break the game, while sometimes it might be frustrating, I love to see they having fun and finding how the story will be affected and how to continue from there. I have had a campaign end and do an epilogue on the spot because of an action (that the table consented with) that was taken by one of my players. Everyone at the table agreed that it was a fun campaign and a good ending to it, even though I had much more planned for them, we all had fun. I understand banning subclasses and and whatnot, it’s for everyone to have fun, and if the anyone at the table aren’t having fun just because of a feature or subclass, it is very reasonable to get rid of the thing not letting people have fun!
Playing a Zealot Barbarian in a game right now and we're level 11, the free res thing actually came in huge for a story moment. The major antagonist is my sister, and before we knew we were related, we were in a fight and I got the final blow on her, but she had a last right's reaction that brought me down to zero, and the way we flavored it was that I tossed my axe down, so consumed by my rage and punched through her gut, but in getting that close, she shoved her hand into my chest and stopped my heart. We were freshly 5th level, and hadn't done much dungeon diving, so we didn't have any diamonds, but because of Zealot Barbarian, I got a cool post-death scene where I met my Goddess and she cried for me and told me that it made her sad to see my throw myself at death so recklessly, and that Farenna wouldn't be so easy to kill, and I got to look my Goddess in the eyes, smirk and go, "Judgin' by this tinglin' feelin' in my chest, I'm not so hard to kill neither," as our Cleric used revivify on me to bring me back for free. I'm eagerly awaiting hitting level 14 so I can go toe to toe with Farenna again when she's fully powered up just to hear the anguish in her voice when I won't die no matter how hard she hits me. I've been playing Tranquility like a thorn in her side that just keeps coming back, like a bad rash, an annoying little brother she doesn't want to acknowledge, because she's this big all-powerful scourge demigod, and I'm a 6 int Tiefling Barbarian who won't stay dead. Oh and the fey member of our party literally Owns Her Name, so there's that too :)
I'm surprised you didn't mention Peace Domain clerics. At least in my experience, several DMs have found them to be exploitable to the point of absurdity because so many of their features stack buffs upon buffs upon buffs, and either homebrew nerfs to prevent them from stacking or flat out say "lolno."
Yeah, single level Peace Domain dip is one of the most powerful things to add to a full caster like Wizard or Sorcerer, particularly if no one else in the party has Emboldening Bond. Proficiency Bonus times per day of a powerful ability that stacks with Bless, lasts 10 minutes, medium/heavy armor + shield proficiency, bless, healing word, guidance, toll the dead/light/mending as needed, all for a single level... it's up there with Hexblade for the most powerful 1-level dip in the game.
@@RaethFennecnot only casters; a peace dip on fighter gives you bless + emboldening bond + access to cantrips and healing word at that point you can use sharpshooter and still have a net +2 to hit modification between the features you got from each classes first level
I really don't see what the problem with Peace Domain clerics is? If someone else already has Emboldening Bond, it doesn't stack (unless multiple instances of Emboldening Bond does stack in which case the solution is to say, no they don't stack). Emboldening Bond is definitely a powerful ability, acting like a weak bless that lasts 10 minutes, isn't a spell and isn't concentration, but it only works for a party of people at peace with one another, which can make for really cool moments when tension in the party is high and the emboldening bond simply fails. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm currently playing a 9th level peace domain cleric and loving it, but I have no clue how people exploit them to the point they get banned or nerfed?
@@IsStillVicarious Peace Domain is so strong because a single level of cleric on, say, a Wizard or Sorcerer nets them medium/heavy/shields armor proficiency for an easy 18-19 AC as early as level 2, bless, healing word, guidance and a choice of some solid cantrips, a level of full caster progression, AND Emboldening Bond, which scales daily uses with Proficiency Bonus rather than class levels, meaning it grows with you even with 19 levels elsewhere. All that on, say, a Wizard at the cost of... having higher level spell tiers one level before you unlock that level of spells. You get to be tanky, heal people, and mega-buff skill checks and saving throws, AND then you have 19 levels of whatever else. A straight-class Peace Cleric is no problem at all.
@@RaethFennec Ohhh, that makes a lot of sense! Thank you! Though I do wonder what gives the heavy armour proficiency? Is this some edge case of the rules that says if you gain proficiency with medium armour a second time get proficiency with heavy armour or something?
For the eloquence bard, I'm pretty sure there is a table in the DMG that charts interaction progression with levels of hostility and likeability(?) that must be moved through for fruitful interactions.
yes and no, the results just vary, not the dc... though it mention an 'openly' hostile creature could be so ill-disposed against the party that no charisma check could sway it's attitude... so even an hostile (let's say 'unfriendly') creature could be swayed to help the party with some dc20 charisma check, as long as it involve no risk or sacrifice from it...
I was going to point this out. Even if you don't use the tables, DMs should remember that an NPC should have a base level of how they feel about the party. A single check won't make those feelings change from 0 to 10 or 10 to 0. So yes, if a guy was never going to do what the party asked no matter how convincing they are... then a successful check might at best make him offer an alternative that also benefits him somehow. I honestly view the issue here being if a player has had other DMs who don't run their games this way. They may get upset the first time that their persuasion roll doesn't work like charm person.
Yeah, persuasion and deception aren't mind control. This binary idea of "If there's even a single person who can't be persuaded, the whole subclass is trash" is stupid. One guard might be really dedicated to the rules and procedures of his job, and won't let you in even if he does believe you're the son of the king who forgot his key, or that there's an assassin in the building right now, or whatever. The real world is full of those people. The subclass isn't suddenly trash if these kinds of folks are scattered around every so often. But I guess if I have even one agentic NPC in my whole game, I'm destroying the subclass by making it so someone *else's* idea has to be the go-to for a change.
@@theunluckybard7517 I was looking for this. I would also add that you have to look at the guards orders. If the guard was told by the king or the captain of the king's guard to let no one in, that guard cannot be persuaded even if they have been persuaded on other occasions. That guard knows they are taking their life into danger by disobeying orders from such a powerful boss. And aren't likely to in that situation even if they have been open and friendly with the party before.
For those who don’t know, on hexblade you still have to have 13 str for paladin to multi class out or into paladin. 15 if you want no penalties for heavy armor(gotta start paladin then). But outside that you can ignore it. And it’s totally worth it. Playing a hexblade + paladin + sorcerer and it’s crazy. Favorite multi class and super worth the trouble to brew up.
My build on a half elf point buy: Strength 14+1 Dexterity 8 (heavy armor & all) Constitution 14+1 (Resilience: Constitution later on down the road) Intelligence 10 Charisma 14+2 Wisdom 10
They 15 Str also isn't nessesary when playing a Dwarf. (they dont gain the "-10 speed penalty for wearing Heavy Armor without meeting the Str requirement" !)
Only until you hit level 15 I believe, wherein your rage only ends if you choose to end it; meaning you don't have to worry about attacking or taking damage. Sleep still fucks you over, though.
This is why you duke the DM by wasting those with other annoying, but not costly effects, like using hold monster, banishment and polymorph, then when the DM has declared all 3 resistances you bust out the disintegrate or finger of death with the wizards portent.
@@CarrowMind Given that a lot of these monsters have pretty epic saves pretty much all around, you're gonna be spending a lot of effort and turns trying to get them to fail enough to use up their resistances, by which point the fight is probably over or almost over anyway and the fighters did all the work while your casters contributed very little... or it's a tpk. Seen it happen a lot even without portent, the casters spend every turn trying to burn the resistances and end up achieving nothing.
To be fair, I can't remember a time when our table banned a sub-class prior to attempting to run it first: bans at our table were almost always done from our personal shared experience. There's more info available these days now, though, I suppose. Love you, Will. Cheers from MA.
The only thing iv ever banned is kender because 90% of people play them like cunts. Using the excuse to steal t hoard valuable items rather than thematic borrows examines gets bored gives it back or abandons it.
The thing with Kenders is that a good one will respect "give it back". They're not unapologetic, they just genuinely misunderstand that in this culture, things belong to people, and it's bad form to take without asking. A Good-aligned Kender might pick something of someone else's up and look at it, but if told "I need you to pay for that if you want to take it" or "Please don't touch that, it's important", they'll go along with it. This is not how people play them, which is why they're so hated.
D&D 5e suggests to take a middle approach with ability checks: evaluate whether the attempt CAN succeed or fail, then whether it advances things either way. With the "persuade them not to fight" type stuff, make it about discovering the right levers to pull. Sure, once there are viable levers, the eloquence bard WILL succeed at pulling them almost all the time! But that's not going to be an auto-win; the party has to figure out what to say, offer, do, etc.
This is an excellent response. So what if the Bard gets a 21 on Persuasion. If their tactics for persuading someone are bad, they’re bad and they don’t work. Like, if a battalion of guards is chasing the party down and the Bard tries to say “You don’t want to take us on, we’re absurdly strong and hurt you!” then they roll a 24. Guards respond with some trepidation and speculation. “If you’re so strong why’re you running away from us? Wouldn’t you have stood your ground?” Give the Bard a “second chance” to actually make an argument that is sound. If they do, they’ll probably meet the requirements and be fine. If they don’t, even if they have a fantastic roll, the guards realize it’s a bluff. A very convincing bluff, but a bluff nonetheless.
@@SchmartsyMan Right. As another example, if the bard tries to persuade the King to give him his daughter's hand in marriage, but the King's daughter turns out to be way young (to the point that the suggestion of marriage is creepy), the King will still likely order him arrested if it's not swiftly made apparent that the Bard didn't know better, and even then, it's not going to endear the Bard to the King. Or if he tries to convince a merchant to take an IOU from a Baron as payment in lieu of gold...and the merchant has a particular beef with the Baron and wouldn't trust the Baron to keep his promises. Not going to work. Really, what the persuasion or deception rolls should be used for are to convince the NPC of the Bard's sincerity, his honesty, and his ability to deliver. He MIGHT be able to fan the flames of already-present desire (for goods, services, or companionship), to the point of bargaining for something in return for promises or intangibles, but he isn't going to be able to convince somebody to accept nothing they want. The eloquence bard will have no trouble persuading the smith who wants the goblins cleared out that, in fact, the party DID clear out the goblins, at least enough that the smith will trust them to the point of doing the minimum verification he allows himself with anybody, and may even be able to persuade the smith to forge them some silver daggers for free as a down payment on a "we definitely will slaughter the wererats for you, sir," quest. But he's not going to convince the smith to forge those silver daggers just because slaying wererats three counties over is such a good and noble task; the smith isn't getting anything out of it.
The Exalted RPG has a nice idea called "Intimacies", where you can't persuade someone of something unless you tie it to something they care about or an aspect of their personality, and it's importance to them must be intense enough to justify what you're asking them to do. If you ask them out the blue to join your rebellion, they'll refuse. If you know they have a Major Intimacy to protecting their family, and you get them to believe their son is going to get conscripted, that gives you a chance.
@@paulgibbon5991 Yeah this basically how I view significant persuasion attempts (especially ones which will have serious narrative impacts): you (as the player) have to come up with an actual compelling argument and your character's persuasion skill determines how convincingly you deliver it. And you cannot persuade/deceive someone about something they wouldn't reasonably believe/want to do. Like, you couldn't persuade someone to sacrifice their best friend to your dark god just because you rolled a nat20 on persuasion. Making persuasion into mind control makes every npc seem like an idiot and ends up peeling away the facade of believability to reveal the game mechanics underneath.
The only thing I banned at my table was summoning spells for exactly the reasons you stated. Summoning an army of wolves SLOWS combat to a crawl. It's fun for the summoner, but it's absolutely tedious for literally everyone else at the table.
A lot of summon spells are balanced, it's just the early spells from the PHB (namely conjure animals) that's crazy. 8 wolves is always crazy, but the spell is just too vague in general, letting you draw from almost any beast statblock. If Onednd is intent on changing druid to not being able to change into any beast, they should also look at this spell too, honestly moreso than druid.
You could also try to say that they: 1) Take their turn directly after the player 2) Throw 1 Dice for all attacks and either throw X times die or do X Times damage and 3) If necessary, use average damage 4) If you want, let them check if the throw was good enough to beat the AC of an extra target and take over excess damage With this everyone can have fun with the Summons without them taking over half the combat time. Did that for my 8 Summons and it only added like 2-5min per turn. Now the wizard is back in its rightful position of wasting every bodies time :D
How my table runs summoning spells when there is more than 1 summoned, the other players get an even amount of creatures to control. The spells says that they are friendly, but not controlled by the summoner. The controlling player gets to use their summon either before or after their own initiative. That way the "slog" isn't so bad since everyone gets to participate.
My DM completely overhauled the conjure animals spell with me. 1) i can choose the animals but limit myself for 3-4 animaltypes. 2) i can have max. 2 pets at the same time. But cause that the pets are a little buffed (still weaker then a mostly oneshot spell) 3) the pets are modified (would be too long for everything). But one eg. Would be spiders: theyr poison ac gets higher, theyr web resets faster and at all are more tool oriented. While wolfes just have more attacks and damage. Ofc all pets also have more hp and higher acs if i upcast the spell and some get new abilities ;) 4) they act after me. For me its far better then strait have a random pet or worse the spell be banned. Also that way the spell feels more like my druids unice spell. That ofc just worked cause i talked with my dm and thought myself options out in the setting my dm gave me and im glad i did that. Ohh and that motivated me to look up more abilities and spells to make it more specific to my characters. Thanks DM ❤️
Eloquence bards are gnarly, but my DMs usually add escalating DCs-- like people eventually catch on to you the fact that you can talk anyone into anything and just refuse to talk to you so you have to be creative about how you use your abilities.
@@BladedwindThis is why I consider the feature, and by extension the subclass poorly designed. You basically have to ignore the feature or make many persuasion and deception tasks impossible if you want it to be remotely balanced. It's really a consequence of the fact that it basically transforms very hard tasks into auto-successes at early levels, so it's too easy to perform checks in the world and this makes it broken. Reliable Talent also needs to be changed with a lower level like 6th or 3rd level and lower minimum rolls, like 4-5, and the same applies to Silver Tongue to make sure you don't make a fool of yourself, but prevent the game from becoming unbalanced or warped heavily.
@@sharmakefarah2064 While I do agree it's incredibly strong in social check situations, it's important to note that Persuasion and Deception checks are not mind control. The tricky part is making sure that the player in question does not abuse the feature to trivialize certain aspects of the game, while also making sure the player feels it's an impactful feature they're getting value from. As for Reliable Talent, I feel it's fine. It comes online much later, and I usually don't see many people complain about how it breaks the game at that level. Heck, many tables don't get to the level where it comes online for Rogue.
@@Bladedwind I agree that there's a tricky line, but I think that it's way harder to balance for primarily because it makes tasks trivial or impossible, and basically means that if you don't make a lot of social tasks impossible, it's easy to trivialize them. It removes the space of hard/very hard, but possible checks, and that's why it's a problem to balance. Persuasion and Deception checks, while not mind control, getting high results almost all the time, especially at the DC 25 and 30 levels, is still going to get insanely good results for you 99.99% of the time, and the fact that it's possible at all speaks to it's brokenness. A reworked feature like this needs to provide space for hard/very hard, but possible tasks to be done, and then it'd be more balanced. On Reliable Talent, I'd like it to be lower level so players can actually use it in a campaign, but if this was at 6th or 3rd level, it would be even more game breaking than Silver Tongue due to applying it to more skills, and that's why I want to nerf it to something like a 5 or so. Prevents making them fools of themselves, but gives more space to hard/very hard, but possible tasks. It's less broken than spellcasting in general, but then again, the full spellcasting feature is a nightmare to balance, and is heavily broken.
I play a twilight cleric in one of my games, and amusingly, the advantage on initiative still leaves me last to act in the party. Thanks for the reminder about twilight shroud's healing, though.
A good solution for Conjure animals that I use when playing a shepherd druid is to split the animals up among all the other players rather than just getting endless turns myself. It's a lot more fun for everyone when you do it that way in my opinion.
You think Instead you could break them up into a group of like 2 or 4? Give them all the same damage roll plus the numbers of wolves in a pack. Then you just cut down on turns by a lot.
@@KW-de9sc Eh, splitting them up among the other players has been super fun, people actually APPRECIATE having a summoner druid at the table if you do it that way.
I mean, fair enough, but since Conjure Animals acts as a group it shouldn't really be THAT long of a turn. Any other class doing some over the top overly complicated strategy during their turn takes roughly the same time. Unless you as a player are mentally slow, attacking with a bunch of animals that can't do much except attack or grapple someone doesn't take a lot of time. Not to mention that, if you summon more, they die quicker due to lower HP so your turns get progressively faster with each round anyway.
In my 2nd ever campaign I had a player play a Shepard Druid, and when they got to like Level 11, he took a 2 level dip in Twilight Cleric. It was a learning curve for me as a DM. In our next campaign he specifically went sub-optimal for combat and focused on optimizing his social interactions and skills without going full broken. It felt like an apology.
I have thought about a Twilight Cleric/Shepard Druid combo before. Having the ability to give temp HP to your summons, your summons getting 2 extra HP per hit dice to their HP max, and they get healed every time they start their turn in your aura, and get healed if they are in your aura anytime you cast a healing spell..... In the right circumstances this build could solo an encounter.
My one DM didn't let players use rage with ANY magic like ability. Shifter transformation, nope Echo knight echo: nope Fbinr smite: nope Left that game for many reasons but thet were weird
@@ShurikenSean I have now added another person to my hit list. What kind of trauma did he have with barbarians to nerf them to such a point? Like, not even Pathfinder 2e has set such idiotic restrictions
@@Catalyst375No. but a Calm Enotions (the second level spell) is enough to just end Rage and instant kill the Barbarian who already failed 3 saves from being smacked enough, and has been moving only because of their rage. Maybe not a Wizard soell, but any caster at that kevel tends ti be really powerful too
Arguably the most powerful ability of the chronurhy wizard is the one you didn't mention. At 14th lv they can change any roll from enemy or foe to the number needed, so the person fails or suceeds the saving throw. No other ability in the game is as powerful when it comes to removing agency. They can make any suck or save spell hit automatically, if the enemy doesn't have legendary resistances anymore.
I would actually argue that the most powerful ability of the chronurgy wizard is actually not any of their class features, but the fact that they, and they alone (along with graviturgy wizards) get access to the dunamancy spell list, which has many useful and poweful spells. You want to get an extra d8 on all initiative rolls for 8 hours, on top of your +Int mod to your initiative already, and nearly guarantee you go first in any combat? Go for it! You want to make any object an immovable rod? Sure! You want to blink an enemy out of existence for a round when they try to cast a spell or attack? Do it! You want to summon an actual fucking black hole on the battlefield? Why the fuck not? The fact that these wizards get access to over a dozen extra spells that they can add to their spell list, some of which are very powerful, is what I believe makes this class so powerful.
I actually played a Shepherd Druid. To streamline the action economy of my turns, we just lumped all of their attacks into one so it didn't take nearly as long.
One thing I will always remember in my first DnD campaign was that our already pretty large party (there were 7 PC's total) had a druid in it who loved to use conjure animals, specifically a horde of feral hogs, and it made the already long turn order take even longer, so a subclass fully dedicated to those spells, yeah I usually don't use the ban hammer but Shepherd Druids sound like an exception
How to nerf portent: - make it the closer of 2 rolls to 10 or 11 instead of just one roll and done (in the case of 10 and 11, player picks which). - make all roll results not visible (roll behind your DM screen, give your players their own screens to roll behind but double check that they're reporting first roll totals to you).
One of my friends is playing a Divination Wizard in one of our games right now, and it's been seriously awesome! So many huge moments from week to week by careful and strategic use of that Portent Die!
I like the note at the end, and while it is important for players to behave i think its also important for dm’s to understand that they can plan for their players hijinks in non invasive and even engaging ways without altering the subclasses abilities. For a lot of the magic users a counter spell or an enchanted pendant of abjuration could help prevent them from messing with important characters like royalty, magic users, and powerful monsters. Another thing is that the technical language can be exploited in immersive ways like abilities that require sight being blocked by magical darkness, or enforcing the verbal, somatic, and material portions of spells which would immediately give away some sneaky under the hand casting. Specifically for the barbarian make a homebrew rule that when a creature has some sort of status like confused or frightened that they cant rage anymore (i cant remember the exact rules for rage so if this contradicts something maybe not) but as important as it is to be civil with these things i think its just as important to think creatively and deepen your immersion and world building by thinking of ways people would try to prevent people with these abilities from running amuck
Been a DM for over 20 years now, if a DM bans an entire Subclass / Class / or Multiclass because of Shenanigans, the DM isn't doing their job correctly. There are so many way to get around a players powerful abilities. But even more so, I always let my players know if they plan on abusing skills that are considered "busted" then expect me to do the same. What's worse than a Min Max player? A Min Max DM... I love for my players to get to fulfill their power fantasies while playing their classes. However they can absolutely expect me to do the same back to them. As a DM you need to support your players choices, not ban them. Think outside of the box to handle the cheese builds and the game gets extremely fun.
Here’s how *I* would fix these. Eloquence Bard: Change it so that only a 4-9 would act as a 10, and a 1-3 would act as an auto failure. Insight checks made against the player have a maximum DC of 15. More importantly, the DM should take into account the relationship between the player and NPC, as well as Risk to the npc in question, when doing persuasion. Someone who hates your guts isn’t going to risk their job for you. Zealot Barbarian: Still being able to act at 0 points is fine, but he still does if he fails all his death saves. There would also be no possibility of stabilization if he’s raging so they’d need to make a throw every turn and HOPE they don’t get three fails cuz that’s death right there. Divenation wizard: there’s really nothing wrong with this. The long rest thing is bullshit though, so punish them for taking the time to do it. Twilight Cleric: My roommate is playing this one in my current campaign lol. Remove the Cleric Level addition from the temp hp added. That’s insane. Hexblade: Honestly no idea on that one. Shepard Druid: LIMIT. THE SUMMONS. Artificers: As an artificer player I TAKE OFFENSE TO THIS. Just ban Replicate Magic Item. You’ll be fine. Chonorgy wizard: I’d need more time to fully balance it out but my first instinct would be to ban concentration spells from working within the bead. Also, letting FAMILIARS use it? Nah, fam.
9:42 Suprised to hear Shepherd Druid is on the list, since afaik DMs' main issue with summoning spells seems to be the number of creatures you can summon, so the issue is not the subclass itself (so just stick to spells that summon just one beast - like Summon Beast from Tasha's - and you should stil be able to use the subclass effectively without triggering the DM).
Yeah if my party wants to summon multiple creatures, it's pretty much one entity with multi attack anyway. They are all attacking the same target, and I will be doing the rolls digitally so it doesn't take ages. If they want to have full control, they can summon one creature.
@@jishani1 Sure, that's a possibility, but an unlikely one. DMs are already a rare breed, and most don't like dealing with something like Conjure Animals since it can both trivialize and bog down combat. Even if you convince the DM to use mob rules (which allow you make a bunch of attacks at once without rolling anything, just using expected/average damage values), there's still the issue of summoning multiple creatures being OP.
I made a halfling divination wizard for a game once. With Potent, halfling lucky, and the lucky feet I could modify a lot of rolls. The group roleplayed it as my character going back in time to fix a bad roll. Kept calling him time lord. Was a lot of fun.
it is for this reason that halflings in my homebrew world are extinct (the reason also the cause of gnomes being an endangered species), and the lucky feat is getting banned. also, a friend of mine played a divination wizard the first time I ran a 5E campaign for my group. This was a decade ago, when 5E had just come out and there were like.... a whopping 5 books for it (which included the core 3 of PHB, DMG, and MM). He loves his wizards and since divination wizards were fucking useless in 3.5E, he wanted to see what they were like in 5E, thinking they'd be equally useless. Needless to say, after that campaign and how fucking busted it became (especially when literally everyone at the table took the Lucky feat, including him), he's kindly agreed to never play divination wizards ever again.
I'm honestly surprised that Death Domain isn't on the list. I've been in so many campaigns (notably evil campaigns) where Death Domain was banned. I think it may be a similar reason as to the shepherd druid, as, like the shepherd druid summons, death domain also comes with it's own minions- the undead
oh my god, its SUCH a pet peeve of mine when people ban or even just gripe about artificer for being too mechanical. IK thats the flavor wizards went with and carried over from eberon but artificers literally just make magic items- they can be flavored as anything AND THE WRITE UP EVEN SAYS SO!!!! Enchanted dolls, rock golems, rune engraved armor, etc etc. You could have it be ghostly possession, or nature themes like growing plants to shape the way elves do, even just the classic dwarves like you mention, magic charms or talisman, enchanted gem work, LITERALY WEAVING THE WEAVE. Drives me up the wall how uncreative some people are, its not even a stretch of the imagination! Unless literally every magic item in your world is either non-existent or supposed to be hard to make in your world, there is no good reason to ban artificer when you could literally just ask them to flavor it in a non mechanical way.
@@RaethFennec its insane tho cause its not even like you the DM needs to make a solution!!! Just ask the player to do a basic reflavor and clear it with you, its literally that simple! That goes beyond lazy into just pure blind pride. maddening stuff
@@icefang111 Hahaha you're not wrong! Maybe some of them worry if they give an inch, the player will try to take a mile and it will become a point of contention. I don't know. I can't understand their mindset because I'm very flexible and adaptive with my players. I'm not beholden to anything.
Playing one Too. We homebrewed it to give Every CREATURE in the Radius the tempHP, Not only allies. Also I never use it, as basically everyone in our Party hates each other. But toll the Dead is nice.
3) Divination wizard - Have your portent. As the DM I'm simply going to put you through enough challenges per long rest so that you are forced to use it and then STILL operate for some time without it until you get somewherr you can safely long rest. No way in hell a savvy DM gets completely undermined by only 2 rolls.
So you're saying, if a player shows up as a Divination wizard, you're going to change the ecology, pace, and story of your game to punish the player for wanting to use a class feature, and therefore put pressure on the other players who may not want to play optimized characters, instead of just letting someone know that you're not willing to let them play that character? "If you're going to play a divination wizard, I'm going to make certain your class features are worthless."
@@KitsuneSoup Yeah I think ramping up the difficulty just because you want players to not have fun with their features isnt the way to go. Its like draining spellcasters of spellslots and then continuing to push the adventure while the non-spellcasters have fun. I do think long rest abuse can be a thing- but 2 or 3 rolls getting replaced- and thats even assuming the wizard rolled well- shouldn’t damper sessions at all. Esp if the roll doesnt use modifiers.
@@KitsuneSoup I don't think that's the point so much as saying "cool, you can *absolutely* do your fun/awesome thing, but the whole world doesn't pause long enough for you to while away a week digging for a 20 or a 1, and you're going to be facing more than one significant roll per rest period so you can't just cheese the whole game." It's letting the players, *plural,* have their fun, and allowing the DM to have fun as well. It's cooperative storytelling and *every player* should have a chance to do their "thing" without said thing being a crux point around which the world revolves.
@alexisauld7781 My problem is more that he said he would deliberately increase encounter rates to ensure that the player has no choice but to burn those dice in suboptimal situations. The rest of the party doesn't have infinite resources either, so based on his statement, he's going to completely change the world danger level and allow someone to play a character, instead of just saying no. It'd be like telling the party they don't get combat encounters any more because the barbarian deals too much damage; it's an active penalty to the table because you won't say no.
I used a multiclassed Chronurgy Wizard in one of my games and oh man--Silvery Barbs + Features + Luck is a painful combo for a DM to deal with especially since I used it with the levitation spell in an open space xD I felt bad for my DM but it was just fun watching them struggle. Granted, I got kinda focused in the next big fight since BBEG hated my chara but it was worth it!
You forgot the additional problem with twilight clerics: at some point, that aura is half cover and hp regen. So, unless your mosters all have staffs of fire (and all took a 1 level dip in warlock), you are now firing into a mobile bunker that passively heals anyone inside of it.
Of these the only two I think I could possibly have an issue with are Eloquence Bard and Twilight Cleric. Neither are because they would make it trickier to GM for. In both cases I feel the subclass has the potential to dominate certain scenarios to such an extent that it would make the game less fun for the other players. Eloquence in particular can trivialise social encounter so much that unless your group is ok with one player being the party face in all situations I'd be wary of including it. I'd love to play one, personally, but I'd always ask the rest of the group before I did.
I have been playing an eloquence bard for about a year (almost level 5) and the party roll dynamics make it a non-issue. The other PCs know it's my PC's thing, but they rarely let that stop them from trying their own persuasion and such; if it's in character to step up and say something, they do. Our ranger shares a decent CHA score and tries persuasion relatively often, and our fighter intimidates a lot as well (which happens to be one of my expertise) By that same token, I've had to rp the in-character emotional stress it gives her when she has to be the face most of the time, particularly dangerous situations (Talking to dragons, kobold and goblin tribes, casters, etc) Despite being the party face, it doesn't really turn it into a videogame experience where my character is the party face all the time in all situations. So my point is, it's only as much of an issue as the table itself makes of it, if that's any consolation. Personally, I find Paladins and Hexblades kinda step on the same train of thought - they can both be the face, the best damage dealer, and a tank all at the same time to the point where an optimized one can make other party players feel left out.
Do remember with Portent you have to call out your use before the target rolls their dice, so you might use your portent on something that would have already been a failure
That is actually something that a lot of tables do the other way around, instead treating portent like a reaction. But yeah, the ability straight up reads, that you have to do it beforehand.
The way I did a Cha-based paladin was a homebrew a fellow player and the GM did for me... they reflavored Shillelagh (applied to whip and dagger) and Greenflame Blade to cleric variations and then I took Blessed Warrior and then I had charisma based attacks.
I’m currently playing a half elf college of eloquence bard in a solo wild beyond the witch light campaign (to compensate for having no real party i’ve formed a party of DMPCs). Having loads of fun with him. He’s currently got an extra + 5 to all charisma checks on top of the 20 charisma and expertise in persuasion and he has wings so he can fly 35 feet equal to my walking speed (as a half wood elf I took fleet of foot for the extra 5 foot walking speed).
The gloomstalker ranger is immune to enemy darkvision meaning against most creatures that live in the dark you can become permanently invisible to them since most non humanoids cannot produce light. Couple this with the warlock devils sight either from the feat or multiclass is very broken in many dungeons. There are ofc enemies that can still see you with various other sensory abilities but the majority will not.
Sorry for late, but many enemy in the underdark have complementary sense as their method to locate enemies. Alot have blind sense or more weird esoteric one tough.
@@jeromemartel3916 i didnt specifically mean underdark but more like caves :) but yeah there are many but i still ban the subclass for free invisibility against most creatures especially if the player plays well and has high stealth and i specifically did mention other sensory abilities.
Will add my own Artificer experience. While guns were not allowed (initially, much later on we would see them), my character leaned towards the alchemy subclass, which I flavoured as making breads and similar savouries. Would think something like that would be allowed within a high-fantasy setting
My DM almost banned light clerics after a campaign where one (played by me) broke all sense of balance. In my defense he gave me the book of exalted deeds and the talisman of pure good which you should never give to your party if you value the balance. I did convince him to let me play another one because it'd make sense for my character thematically but i think every encounter will take place somewhere flammable so i can't fireball spam.
My suggestion to any player who wants to play an artificer in a high magic/fantasy setting, is to theme it around runic magic. This makes them a great choice if you want to play as a rune priest or some other type of not-quite caster. Other examples: an alchemist could be an apothecary, seeking to provide healing through balms and tinctures rather than potentially costly magic. Battlesmiths could be someone who made a golem without the usual tools (aka the manual), though the process might have drained them as a high level caster, leaving them to figure out ways to fight without super high level magic. Artillerist could be a character that found specilization through modifying wands/staves for additional effects. An armorer could be someone applying runes to their armor, similar to a rune knight in a way, to grant them more power. Please note: if a dm feels the need to ban a class/subclass because of power, or potentially other reasons, sure I get it, but banning something because it "wouldn't fit" just honestly feels lazy, and if as a dm you can't see a reason to allow something due to flavor, then ask the player to help you understand why the class should be allowed/could be reflavored to be allowed. That's the beauty of the game of any ttrpg, things can be modified to suit the needs of the group.
I have banned artificer from a game as technology was very limited and they really didn’t fit, but later in the same story but different campaign they are allowed
Reminder that eberron, the setting that artificers are from, has 0 tech, it's all magic. Artificers are magical craftsmen, not irl technological engineers
@@tomykong2915 the point here was that magic wasn’t very developed either - wizards were also not allowed for the same reason. Magic had barely started to be codified and weaponry was still in a pre-Roman era
I think that ultra-charismatic characters can have their charisma work as a double edged sword for them. Sure, you can get by persuading reasonable and oafish people a lot, but every now and then you will meet someone who becomes OBSESSED with you. A creepy stalker who will commit crimes just to be with you on their own terms.
Or somebody who is absolutely convinced that you are using some kind of magic to be able to persuade every person you come across. (Minor Side Villain hint hint)
Another problem with chronergy wizard is the extra spells and only they get (including graviturgist). Temporal shunt is absolutely broken, a no save counter spell that also temporarily removes the offender.
Definitely agree with the ending statement there. All of the issues that were brought up, are honestly just lazy DMing, mixed with the issue in which I hate 5E for, which is removing a lot of rules and options that normally let even inexperienced DMs from counter-acting most of these issues.
2 things about the Eloquence Bard: 1) Some things are so set in stone that persuasion power doesn't really matter (i.e, a male bard trying to seduce a lesbian), so it's not necessarily the be-all-end-all of social encounters. 2) A highly charismatic person like that would probably attract a lot of attention, so as a DM you could have that notoriety work against the bard. There are hypnotic people like this in real life, but that doesn't mean they ALWAYS get EVERYTHING they want.
wise words a nice rule of thumb is, if the suggestion spell can't do it, a persuasion check can't either. should be obvious, but interestingly enough, most dm horror scenarios of that kind violate it
It's like rolling an athletics check to leap to the moon. No matter how high you roll it fails. Sometimes NPCs just can't be convinced of things. The king will never just randomly hand over his crown to a stranger because the stranger asked really nicely.
@@derimperator3847Eh, suggestion is frankly ludicrous in what it does, and there's an argument that their power level is different amongst different things, and giving people unlimited uses of suggestion would break the game world, so it's still way too good for what it does. Basically all DM horror stories, with the exception of outright damaging you is allowed, and you don't even know you're mind controlled/charmed.
Please give attention to the assassin subclass, which gets banned because there are no stealth rules much less surprise rounds, so if you play one in a table a DM may just look confused at you and ask "what is a surprise round" or "wait you hide? But they know where you are"
Well, this is a weird take. The rules for surprise rounds and hiding are all in the phb. Surprise rounds is probably one of the most commonly changed mechanic in the game. It's basically everyone rolls initiative, and if the ambushed enemies haven't gone in the first round yet they have no reactions. They also can't take any actions or move on their first turn. In this, the assassin has advantage against anyone that didn't realize they were there or attacking. If the assassin beats them in initiative, the attack is automatically a critical hit, if it hits. As for stealth, you need to be unseen. You can't be standing out in the open, in line of sight, and go "I hide. that's a roll of 27. They can't see me." If you have attacked someone and wish to hide from them, you have to break line of sight. In a forest, there would realistically be any number of bushes to hide behind, as well as possibly climbing trees, and using the vast number of trees to keep line of sight broken. In a castle, running out of the room will leave the enemy going "He could have gone anywhere. We might never find him." Even in a room with a heavy fight, if there's lots of furniture or flipped tables to hide behind, it is possible that the assassin might move behind these things and go unnoticed for a short time, to which it may seem like they teleported from one end of the fight to the other, but really they just walked. Where ever they decide to attack from, they would be attacking from stealth and have advantage. Unless, of course, they failed their hide check. How the DM wants to run detection for this is a little more up in the air. Passive perception is a thing, so generally the rogue would be rolling stealth against a flat number. But then would the seeker have disadvantage for being in combat? They can use their action to search. I don't remember anything about having disadvantage on this, it would have to be something specific doing so, such as dim light giving you disadvantage. can you hide in dim light? Not really. But passively, you might not notice traps, writing on walls, or secret doors, if the -5 to your passive brings it below the dc to find such things.
I'm currently running a game for a party composed of: a lizardfolk Bear Totem Barbarian, a kalashtar Twilight Cleric, a fey-touched Eloquence Bard, an aarakocra Astral Monk, and a Phantom Rogue. They are a party of monsters who breeze through modules 3-4 levels above party level and stun-lock or Polymorph their way through anything that isn't immune to it. It's glorious, but a lot of work for me to give them a balanced challenge. Although I've almost killed them twice by accident - once with Mind Flayers (Int saves) and once by putting three Banshees on the board at once. But despite some tense moments they pulled through like champs! XD
I watched one DND campaign where the boss was a Zellot Barbarian. It was fun watching the players get increasingly exasperated as health pools dwindled and things became increasingly desperate.
I played a Tortle Chronurgy wizard. Being able to choose whether I allow an enemy hit to land or if I want to block it with shield (22AC), chronal shift or silvery barbs is a nice feeling. Our artificer also has shield and impose disadvantage with his steel defender, and the sorceror has silvery barbs as well. Our DM has rerolled a lot of attacks and saving throws. My tortle got swalled by a shambling mound a couple weeks ago though.
Something I started doing with guards and other minions was using the charisma modifier of their superior. Their vulnerability to persuasion thus becomes a measure of either their loyalty or fear. It makes for a nice scaling from city guards disobeying their captain to palace guards disobeying their king, etc.
I have a divination wizard in the first campaign I started running. Rarely would a session span across more than one day/long rest, and she'd often forget the portent roll in the middle of a session, so she imposed the rule that portent is once per session instead of once per long rest. Her use of a portent dice ended up creating a major moment in the story when she forced her father figure to lose a saving throw against her Detect Thoughts spell, and the characters' relationship has been strained as a result.
For the college of eloquence bard you could introduce plotlines where spies have taken notice of their lies and persuasions and are investigating the party members, always following them around or integrating into the staff of places the party may visit in order to reveal their scheemes. Tjis way you will have hidden enemies that can counter the bard more easily and lead to fun encounters
Never banned any subclasses and never will. Learn to deal with whatever your players throw at you and let them shine sometimes. Let that twilight cleric outheal your combat every once in a while, let the eloquence bard do what the class was made for within reason. A good DM can adapt. Not to mention you can add homebrew fights and abilites to make it more interesting and possibly add some counters so the game doesn't get too boring.
I only recently started playing DnD with a friend of mine as the dm and his group. I'm generally pretty introverted as is in reality, but I wanted to try and push myself a bit to get more social by picking a bard, a class more known for roleplay than combat prowess. Eventually I picked up college of eloquence, not because I knew anything about it, but because I figured it would play more into the character. Eventually I see that I actually did have silver tongue, though at the time I assumed it meant you got to treat lower than a 9 AFTER you added the bonus, so I initially pretty much ignored it since I already had a +9 to my persuasion, as I had convinced myself that literally being incapable of rolling lower than a 19 would be way too broken for it to be how it works and clearly it meant in total. Lo and behold I eventually start reading up on my character as a whole only to find out that, no, it means that whatever shows on the dice gets changed. So even without having any idea of what I'm doing and not optimizing it at all, my shifter bard can pretty much talk his way out of anything.
Regarding eloquence bards, one way they can balance it is simply say these particular guards are well-trained and will always follow procedures and verify certain things regardless of what you say. That's reasonable because that's how a lot of things are done in real life. You might be able to convince them to bend a few very minor rules (like leaving you alone for a few seconds when they really shouldn't) but they will still stick to their core duties.
One of my early characters was a lucky halfling divination wizard. I was pretty new, and thought I had stumbled onto something fun unique powerful and of course, that no one else had ever heard of. When I found a video describing it like a month later I was just shocked, and I've kind of been sad about it ever since. But I always try to build fun and unique characters, so my intention all along was to make a little fun having gremlin type of guy, and I picked an interesting spell list with specific areas of focus, and skipped a lot of what I believed to be the strongest spells in 5E, I skipped a lot of mainstays including things like Fireball and Fly. I still have a pretty good spell list, still do a pretty good bit of support and some damage, and I've held myself to rules about when and why my character uses class features. Usually for selfish reasons of course.
I play divination wizards a lot. As a support class, it keeps my party alive more than anything else. Occasionally it means player x that can't roll for anything gets to do something cool.
Twilight cleric can also fly in dim light and they get the busted "Circle of Power" spell at lvl 9, a Paladin spell usually not available until lvl 17, it's basically super evasion for the whole party.
one dm i know banned the wild magic barbarian. turns out the default WM barb isn't busted, its just that the only player who plays barbarians used a homebrew version that he forgot to ask about this homebrew version had a d100 table that had some busted stuff like casting magic missile at fifth level
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I need to thank you for perfection 👌 my future DM will HATE MY GUTS, but that's totally fine by me😂
We have an Evil Campaign planned and i was looking for a good charlatan. Enter Eloquence bard with charlatan back ground. Since I want to be Evil, but have people think i am a good person😂 you just made that a whole lot easier to accomplish 👌😁
Could you list all the shows, animations, etc played during this video? Some of them look cool and I hate the fact you didn't make a mention of them in the descriptions...
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Also the second link does not work
Zealot Barbarian vs Chronology Wizard
Banning a barbarian subclass is like taking away the knife that someone brought to a gun fight because the knife can’t run out of ammo
I love that analogy.
thats the best analogy for this subclass ban for sure cause the zealot literally cant die, but like...whats he gonna do. sure as hell aint gonna force cage microwave your ass
Perfect
Exactly since it's not all that hard to knock one out with mind attacks.
@@rabbidninja79 any incapacitation effect will insta-kill a dead zealot, so yeah you’re correct it isn’t hard at all
That last message is very true.
As a first time DM, a friend made a Shepherd druid. It was always annoying with all those summons, but we fell into a pattern and could get through turns quickly. Was always strong, but everyone else in the party participated well. He never was the DPS, just tank/support.
I never realized how much he held back until I announced 'This will be the last session until further notice ' and did a massive boss fight/protect the castle from waves of demons thing at lvl 7.
Low and behold, that meek shepherd druid rained hellfire down upon the world. Those demons never expected long extinct species to tear them to shreds....
A good optimizer will never go all-out unless the table or situation demands it, because the most important things to optimize first are fun and table etiquette. But oh boy is it satisfying when you get a justifiable opportunity to pop off.
@@RaethFennec haha yeah, I love it. Hiding your true power to unleash at right moment must be one of the most satisfying things ever.
@@RaethFennec I've been playing an Arcane Archer like this. My DM loves to create magic items and he knows I like picking up little knick-knacks that my party is like "Eh, not the best, replace it".
In my last session, 2 players slapped damage buffs on me and the DM was like "Well, the NPC you're trying to reach isn't doing very good", so I decided to 'pop off' to save an NPCs mother. 4 attacks (Action Surge)+Sharpshooter+Buffs= 153 damage in a round to a Yuan-ti Anathema at level 7 lol. Half the table was kind of slack jawed because normally the way I do combat is environment interaction, making creative use of magic items or just usable items in general or just provide simple cover fire for the more squishy party members.
I don't like flexing despite my love of number crunching, so I do my part to roleplay more often than dunk lol.
@@thebenis3219 153!? Those were some powerful buffs for level 7. I'm thinking Dragonwing Longbow with Hunter's Mark and Flame Arrows and a crit or something. lol
Druids in general are just powerful
remember as a twilight cleric you get MAGICAL flight with HEAVY armor at 6TH LEVEL
Yes but you might lose effective range with channel divinity for your teammates that cant fly.
@@okgut2033This is true. But being out of enemy melee reach is still being out of enemy melee reach
@@okgut2033 Sure but if they all somehow die you can fly away!
Oath of Watchers gets to essentially be Dragon Senes at Lv 20. I get Lv 6 is early but banning anything is genuinely just retarded. DMs can always improvise, if youre creative you can get over being a shit DM
@@youtubesucks3490ou say that; But there's alot of bull some players can pull with some subclasses; especially with multi classing. If you as a DM know you can't handle a certain combo or sub class; it's fine to ban it or talk to the player about nerfing it/not using it in a certain way.
That's what a Good dm does; Adapt and talk to their players and don't sit there taking all their Overpowered shit. If they know they can't handle it.
Surprised you mentioned Twilight Cleric and not Peace Cleric, which also gets banned often for making the entire party resistant to everything, giving everyone double bless, and making any enemy attacks strike a revolving door of HP pools
Twilight is probably the single most powerful subclass in the game.
@@Kylora2112 Easy enough to sprinkle my encounters with magic users knowing Ice Knife. Not enough to entirely stopping cleric from doing anything and destroying the players fun, but get them playing smartly. Everything other than mass heal that a Twilight Cleric gets is able to be gotten easily with multiclasses that make cleric better anyway or races that already have proficiency in heavy armor. Being strong is fine. Being OP, where no one else has any fun is not. Those are the only things that should be being banned at a table.
@@Kylora2112i think that title goes to chronurgy wizard
@@vr4n4 Chronurgy and Graviturgy are both Critical Role quasi-homebrew, so I don't count them as *official* content (like any of their partnered content), even though both are incredibly stupidly broken.
@@Kylora2112 They aren't actually partnered content, they are fully official in the setting that is published by WoTC. They occupy the same position as Ebberon content. 100% official just a little off for forgotten realms content.
I once saw a Reddit post about how cows are cr1/4 so you can summon a bajillion of them, and you can summon them 60 above a creature so they fall and take like 6d10 damage PER COW
it's true, I'm a DM, they just destroyed a Stone Giant easily
Summon a buncha cows, call that spell Bovine Intervention
Summon a bunch of cows, call that Bovine Intervention
@@sarge1408 🤣🤣🤣
Well they got mass.. M O O.
Atleast it isnt BG3 Owlbear leaping off a stack of crates and decking the Golem boss lol.
Funnily enough, i think we could build a pretty good party out this: Zealot barbarian as the frontliner, Twilight cleric as the “healer” (technically more like a force field generator), eloquence bard to trivialize social situations and add a little dex to the party, and either a chrono and/or divination wizard to trivialize everything else.
Also, something something hexblade/paladin SMITE.
And the objective of these legendary heros, the ones who can rivalize against the gods, are none other than... Get fame and funds to open a local bakery called "the cutie pie"
Against such a party the enemies must be smarter and higher CR. Better yet you just designed the sinister 6 as villains.
@@its_sisha_not_chair505form pointy hat ideas (((or objective of legendary hero to figth family of lich of ever class (lich of bard=intoner),(lich of druids=bligth),(lich of artificers=necromaton) and head of family (lich of corcerer=hierarch) and they ally family of monk way of the flesh))) form pointy hat ideas
Funnily enough, in the game I am in, we have a zealot barbarian/glory paladin multiclass, an eloquence bard/hex blade multiclass, a moon druid, a friendly NPC is an artificer, the backup character of one of the players is a chronurgy wizard, and (something i think is an underrated class that if people looked at more would be banned more) my character, an echo knight fighter/soulknife rogue
Got a sorcadin, Artichron, twilight shadow monk, psiknife and Shepard muscle druid that slogs the fights with creatures
The whole "use X mind-control spell on the king so he gives us money" thing should have been dropped a long time ago. There's no way that a king does this without someone on his council, or even his Queen going like, "Hey, wait a minute..."
Right? Suggestion has both verbal and material components. Everyone in the room watches you very obviously cast a spell on the king, and they're like "Huh, ok, I guess.."? Nah fam. In my game that would be an instant roll initiative.
@@theunluckybard7517subtle spell
@@freyrgrimsson4607or the very powerful king in a world full of magic has an item that halts mind control, and charming?
@@prophetchosen862 fair enough
It's a whole campaign plot. The king is under mind control, heroes will notice and try and stop it.
I would never ban an Eloquence Bard. Persuasion is not mind control, and you only get to roll when the DM calls for it (the appropriate situation).
I've never heard of Moon Druids getting banned. That made me laugh.
I never banned Moon Druids (or any subclass really), but I run almost exclusively low level D&D, and they do kinda overshadow many other characters at low level. It's fine if you go for long-term progression where other characters will have their time to shine, but otherwise I see how it could be frustrating.
@@Darkprosper - having different abilities between the classes is a good thing. In what way besides survivability do you see them overshadowing other classes?
@@sleepinggiant4062 Basically, they are on par with the best melee warrior builds, while still being a strong caster. It may be frustrating for a fighter or a barbarian to see another character as strong as them with still a whole bunch of class features on top, or for a paladin to be completely overshadowed in every possible way.
On top of that, they are incredibly versatile, but to be fair that's a druid problem, not specifically a moon druid problem. In fact they are probably the least versatile of the druids.
@@Darkprosper - Every possible way? No. They are not as strong as the other melee classes at level 1. Once they get wild shape, they are as strong only twice a day (not stronger). To Hit is comparrible, and damage is on par with using a 1 handed weapon (2Her is better). Granted, they do have a huge HP pool to go through, but that is the only thing that overshadows other melee classes. Their AC sucks, they can't communicate, and cannot cast spells while wildshaped. Fighters and barbarians are 'always on', and not a twice a day thing.
One of my players is a swashbuckler rogue with expertise in persuasion and deception. With reliable talent, he can't roll less than a 23 in those skills.
It is quite challenging to prep fo my sessions because of it. Whenever the party is in a social encounter, he is basicaly the only one to play, which is borring for everyone else. Because he is intelligent and a great roleplayer, I have to make most of the fights mendatory by trying to create narative reasons justifying why he wouldn't be able to resolve them diplomaticaly, otherwise he just would.
I also have to keep some encounters solvable through social interactions, otherwise his build would be worthless.
He clearly is the character that require the most work from me, even though he is the weakest of the party when it comes to combat.
Having watched Fantasy High, I honestly stan the divination wizard. With the right player and the portent coming in clutch, it can make for some amazing moments
This, so much this. A lot of DM'ing comes down to moments of pure pressure: party is near death, nearly out of options, and you crit the cleric, knowing it's probably the start of TPK (those aren't fun from the other side of the screen either) only for the Wizard to go: NO. It's a 2. I feels just a good as the DM when that moment is created, something that will be talked about for years.
How about a full party of divination wizards?
"Im all around you and you don't even know it, Portent everywhere in this bitch"
I remember using one of THOSE Eloquence bards to make think a few bandits that a small cup was actually a magic item that sucked everything it was pointed at and forced on them "plane shift" so they thought that we had a cup that could send you to another dimension
Imagine a random homeless person that was really REALLY eloquent walked up to your car and "rolled a 20" in explaining to you that his magic banana could end the world. And he will totally do it, too, unless you get out of your car and hand him your keys and wallet. You would laugh and drive away no matter what he said. If it was your mom or whoever you would trust the most in the whole world you would not give her your car. If it was the Pope or the President or whoever is the person you consider the greatest authority figure in the world you would not give that person your car. This is why the implementation chosen for social skill rolls in 5e is a stupid game design decision.
@@googiegress The difference is we don't live in a world of actual magical items. If the same homeless man approached you in an alley and "rolled a 20" to convince you that he had a gun and would kill you if you didn't give him your wallet and shoes, you would walk home barefoot.
@@abonynge You are proven wrong by reality, my friend. While there are carjackings on occasion, it is not simply a matter of anyone walking up and "making their roll" and 5% of the time walking away with literally anything they want. Reality is just not like that.
Secondly, the homeless guy with a gun has a wild power imbalance vs. a typical office worker on their commute. That power imbalance lends credence to the scam. Guns are outsized int heir leveling-out capability; if guns didn't exist and the homeless guy convinced you he had a knife, you'd just run away.
It's a lot like a pair of 1st level Humans in D&D facing off but one of them has a Wand of Magic Missiles, or there's a 1st level Human facing off against a 10th level. So it is that a piddly-ass crapsack Bard who picked a build off Reddit approaches someone with a title of nobility or ownership of a business, and there's literally nothing that Bard can do or say that would elevate him in the eyes of his betters TO THE POINT THAT THEY GIVE HIM EVERYTHING.
Furthermore, it is bad game design policy for that to be a possibility, because if one PC can do it then we must assume there are significant numbers of NPCs who do it too. Which means the world is only and strictly populated by all-powerful low-level Bards and the remaining 99.99999% of the population can possess only the things those Bards can't be bothered to take.
Nobody wants a game like that. Ergo, Bards must not be enabled to do that, not even once. So it doesn't matter what your arguments are, because the end result is BS that no reasonable person would stand for.
@@googiegress You really underestimate how successful carjacking attempts are. Firearms are only present in 38% of carjackings. In 41% of carjackings, the offender is unarmed. You live in some kind of fantasy land where people do not have a fear for their well being and it is crazy.
No one is arguing that a lord should give a Bard everything they own. This dude just said he convinced some thugs he had a cup that could suck them into another dimension. In a world with magical items this is very comparable to convincing someone you have a gun you don't have.
Nearly every DM agrees that a Nat 20 does not simply mean the impossible happens. You are screaming into the ether about an argument no one is making.
No one has the expectation to walk up to the BBEG and say "Kill yourself or I will kill you." then roll a Nat 20 and the campaign is over level 1.
@@googiegress It's not 5e's problem, it's DM's problem. DM can always tell them: ok, bandits believe you but they are too desperate/high on some underdark shrooms/mind controlled by the lich so they don't care and will attack you anyway. But since they beleive you - you can use the cup to effectively cast fear on them once, for one turn.
I think siobhan in fantasy high proves that its mostly up to the player to not break the game, not the subclass. Whenever they would use a portent roll it was always spur of the moment rather than "hey I got a nat 20 lets go do something absolutely insane and auto succeed". It actually was very fun to watch.
Yeah I play a div wizard and the idea of basing my actions around portents has never occurred to me. those rolls are for giving my PC's girlfriend better initiative rolls and saving throws bc she rolls terribly
@@caseyw1288the kindest soul in the comments 😂
Bro I just played a character in a TTRPG called "Siobhan"
This comment briefly had me asking questions lol
Tbf because of the pace at which a D20 campaign moves there aren't that many long rests. As a result, there's less scope for abusing the power of just waiting around in a village until you get a nat20 one day and going off to do something. Plus Brennan (in his usual brilliant DM way) in Sophomore Year made the party scared of taking rests, which made lessened the effectiveness of the portents even more
@@SciFiPhiChiPsi Again though, that's the player abusing the subclass, not the subclass being wildly unbalanced. If div wizard is making the game less fun for your party or DM because everyone just takes long rest after long rest waiting for the pocket nat20, it's not that div wizard is making the game less fun, it's that the people at the table need to have a talk about metagaming.
Gloom Stalker ranger with Crossbow expert and a two level dip in Twilight Cleric sounds thematic and dangerous.
Im running this exact PC rn (only diffrence i also took a dip into fighter for action surge and got sharpshooter aswell). This effectivly turns me into a minigun and is mighty fun to play
Played this build as a Monsters of the Multiverse Bugbear not too long ago. Also added some levels into Assassin and eventually 2 levels in Fighter for Action Surge. Safe to say, I oneshotted pretty much anything I could sneak up on. Coupled with the extra turn I gave my team from surprise attacks and the fact I could scout 300 feet ahead while also being a backup Cleric made the DM have to kill off my character through an untreatable disease in one of the final battles. It was sad, but understandable. He let me play as one of the NPC's who just so happened to be a polymorphed dragon so I wasn't really complaining. The last boss fight was pretty epic.
@@reokado4783 I did something similar, except I specifically went Echo Knight as well. At level 9 I rarely go below 70 damage on average in the first round of combat
Here's my build by endgame, campaign ended at level 16. Played a dragon for the last session since my boy was too good for his own good.
- 5 gloom stalker, 4 assassin, 2 twilight cleric, 4 brute
- Feats: stalker, piercer, sharpshooter
- Damage modifiers for first turn: (I think I got them all, tell me if I didn't)
- 3 attacks: extra attack + dread ambusher
- Action Surge: + 1 action after every short rest
- Assassinate: crit on surprise attacks (roll damage dice twice)
- Used a longbow: + 1d8 damage
- Ability modifier for dexterity: +4
- (Bugbear Racial Skill) Surprise Attack: + 2d6 damage if I have the higher initiative
- Sneak Attack: + 2d6 damage for one attack
- Dread Ambusher: + 1d8 damage for one attack
- Brute Force: + 1d4 damage
- Piercer: + 1d8 damage on crit since I used a longbow
- Hunter's Mark: + 1d6 damage
- Sharpshooter: +10 damage flat
- Potential damage for the first turn: (assuming I hit all attacks and land a surprise attack which wasn't hard for this build)
- Basic attack + bugbear + brute + hunter's mark = Avg/Max
- 1d8 + 2d6 + 1d4 + 1d6 = 15 to 30 per attack (I got 3 so x3 = 45 to 90) (x2 for action surge = 90 to 180) (x2 again for assassinate = 180 to 360)
- Piercer + sharpshooter + ability modifier = Avg/Max
- 1d8 + 10 + 4 = 18 to 22 per attack (I got 3 so x3 = 54 to 66) (x2 for action surge = 108 to 132)
- Sneak attack + dread ambusher = Avg/Max
- 2d6 + 1d8 = 10 to 20 (x2 for action surge = 20 to 40) (x2 again for assassinate = 40 to 80)
- Average: 180 + 108 + 40 = 320 damage / Max: 360 + 132 + 80 = 572 damage
I probably botched the math somewhere, but doesn't change the fact that this build did way more damage than I initially thought it would when I was going for a surprise attack build. The strength of the build was supposed to come from the extra turn provided from surprised targets not being able to act on their first turn. It was too OP lol.
@@reokado4783 But what is his favorite flavor of jerky;)?
I remember playing a campaign where I worked with my DM to make my artificer's steel defender an emu. I enjoyed every second of it.
Twilight cleric haunts my dreams. I played with one and I felt bad for the DM the whole campaign. We just couldn't die, even fighting CR10 stuff at level 4.
Now make the entire party that cleric class: 😈
@@DarkMark-cf1ec Doesn't actually help that much? Part of the power of the Twilight Cleric is that they give buffs to the rest of the party (passive healing, etc.) but the buffs don't stack, so multiple Twilight Clerics kind of interfere with each other.
You just gave the DM trauma
@@Guy_With_A_Laser They can also share their hideously overpowered Darkvision, which can turn encounters into long-distance shooting galleries where the enemies are dead before they can even charge close enough to see you.
I houseruled that trying to range in infrared (darkvision) is unreliable past 150 feet because our eyes are too close together. You can still see oncoming enemies without a problem, but if you try to shoot at them you'll have Disadvantage (canceling the Advantage of them not seeing you, and leading to taking the shot with Vantage). This doesn't negate the cheese tactic of sniping from a quarter mile away, but it does mean the enemies occasionally survive long enough to actually see the party.
@@mal2ksc As the DM , just make the encounter in an enclosed space like a castle. Use hallways. Twilight cleric while strong is far from game breaking.
Imagine a party stacked with Divination Wizards. A party of six would have TWELVE foretelling rolls between them PER LONG REST. Heck, any more than one Divination Wizard would be like having the Fates or the Norns in your adventuring party.
...By the Gods, imagine a DM setting up a party against enemies who are Divination Wizards.
Any party of six wizards would be busted though. Strongest class times 6 is good.
@@davidwilfand916 But could all die in ealry leves if they aren't carefull and get ambush.
@@fabiovarra3698 you just have to farm cats like in the blaine simple video
...and if they all took silvery barbs...
If you want to be extra evil, make them halflings with the lucky feat and silvery barbs, and well...
The one Divination wizard I've had in a game (I was the DM) made very good use of the spell slot efficiency. It really did help him feel like he was a diviner, because he could use these mid-level "is this a good idea" and "what is going on?" and "Spy over here" spells (not to mention the few divination damage spells) and not feel like he was blowing THAT many resources. So he was pretty liberal with them.
I played a game with an artificer, a twilight cleric and I was the warlock who multiclassed eloquence bard. We had a blast 🤩
You had a blast. It was an Eldritch Blast. (You had a blast!) o/` An OP multiclass! (You had a blast!) o/`
@RaethFennec I was gonna say something negative about Artificer, but how can I say anything negative when this comment exists. Legit the best thing I've seen today & my Barbarian did over 300 damage in a single turnearlier, so that's a high bar.
Was your Warlock a Hexblade?
@@MrSDegnan Nope she was a water genasi marid genie
At least, if everyone is broken, nobody is overshadowed ? Except the encounters, I guess.
I kind of want to see the campaign done with all of these broken classes and give them a mission impossible esque campaign where everyone has one job to fulfill and they do it really well.
That’s a wonderful idea!
Shut up and take my money!
I'm in, I've already got a zealot barbarian ready to go.
Portent does not get used to replace a roll that had already happened. You have to decide before the roll happens that you are going to insert the result of your portent, and that will be the roll. Still very powerful, but makes it less so because now the ally or enemy COULD have succeeded or failed, but now you're going to be certain of what they'll roll.
and if it still feels too powerful, then limit the rolls to the session rather than between long rests
Also, limiting the ability to long rest takes away a lot of their effectiveness.
I once played an Artillerist Artificer in the forgotten realms setting and we managed to make them work. They were a high elf, used a bow and the majority of their spells were them shooting arrows they enscribed magic runes on. And for their Eldritch canon it was basically a ballista they strapped wagon wheels on and gave a magical core. That was a fun character.
Any technological construct can just as easily be an earth elemental or a golem your character created. I don't get the hate at all. Artificer might as well be a magical Enchanter and you'd get the same effects.
@@LupineShadowOmega for a hobby all about creativity and storytelling you'd be surprised how many TTRPG players are mid at storytelling and being creative.
That is literally what Artillerist Artificers do.
Their Arcane Firearm isn't an actual magic gun, it's a wand or staff engraved with runes to aid them with casting spells.
Artificers are magic craftsmen mixed with engineers. They aren't people who make guns.
It annoys me when everyone goes to steampunk for Artificers, and I blame the illustrators for the class. You can play an Artificer as a witch who brews potions and has a familiar made from sticks and clay, or a runesmith who etches symbols of power onto items (like the Rune Knight, which has never been accused of being steampunk).
I have a lizardfolk artificer. He lost an arm, so he collected the bones of his enemies and enchanted them into a magic skeletal arm. The bones have runes carved into them that he channels magic through.
Honestly Divination wizard hasn't seemed broken with our group. Its rare we can wait 5+ days so we go out with a nat 1 or 20. and most the time 1 crit isn't going to win the entire arc by itself.
Yeah, as a DM, if your campaign is so lacking in urgency that the party can unironically afford to sit around for a week without doing anything so they can fudge a single roll you probably need to add stakes lmao.
Obviously a time crunch isn't always desirable but just making the party aware of something as simple as 'we think the bandits/cultists/monsters are going to attack kill everyone in the surrounding villages soon' or 'X npc is dying of a disease and needs a cure as soon as possible' is an incredibly easy way to add urgency to a plot.
Honestly I think this generally makes for more interesting storytelling anyway, disregarding mechanical reasons. And like you said, one high roll doesn't decide entire the outcome of an entire story. If it does then your plot thread was susceptible to being completed by a single lucky roll even without features like this, which you probably don't want in the first place.
Divination is harmless in comparison to the Scribe .... unlimited drone warfare ....
Divination wizards also become non-issues if long rests are treated as weeks and not days
Ay, as a DM if you try that shit
"Okay so while you were lazing about the village has been getting attacked"
People generally try to misuse the portent as a reaction re-roll, but the wording specifically states that the portent must be used before the roll is made. When used like that, it's a lot less of a threat.
Regarding the Zealot Barbarian is countered with a sleep spell, it affects the lowest hit points first and your level 14 zealot that is at zero hit points goes down first and ends his rage
Ah yes, sleep
The spell every high level caster definitely still keeps prepared
Good to know!
Note to self, make sure my zealot barbarian is an elf!
@@CJWproductions I was simply pointing out that there are ways to counter this ability, anything that will incap a character would work. Hypnotic pattern would do the something and that might fit your needs better as it is a crown control spell.
@@lschantz64 Honestly, it's a pretty big brained play. If you have a villain that has studied the party, but you don't want to slap them too hard and make it feel like you're purposely trying to kill them, sleep might be a pretty good spell. You still have to have gotten the barbarian down to that point though, so it's not like it's cheese.
Maybe town guards have a scroll of Sleep to try and subdue criminals. Town guards getting sleep off on the barbarian is a bit of a stretch, but it's important to think of other mundane places where killing the party isn't necessarily the goal.
@@cameronlancefrii7356 I never set out to kill the party and i agree that the likelihood of a high level wizard having sleep prepared is very slim. I was just pointing out that it is not as full proof as other people like to think it is, not to mention the rage also still only last 1 minute. Can a Zealot take a ton of damage and keep on dishing it out, yes and personally I think that is amazing. Think about the story of the last party member able to keep the fight going until the bad guy was dead, saved the world, his anger fueled him to defeat the bad guy. Epics tales.
As a dm, I love seeing how my players try and break the game, while sometimes it might be frustrating, I love to see they having fun and finding how the story will be affected and how to continue from there. I have had a campaign end and do an epilogue on the spot because of an action (that the table consented with) that was taken by one of my players. Everyone at the table agreed that it was a fun campaign and a good ending to it, even though I had much more planned for them, we all had fun. I understand banning subclasses and and whatnot, it’s for everyone to have fun, and if the anyone at the table aren’t having fun just because of a feature or subclass, it is very reasonable to get rid of the thing not letting people have fun!
Playing a Zealot Barbarian in a game right now and we're level 11, the free res thing actually came in huge for a story moment. The major antagonist is my sister, and before we knew we were related, we were in a fight and I got the final blow on her, but she had a last right's reaction that brought me down to zero, and the way we flavored it was that I tossed my axe down, so consumed by my rage and punched through her gut, but in getting that close, she shoved her hand into my chest and stopped my heart.
We were freshly 5th level, and hadn't done much dungeon diving, so we didn't have any diamonds, but because of Zealot Barbarian, I got a cool post-death scene where I met my Goddess and she cried for me and told me that it made her sad to see my throw myself at death so recklessly, and that Farenna wouldn't be so easy to kill, and I got to look my Goddess in the eyes, smirk and go, "Judgin' by this tinglin' feelin' in my chest, I'm not so hard to kill neither," as our Cleric used revivify on me to bring me back for free.
I'm eagerly awaiting hitting level 14 so I can go toe to toe with Farenna again when she's fully powered up just to hear the anguish in her voice when I won't die no matter how hard she hits me. I've been playing Tranquility like a thorn in her side that just keeps coming back, like a bad rash, an annoying little brother she doesn't want to acknowledge, because she's this big all-powerful scourge demigod, and I'm a 6 int Tiefling Barbarian who won't stay dead. Oh and the fey member of our party literally Owns Her Name, so there's that too :)
I'm surprised you didn't mention Peace Domain clerics. At least in my experience, several DMs have found them to be exploitable to the point of absurdity because so many of their features stack buffs upon buffs upon buffs, and either homebrew nerfs to prevent them from stacking or flat out say "lolno."
Yeah, single level Peace Domain dip is one of the most powerful things to add to a full caster like Wizard or Sorcerer, particularly if no one else in the party has Emboldening Bond. Proficiency Bonus times per day of a powerful ability that stacks with Bless, lasts 10 minutes, medium/heavy armor + shield proficiency, bless, healing word, guidance, toll the dead/light/mending as needed, all for a single level... it's up there with Hexblade for the most powerful 1-level dip in the game.
@@RaethFennecnot only casters; a peace dip on fighter gives you bless + emboldening bond + access to cantrips and healing word
at that point you can use sharpshooter and still have a net +2 to hit modification between the features you got from each classes first level
I really don't see what the problem with Peace Domain clerics is?
If someone else already has Emboldening Bond, it doesn't stack (unless multiple instances of Emboldening Bond does stack in which case the solution is to say, no they don't stack).
Emboldening Bond is definitely a powerful ability, acting like a weak bless that lasts 10 minutes, isn't a spell and isn't concentration, but it only works for a party of people at peace with one another, which can make for really cool moments when tension in the party is high and the emboldening bond simply fails.
I'm not saying it's bad, I'm currently playing a 9th level peace domain cleric and loving it, but I have no clue how people exploit them to the point they get banned or nerfed?
@@IsStillVicarious Peace Domain is so strong because a single level of cleric on, say, a Wizard or Sorcerer nets them medium/heavy/shields armor proficiency for an easy 18-19 AC as early as level 2, bless, healing word, guidance and a choice of some solid cantrips, a level of full caster progression, AND Emboldening Bond, which scales daily uses with Proficiency Bonus rather than class levels, meaning it grows with you even with 19 levels elsewhere. All that on, say, a Wizard at the cost of... having higher level spell tiers one level before you unlock that level of spells. You get to be tanky, heal people, and mega-buff skill checks and saving throws, AND then you have 19 levels of whatever else. A straight-class Peace Cleric is no problem at all.
@@RaethFennec Ohhh, that makes a lot of sense! Thank you!
Though I do wonder what gives the heavy armour proficiency? Is this some edge case of the rules that says if you gain proficiency with medium armour a second time get proficiency with heavy armour or something?
For the eloquence bard, I'm pretty sure there is a table in the DMG that charts interaction progression with levels of hostility and likeability(?) that must be moved through for fruitful interactions.
yes and no, the results just vary, not the dc... though it mention an 'openly' hostile creature could be so ill-disposed against the party that no charisma check could sway it's attitude... so even an hostile (let's say 'unfriendly') creature could be swayed to help the party with some dc20 charisma check, as long as it involve no risk or sacrifice from it...
@@Sephiroth517 there is no reason why you couldn't take that and just make the dc vary instead
I was going to point this out. Even if you don't use the tables, DMs should remember that an NPC should have a base level of how they feel about the party. A single check won't make those feelings change from 0 to 10 or 10 to 0. So yes, if a guy was never going to do what the party asked no matter how convincing they are... then a successful check might at best make him offer an alternative that also benefits him somehow. I honestly view the issue here being if a player has had other DMs who don't run their games this way. They may get upset the first time that their persuasion roll doesn't work like charm person.
Yeah, persuasion and deception aren't mind control. This binary idea of "If there's even a single person who can't be persuaded, the whole subclass is trash" is stupid. One guard might be really dedicated to the rules and procedures of his job, and won't let you in even if he does believe you're the son of the king who forgot his key, or that there's an assassin in the building right now, or whatever. The real world is full of those people. The subclass isn't suddenly trash if these kinds of folks are scattered around every so often. But I guess if I have even one agentic NPC in my whole game, I'm destroying the subclass by making it so someone *else's* idea has to be the go-to for a change.
@@theunluckybard7517 I was looking for this. I would also add that you have to look at the guards orders. If the guard was told by the king or the captain of the king's guard to let no one in, that guard cannot be persuaded even if they have been persuaded on other occasions. That guard knows they are taking their life into danger by disobeying orders from such a powerful boss. And aren't likely to in that situation even if they have been open and friendly with the party before.
For those who don’t know, on hexblade you still have to have 13 str for paladin to multi class out or into paladin. 15 if you want no penalties for heavy armor(gotta start paladin then). But outside that you can ignore it. And it’s totally worth it. Playing a hexblade + paladin + sorcerer and it’s crazy. Favorite multi class and super worth the trouble to brew up.
Also 1 lev Hexblade, rest Sword Bard ps very good.
My build on a half elf point buy:
Strength 14+1
Dexterity 8 (heavy armor & all)
Constitution 14+1 (Resilience: Constitution later on down the road)
Intelligence 10
Charisma 14+2
Wisdom 10
Hope the DM is throwing you lots of tricky conflicts between your Patron and your Oath.
They 15 Str also isn't nessesary when playing a Dwarf.
(they dont gain the "-10 speed penalty for wearing Heavy Armor without meeting the Str requirement" !)
@@arkdeniz What if the oath is just what the patron wants though?
2) Zealot Barbarian: ANYTHING that causes incapacitation with kill the ubdying ability.
Only until you hit level 15 I believe, wherein your rage only ends if you choose to end it; meaning you don't have to worry about attacking or taking damage.
Sleep still fucks you over, though.
Wizard: I use portent to make his save a 2.
DM: ...Legendary Resistance.
This is why you duke the DM by wasting those with other annoying, but not costly effects, like using hold monster, banishment and polymorph, then when the DM has declared all 3 resistances you bust out the disintegrate or finger of death with the wizards portent.
@@CarrowMind Ah found the minmaxer that DMs hate!
@@DJBlackNGold We found the very reason why these classes are banned by certain DM! Player like him!
@@CarrowMind that's when the DM pulls a 4th resistance
@@CarrowMind Given that a lot of these monsters have pretty epic saves pretty much all around, you're gonna be spending a lot of effort and turns trying to get them to fail enough to use up their resistances, by which point the fight is probably over or almost over anyway and the fighters did all the work while your casters contributed very little... or it's a tpk. Seen it happen a lot even without portent, the casters spend every turn trying to burn the resistances and end up achieving nothing.
To be fair, I can't remember a time when our table banned a sub-class prior to attempting to run it first: bans at our table were almost always done from our personal shared experience. There's more info available these days now, though, I suppose. Love you, Will. Cheers from MA.
The only thing iv ever banned is kender because 90% of people play them like cunts. Using the excuse to steal t hoard valuable items rather than thematic borrows examines gets bored gives it back or abandons it.
The thing with Kenders is that a good one will respect "give it back". They're not unapologetic, they just genuinely misunderstand that in this culture, things belong to people, and it's bad form to take without asking. A Good-aligned Kender might pick something of someone else's up and look at it, but if told "I need you to pay for that if you want to take it" or "Please don't touch that, it's important", they'll go along with it.
This is not how people play them, which is why they're so hated.
D&D 5e suggests to take a middle approach with ability checks: evaluate whether the attempt CAN succeed or fail, then whether it advances things either way. With the "persuade them not to fight" type stuff, make it about discovering the right levers to pull. Sure, once there are viable levers, the eloquence bard WILL succeed at pulling them almost all the time! But that's not going to be an auto-win; the party has to figure out what to say, offer, do, etc.
This is an excellent response. So what if the Bard gets a 21 on Persuasion. If their tactics for persuading someone are bad, they’re bad and they don’t work. Like, if a battalion of guards is chasing the party down and the Bard tries to say “You don’t want to take us on, we’re absurdly strong and hurt you!” then they roll a 24. Guards respond with some trepidation and speculation. “If you’re so strong why’re you running away from us? Wouldn’t you have stood your ground?” Give the Bard a “second chance” to actually make an argument that is sound. If they do, they’ll probably meet the requirements and be fine. If they don’t, even if they have a fantastic roll, the guards realize it’s a bluff. A very convincing bluff, but a bluff nonetheless.
@@SchmartsyMan Right. As another example, if the bard tries to persuade the King to give him his daughter's hand in marriage, but the King's daughter turns out to be way young (to the point that the suggestion of marriage is creepy), the King will still likely order him arrested if it's not swiftly made apparent that the Bard didn't know better, and even then, it's not going to endear the Bard to the King.
Or if he tries to convince a merchant to take an IOU from a Baron as payment in lieu of gold...and the merchant has a particular beef with the Baron and wouldn't trust the Baron to keep his promises. Not going to work.
Really, what the persuasion or deception rolls should be used for are to convince the NPC of the Bard's sincerity, his honesty, and his ability to deliver. He MIGHT be able to fan the flames of already-present desire (for goods, services, or companionship), to the point of bargaining for something in return for promises or intangibles, but he isn't going to be able to convince somebody to accept nothing they want. The eloquence bard will have no trouble persuading the smith who wants the goblins cleared out that, in fact, the party DID clear out the goblins, at least enough that the smith will trust them to the point of doing the minimum verification he allows himself with anybody, and may even be able to persuade the smith to forge them some silver daggers for free as a down payment on a "we definitely will slaughter the wererats for you, sir," quest. But he's not going to convince the smith to forge those silver daggers just because slaying wererats three counties over is such a good and noble task; the smith isn't getting anything out of it.
The Exalted RPG has a nice idea called "Intimacies", where you can't persuade someone of something unless you tie it to something they care about or an aspect of their personality, and it's importance to them must be intense enough to justify what you're asking them to do. If you ask them out the blue to join your rebellion, they'll refuse. If you know they have a Major Intimacy to protecting their family, and you get them to believe their son is going to get conscripted, that gives you a chance.
@@paulgibbon5991 Indeed! And you can use 5e's ideal, bond, and flaw similarly.
@@paulgibbon5991 Yeah this basically how I view significant persuasion attempts (especially ones which will have serious narrative impacts): you (as the player) have to come up with an actual compelling argument and your character's persuasion skill determines how convincingly you deliver it. And you cannot persuade/deceive someone about something they wouldn't reasonably believe/want to do. Like, you couldn't persuade someone to sacrifice their best friend to your dark god just because you rolled a nat20 on persuasion.
Making persuasion into mind control makes every npc seem like an idiot and ends up peeling away the facade of believability to reveal the game mechanics underneath.
The only thing I banned at my table was summoning spells for exactly the reasons you stated. Summoning an army of wolves SLOWS combat to a crawl. It's fun for the summoner, but it's absolutely tedious for literally everyone else at the table.
A lot of summon spells are balanced, it's just the early spells from the PHB (namely conjure animals) that's crazy. 8 wolves is always crazy, but the spell is just too vague in general, letting you draw from almost any beast statblock. If Onednd is intent on changing druid to not being able to change into any beast, they should also look at this spell too, honestly moreso than druid.
The new summon spell are way better, like summon beast, summon fey, ecc.
You could also try to say that they:
1) Take their turn directly after the player
2) Throw 1 Dice for all attacks and either throw X times die or do X Times damage
and
3) If necessary, use average damage
4) If you want, let them check if the throw was good enough to beat the AC of an extra target and take over excess damage
With this everyone can have fun with the Summons without them taking over half the combat time. Did that for my 8 Summons and it only added like 2-5min per turn. Now the wizard is back in its rightful position of wasting every bodies time :D
How my table runs summoning spells when there is more than 1 summoned, the other players get an even amount of creatures to control. The spells says that they are friendly, but not controlled by the summoner. The controlling player gets to use their summon either before or after their own initiative. That way the "slog" isn't so bad since everyone gets to participate.
My DM completely overhauled the conjure animals spell with me.
1) i can choose the animals but limit myself for 3-4 animaltypes.
2) i can have max. 2 pets at the same time. But cause that the pets are a little buffed (still weaker then a mostly oneshot spell)
3) the pets are modified (would be too long for everything). But one eg. Would be spiders: theyr poison ac gets higher, theyr web resets faster and at all are more tool oriented. While wolfes just have more attacks and damage. Ofc all pets also have more hp and higher acs if i upcast the spell and some get new abilities ;)
4) they act after me.
For me its far better then strait have a random pet or worse the spell be banned. Also that way the spell feels more like my druids unice spell.
That ofc just worked cause i talked with my dm and thought myself options out in the setting my dm gave me and im glad i did that.
Ohh and that motivated me to look up more abilities and spells to make it more specific to my characters. Thanks DM ❤️
Eloquence bards are gnarly, but my DMs usually add escalating DCs-- like people eventually catch on to you the fact that you can talk anyone into anything and just refuse to talk to you so you have to be creative about how you use your abilities.
Unless the Bard player is being very careless with their rolls, this just feels like punishing the player for picking the subclass
@@BladedwindThis is why I consider the feature, and by extension the subclass poorly designed.
You basically have to ignore the feature or make many persuasion and deception tasks impossible if you want it to be remotely balanced.
It's really a consequence of the fact that it basically transforms very hard tasks into auto-successes at early levels, so it's too easy to perform checks in the world and this makes it broken.
Reliable Talent also needs to be changed with a lower level like 6th or 3rd level and lower minimum rolls, like 4-5, and the same applies to Silver Tongue to make sure you don't make a fool of yourself, but prevent the game from becoming unbalanced or warped heavily.
@@sharmakefarah2064 While I do agree it's incredibly strong in social check situations, it's important to note that Persuasion and Deception checks are not mind control. The tricky part is making sure that the player in question does not abuse the feature to trivialize certain aspects of the game, while also making sure the player feels it's an impactful feature they're getting value from.
As for Reliable Talent, I feel it's fine. It comes online much later, and I usually don't see many people complain about how it breaks the game at that level. Heck, many tables don't get to the level where it comes online for Rogue.
@@Bladedwind I agree that there's a tricky line, but I think that it's way harder to balance for primarily because it makes tasks trivial or impossible, and basically means that if you don't make a lot of social tasks impossible, it's easy to trivialize them.
It removes the space of hard/very hard, but possible checks, and that's why it's a problem to balance.
Persuasion and Deception checks, while not mind control, getting high results almost all the time, especially at the DC 25 and 30 levels, is still going to get insanely good results for you 99.99% of the time, and the fact that it's possible at all speaks to it's brokenness.
A reworked feature like this needs to provide space for hard/very hard, but possible tasks to be done, and then it'd be more balanced.
On Reliable Talent, I'd like it to be lower level so players can actually use it in a campaign, but if this was at 6th or 3rd level, it would be even more game breaking than Silver Tongue due to applying it to more skills, and that's why I want to nerf it to something like a 5 or so. Prevents making them fools of themselves, but gives more space to hard/very hard, but possible tasks.
It's less broken than spellcasting in general, but then again, the full spellcasting feature is a nightmare to balance, and is heavily broken.
I play a twilight cleric in one of my games, and amusingly, the advantage on initiative still leaves me last to act in the party. Thanks for the reminder about twilight shroud's healing, though.
A good solution for Conjure animals that I use when playing a shepherd druid is to split the animals up among all the other players rather than just getting endless turns myself. It's a lot more fun for everyone when you do it that way in my opinion.
You think Instead you could break them up into a group of like 2 or 4? Give them all the same damage roll plus the numbers of wolves in a pack. Then you just cut down on turns by a lot.
@@KW-de9sc Eh, splitting them up among the other players has been super fun, people actually APPRECIATE having a summoner druid at the table if you do it that way.
We did that with one our necromancers once
I mean, fair enough, but since Conjure Animals acts as a group it shouldn't really be THAT long of a turn. Any other class doing some over the top overly complicated strategy during their turn takes roughly the same time. Unless you as a player are mentally slow, attacking with a bunch of animals that can't do much except attack or grapple someone doesn't take a lot of time. Not to mention that, if you summon more, they die quicker due to lower HP so your turns get progressively faster with each round anyway.
@@KW-de9scThey have Mob Calculators online that do this.
What i got from this video is that some dm's would get a heart attack playing 3.5
In my 2nd ever campaign I had a player play a Shepard Druid, and when they got to like Level 11, he took a 2 level dip in Twilight Cleric. It was a learning curve for me as a DM. In our next campaign he specifically went sub-optimal for combat and focused on optimizing his social interactions and skills without going full broken. It felt like an apology.
I have thought about a Twilight Cleric/Shepard Druid combo before. Having the ability to give temp HP to your summons, your summons getting 2 extra HP per hit dice to their HP max, and they get healed every time they start their turn in your aura, and get healed if they are in your aura anytime you cast a healing spell..... In the right circumstances this build could solo an encounter.
@@badwolf3618That's my plan but even that sounds like alot of math
Glad to see you mention Eloquence right out the gate. It was the one subclass I hoped my players wouldn't pick in my first campaign
As a great fan of warforged artificers I felt that segment about them on a deeply personal level :')
Imagine banning a barbarian subclass, like, are you seriously going to nerf a barbarian when your wizard can modify reality at that level?
My one DM didn't let players use rage with ANY magic like ability.
Shifter transformation, nope
Echo knight echo: nope
Fbinr smite: nope
Left that game for many reasons but thet were weird
@@ShurikenSean I have now added another person to my hit list.
What kind of trauma did he have with barbarians to nerf them to such a point? Like, not even Pathfinder 2e has set such idiotic restrictions
That depends, can wizards modify reality to make themselves immortal through sheer zealotry?
@@Catalyst375 Wizards don't need zealotry to be immortal. There are multiple ways for them to achieve that.
@@Catalyst375No. but a Calm Enotions (the second level spell) is enough to just end Rage and instant kill the Barbarian who already failed 3 saves from being smacked enough, and has been moving only because of their rage. Maybe not a Wizard soell, but any caster at that kevel tends ti be really powerful too
Arguably the most powerful ability of the chronurhy wizard is the one you didn't mention. At 14th lv they can change any roll from enemy or foe to the number needed, so the person fails or suceeds the saving throw. No other ability in the game is as powerful when it comes to removing agency. They can make any suck or save spell hit automatically, if the enemy doesn't have legendary resistances anymore.
And while it does stack on exhaustion…in a boss fight? You literally just say “No” every round until they are dead.
And then you sleep for a week. 😂
It does cost exhaustion tho, so you only get 6 uses in a fight before you die, less if you have lost a lot of hp
there level 6 feature about storing a spell and giving it to people is far more op you can store leomund tiny hut and boom it on the battlefield
Pair thos with magic jar on something immune to exhaustion and they win dnd
I would actually argue that the most powerful ability of the chronurgy wizard is actually not any of their class features, but the fact that they, and they alone (along with graviturgy wizards) get access to the dunamancy spell list, which has many useful and poweful spells. You want to get an extra d8 on all initiative rolls for 8 hours, on top of your +Int mod to your initiative already, and nearly guarantee you go first in any combat? Go for it! You want to make any object an immovable rod? Sure! You want to blink an enemy out of existence for a round when they try to cast a spell or attack? Do it! You want to summon an actual fucking black hole on the battlefield? Why the fuck not?
The fact that these wizards get access to over a dozen extra spells that they can add to their spell list, some of which are very powerful, is what I believe makes this class so powerful.
I actually played a Shepherd Druid. To streamline the action economy of my turns, we just lumped all of their attacks into one so it didn't take nearly as long.
I wonder if my DM would allow me to preroll on other players turns so when it's my turn I'm ready to go
One thing I will always remember in my first DnD campaign was that our already pretty large party (there were 7 PC's total) had a druid in it who loved to use conjure animals, specifically a horde of feral hogs, and it made the already long turn order take even longer, so a subclass fully dedicated to those spells, yeah I usually don't use the ban hammer but Shepherd Druids sound like an exception
Shoutout to peace clerics with turbobless (channel divinity: emboldening bond + regular bless) that just completely breaks bounded accuracy.
How to nerf portent:
- make it the closer of 2 rolls to 10 or 11 instead of just one roll and done (in the case of 10 and 11, player picks which).
- make all roll results not visible (roll behind your DM screen, give your players their own screens to roll behind but double check that they're reporting first roll totals to you).
Love your vids you pretty much introduced me to power building multiclassing and a lot of other advanced dnd mechanics
One of my friends is playing a Divination Wizard in one of our games right now, and it's been seriously awesome! So many huge moments from week to week by careful and strategic use of that Portent Die!
I like the note at the end, and while it is important for players to behave i think its also important for dm’s to understand that they can plan for their players hijinks in non invasive and even engaging ways without altering the subclasses abilities. For a lot of the magic users a counter spell or an enchanted pendant of abjuration could help prevent them from messing with important characters like royalty, magic users, and powerful monsters. Another thing is that the technical language can be exploited in immersive ways like abilities that require sight being blocked by magical darkness, or enforcing the verbal, somatic, and material portions of spells which would immediately give away some sneaky under the hand casting. Specifically for the barbarian make a homebrew rule that when a creature has some sort of status like confused or frightened that they cant rage anymore (i cant remember the exact rules for rage so if this contradicts something maybe not) but as important as it is to be civil with these things i think its just as important to think creatively and deepen your immersion and world building by thinking of ways people would try to prevent people with these abilities from running amuck
Been a DM for over 20 years now, if a DM bans an entire Subclass / Class / or Multiclass because of Shenanigans, the DM isn't doing their job correctly.
There are so many way to get around a players powerful abilities. But even more so, I always let my players know if they plan on abusing skills that are considered "busted" then expect me to do the same. What's worse than a Min Max player? A Min Max DM...
I love for my players to get to fulfill their power fantasies while playing their classes. However they can absolutely expect me to do the same back to them.
As a DM you need to support your players choices, not ban them. Think outside of the box to handle the cheese builds and the game gets extremely fun.
Here’s how *I* would fix these.
Eloquence Bard: Change it so that only a 4-9 would act as a 10, and a 1-3 would act as an auto failure. Insight checks made against the player have a maximum DC of 15. More importantly, the DM should take into account the relationship between the player and NPC, as well as Risk to the npc in question, when doing persuasion. Someone who hates your guts isn’t going to risk their job for you.
Zealot Barbarian: Still being able to act at 0 points is fine, but he still does if he fails all his death saves. There would also be no possibility of stabilization if he’s raging so they’d need to make a throw every turn and HOPE they don’t get three fails cuz that’s death right there.
Divenation wizard: there’s really nothing wrong with this. The long rest thing is bullshit though, so punish them for taking the time to do it.
Twilight Cleric: My roommate is playing this one in my current campaign lol. Remove the Cleric Level addition from the temp hp added. That’s insane.
Hexblade: Honestly no idea on that one.
Shepard Druid: LIMIT. THE SUMMONS.
Artificers: As an artificer player I TAKE OFFENSE TO THIS. Just ban Replicate Magic Item. You’ll be fine.
Chonorgy wizard: I’d need more time to fully balance it out but my first instinct would be to ban concentration spells from working within the bead. Also, letting FAMILIARS use it? Nah, fam.
9:42 Suprised to hear Shepherd Druid is on the list, since afaik DMs' main issue with summoning spells seems to be the number of creatures you can summon, so the issue is not the subclass itself (so just stick to spells that summon just one beast - like Summon Beast from Tasha's - and you should stil be able to use the subclass effectively without triggering the DM).
Yeah if my party wants to summon multiple creatures, it's pretty much one entity with multi attack anyway. They are all attacking the same target, and I will be doing the rolls digitally so it doesn't take ages. If they want to have full control, they can summon one creature.
or maybe.. you find someone who doesn't impose limitations on how you want to play a game. a wild concept, i know.
@@jishani1 Sure, that's a possibility, but an unlikely one. DMs are already a rare breed, and most don't like dealing with something like Conjure Animals since it can both trivialize and bog down combat. Even if you convince the DM to use mob rules (which allow you make a bunch of attacks at once without rolling anything, just using expected/average damage values), there's still the issue of summoning multiple creatures being OP.
I made a halfling divination wizard for a game once. With Potent, halfling lucky, and the lucky feet I could modify a lot of rolls. The group roleplayed it as my character going back in time to fix a bad roll. Kept calling him time lord. Was a lot of fun.
it is for this reason that halflings in my homebrew world are extinct (the reason also the cause of gnomes being an endangered species), and the lucky feat is getting banned. also, a friend of mine played a divination wizard the first time I ran a 5E campaign for my group. This was a decade ago, when 5E had just come out and there were like.... a whopping 5 books for it (which included the core 3 of PHB, DMG, and MM).
He loves his wizards and since divination wizards were fucking useless in 3.5E, he wanted to see what they were like in 5E, thinking they'd be equally useless. Needless to say, after that campaign and how fucking busted it became (especially when literally everyone at the table took the Lucky feat, including him), he's kindly agreed to never play divination wizards ever again.
On the other hand, the Mercy Monk also can no cost revive others, but as it is the final subclass feature, it is more balanced.
I'm honestly surprised that Death Domain isn't on the list. I've been in so many campaigns (notably evil campaigns) where Death Domain was banned. I think it may be a similar reason as to the shepherd druid, as, like the shepherd druid summons, death domain also comes with it's own minions- the undead
i got to play a time wizard in our last campaign it was sooooo much fun, made her more on the support side but what a blast that subclass is!
oh my god, its SUCH a pet peeve of mine when people ban or even just gripe about artificer for being too mechanical. IK thats the flavor wizards went with and carried over from eberon but artificers literally just make magic items- they can be flavored as anything AND THE WRITE UP EVEN SAYS SO!!!! Enchanted dolls, rock golems, rune engraved armor, etc etc. You could have it be ghostly possession, or nature themes like growing plants to shape the way elves do, even just the classic dwarves like you mention, magic charms or talisman, enchanted gem work, LITERALY WEAVING THE WEAVE.
Drives me up the wall how uncreative some people are, its not even a stretch of the imagination!
Unless literally every magic item in your world is either non-existent or supposed to be hard to make in your world, there is no good reason to ban artificer when you could literally just ask them to flavor it in a non mechanical way.
Yeah, but a lot of DMs are lazy, and don't think things out or want to engineer solutions. It's easier to just banhammer and walk away.
@@RaethFennec its insane tho cause its not even like you the DM needs to make a solution!!! Just ask the player to do a basic reflavor and clear it with you, its literally that simple! That goes beyond lazy into just pure blind pride. maddening stuff
@@icefang111 Hahaha you're not wrong! Maybe some of them worry if they give an inch, the player will try to take a mile and it will become a point of contention. I don't know. I can't understand their mindset because I'm very flexible and adaptive with my players. I'm not beholden to anything.
Or just utilize weaponry like ballista and trebuchet that very much were a thing in medieval times.
I currently play a Twilight Cleric in a Rise of Tiamat campaign. The ability to just buff the entire party with temp hitpoints is so bloody good.
Playing one Too. We homebrewed it to give Every CREATURE in the Radius the tempHP, Not only allies.
Also I never use it, as basically everyone in our Party hates each other.
But toll the Dead is nice.
The only caveat is that it's on the Beginning of their turn so if something happens before then it doesn't use Temp HP
3) Divination wizard - Have your portent. As the DM I'm simply going to put you through enough challenges per long rest so that you are forced to use it and then STILL operate for some time without it until you get somewherr you can safely long rest. No way in hell a savvy DM gets completely undermined by only 2 rolls.
So you're saying, if a player shows up as a Divination wizard, you're going to change the ecology, pace, and story of your game to punish the player for wanting to use a class feature, and therefore put pressure on the other players who may not want to play optimized characters, instead of just letting someone know that you're not willing to let them play that character?
"If you're going to play a divination wizard, I'm going to make certain your class features are worthless."
@@KitsuneSoup Yeah I think ramping up the difficulty just because you want players to not have fun with their features isnt the way to go. Its like draining spellcasters of spellslots and then continuing to push the adventure while the non-spellcasters have fun.
I do think long rest abuse can be a thing- but 2 or 3 rolls getting replaced- and thats even assuming the wizard rolled well- shouldn’t damper sessions at all. Esp if the roll doesnt use modifiers.
@@KitsuneSoup I don't think that's the point so much as saying "cool, you can *absolutely* do your fun/awesome thing, but the whole world doesn't pause long enough for you to while away a week digging for a 20 or a 1, and you're going to be facing more than one significant roll per rest period so you can't just cheese the whole game."
It's letting the players, *plural,* have their fun, and allowing the DM to have fun as well. It's cooperative storytelling and *every player* should have a chance to do their "thing" without said thing being a crux point around which the world revolves.
@alexisauld7781 My problem is more that he said he would deliberately increase encounter rates to ensure that the player has no choice but to burn those dice in suboptimal situations. The rest of the party doesn't have infinite resources either, so based on his statement, he's going to completely change the world danger level and allow someone to play a character, instead of just saying no. It'd be like telling the party they don't get combat encounters any more because the barbarian deals too much damage; it's an active penalty to the table because you won't say no.
I used a multiclassed Chronurgy Wizard in one of my games and oh man--Silvery Barbs + Features + Luck is a painful combo for a DM to deal with especially since I used it with the levitation spell in an open space xD I felt bad for my DM but it was just fun watching them struggle. Granted, I got kinda focused in the next big fight since BBEG hated my chara but it was worth it!
You forgot the additional problem with twilight clerics: at some point, that aura is half cover and hp regen. So, unless your mosters all have staffs of fire (and all took a 1 level dip in warlock), you are now firing into a mobile bunker that passively heals anyone inside of it.
Of these the only two I think I could possibly have an issue with are Eloquence Bard and Twilight Cleric.
Neither are because they would make it trickier to GM for. In both cases I feel the subclass has the potential to dominate certain scenarios to such an extent that it would make the game less fun for the other players. Eloquence in particular can trivialise social encounter so much that unless your group is ok with one player being the party face in all situations I'd be wary of including it. I'd love to play one, personally, but I'd always ask the rest of the group before I did.
I have been playing an eloquence bard for about a year (almost level 5) and the party roll dynamics make it a non-issue. The other PCs know it's my PC's thing, but they rarely let that stop them from trying their own persuasion and such; if it's in character to step up and say something, they do. Our ranger shares a decent CHA score and tries persuasion relatively often, and our fighter intimidates a lot as well (which happens to be one of my expertise)
By that same token, I've had to rp the in-character emotional stress it gives her when she has to be the face most of the time, particularly dangerous situations (Talking to dragons, kobold and goblin tribes, casters, etc)
Despite being the party face, it doesn't really turn it into a videogame experience where my character is the party face all the time in all situations. So my point is, it's only as much of an issue as the table itself makes of it, if that's any consolation.
Personally, I find Paladins and Hexblades kinda step on the same train of thought - they can both be the face, the best damage dealer, and a tank all at the same time to the point where an optimized one can make other party players feel left out.
Do remember with Portent you have to call out your use before the target rolls their dice, so you might use your portent on something that would have already been a failure
That is actually something that a lot of tables do the other way around, instead treating portent like a reaction. But yeah, the ability straight up reads, that you have to do it beforehand.
Who would have thought that Teferi was excessively busted in MTG and DnD, and that's from someone who really likes him.
The way I did a Cha-based paladin was a homebrew a fellow player and the GM did for me... they reflavored Shillelagh (applied to whip and dagger) and Greenflame Blade to cleric variations and then I took Blessed Warrior and then I had charisma based attacks.
I’m currently playing a half elf college of eloquence bard in a solo wild beyond the witch light campaign (to compensate for having no real party i’ve formed a party of DMPCs). Having loads of fun with him. He’s currently got an extra + 5 to all charisma checks on top of the 20 charisma and expertise in persuasion and he has wings so he can fly 35 feet equal to my walking speed (as a half wood elf I took fleet of foot for the extra 5 foot walking speed).
The gloomstalker ranger is immune to enemy darkvision meaning against most creatures that live in the dark you can become permanently invisible to them since most non humanoids cannot produce light.
Couple this with the warlock devils sight either from the feat or multiclass is very broken in many dungeons. There are ofc enemies that can still see you with various other sensory abilities but the majority will not.
Sorry for late, but many enemy in the underdark have complementary sense as their method to locate enemies. Alot have blind sense or more weird esoteric one tough.
@@jeromemartel3916 i didnt specifically mean underdark but more like caves :) but yeah there are many but i still ban the subclass for free invisibility against most creatures especially if the player plays well and has high stealth
and i specifically did mention other sensory abilities.
Um... yeah, I ain't banning Yasha's subclass at my table.
Will add my own Artificer experience.
While guns were not allowed (initially, much later on we would see them), my character leaned towards the alchemy subclass, which I flavoured as making breads and similar savouries.
Would think something like that would be allowed within a high-fantasy setting
Sure if your bread didn't do much and you couldn't get enough bread made to affect the culture in any way.
I like that eloquence bard gets a feature that rogue gets when it reaches level 11 at level 3
My DM almost banned light clerics after a campaign where one (played by me) broke all sense of balance. In my defense he gave me the book of exalted deeds and the talisman of pure good which you should never give to your party if you value the balance.
I did convince him to let me play another one because it'd make sense for my character thematically but i think every encounter will take place somewhere flammable so i can't fireball spam.
My suggestion to any player who wants to play an artificer in a high magic/fantasy setting, is to theme it around runic magic. This makes them a great choice if you want to play as a rune priest or some other type of not-quite caster. Other examples: an alchemist could be an apothecary, seeking to provide healing through balms and tinctures rather than potentially costly magic. Battlesmiths could be someone who made a golem without the usual tools (aka the manual), though the process might have drained them as a high level caster, leaving them to figure out ways to fight without super high level magic. Artillerist could be a character that found specilization through modifying wands/staves for additional effects. An armorer could be someone applying runes to their armor, similar to a rune knight in a way, to grant them more power.
Please note: if a dm feels the need to ban a class/subclass because of power, or potentially other reasons, sure I get it, but banning something because it "wouldn't fit" just honestly feels lazy, and if as a dm you can't see a reason to allow something due to flavor, then ask the player to help you understand why the class should be allowed/could be reflavored to be allowed. That's the beauty of the game of any ttrpg, things can be modified to suit the needs of the group.
Reminder that eberron isn't a steampunk or tech setting, in fact, they have nothing of that sort, this is already the default flavor of artificers
@@tomykong2915 Unfortunately, a couple of artists didn't get the memo.
@@paulgibbon5991 unfortunately, wotc are idiots, and decided to ignore the original creator of the settng
I have banned artificer from a game as technology was very limited and they really didn’t fit, but later in the same story but different campaign they are allowed
Reminder that eberron, the setting that artificers are from, has 0 tech, it's all magic. Artificers are magical craftsmen, not irl technological engineers
@@tomykong2915 the point here was that magic wasn’t very developed either - wizards were also not allowed for the same reason. Magic had barely started to be codified and weaponry was still in a pre-Roman era
I think that ultra-charismatic characters can have their charisma work as a double edged sword for them. Sure, you can get by persuading reasonable and oafish people a lot, but every now and then you will meet someone who becomes OBSESSED with you. A creepy stalker who will commit crimes just to be with you on their own terms.
Or somebody who is absolutely convinced that you are using some kind of magic to be able to persuade every person you come across. (Minor Side Villain hint hint)
Another problem with chronergy wizard is the extra spells and only they get (including graviturgist). Temporal shunt is absolutely broken, a no save counter spell that also temporarily removes the offender.
That eloquence bard could stack the Unsettling Words -1d10 with a Mind Sliver to add an additional -1d4 to saving throws
Definitely agree with the ending statement there. All of the issues that were brought up, are honestly just lazy DMing, mixed with the issue in which I hate 5E for, which is removing a lot of rules and options that normally let even inexperienced DMs from counter-acting most of these issues.
2 things about the Eloquence Bard: 1) Some things are so set in stone that persuasion power doesn't really matter (i.e, a male bard trying to seduce a lesbian), so it's not necessarily the be-all-end-all of social encounters. 2) A highly charismatic person like that would probably attract a lot of attention, so as a DM you could have that notoriety work against the bard.
There are hypnotic people like this in real life, but that doesn't mean they ALWAYS get EVERYTHING they want.
wise words
a nice rule of thumb is, if the suggestion spell can't do it, a persuasion check can't either.
should be obvious, but interestingly enough, most dm horror scenarios of that kind violate it
It's like rolling an athletics check to leap to the moon. No matter how high you roll it fails. Sometimes NPCs just can't be convinced of things. The king will never just randomly hand over his crown to a stranger because the stranger asked really nicely.
@@derimperator3847Eh, suggestion is frankly ludicrous in what it does, and there's an argument that their power level is different amongst different things, and giving people unlimited uses of suggestion would break the game world, so it's still way too good for what it does.
Basically all DM horror stories, with the exception of outright damaging you is allowed, and you don't even know you're mind controlled/charmed.
Please give attention to the assassin subclass, which gets banned because there are no stealth rules much less surprise rounds, so if you play one in a table a DM may just look confused at you and ask "what is a surprise round" or "wait you hide? But they know where you are"
Well, this is a weird take. The rules for surprise rounds and hiding are all in the phb. Surprise rounds is probably one of the most commonly changed mechanic in the game. It's basically everyone rolls initiative, and if the ambushed enemies haven't gone in the first round yet they have no reactions. They also can't take any actions or move on their first turn.
In this, the assassin has advantage against anyone that didn't realize they were there or attacking. If the assassin beats them in initiative, the attack is automatically a critical hit, if it hits.
As for stealth, you need to be unseen. You can't be standing out in the open, in line of sight, and go "I hide. that's a roll of 27. They can't see me." If you have attacked someone and wish to hide from them, you have to break line of sight. In a forest, there would realistically be any number of bushes to hide behind, as well as possibly climbing trees, and using the vast number of trees to keep line of sight broken. In a castle, running out of the room will leave the enemy going "He could have gone anywhere. We might never find him." Even in a room with a heavy fight, if there's lots of furniture or flipped tables to hide behind, it is possible that the assassin might move behind these things and go unnoticed for a short time, to which it may seem like they teleported from one end of the fight to the other, but really they just walked. Where ever they decide to attack from, they would be attacking from stealth and have advantage. Unless, of course, they failed their hide check.
How the DM wants to run detection for this is a little more up in the air. Passive perception is a thing, so generally the rogue would be rolling stealth against a flat number. But then would the seeker have disadvantage for being in combat? They can use their action to search. I don't remember anything about having disadvantage on this, it would have to be something specific doing so, such as dim light giving you disadvantage. can you hide in dim light? Not really. But passively, you might not notice traps, writing on walls, or secret doors, if the -5 to your passive brings it below the dc to find such things.
I'm currently running a game for a party composed of: a lizardfolk Bear Totem Barbarian, a kalashtar Twilight Cleric, a fey-touched Eloquence Bard, an aarakocra Astral Monk, and a Phantom Rogue. They are a party of monsters who breeze through modules 3-4 levels above party level and stun-lock or Polymorph their way through anything that isn't immune to it. It's glorious, but a lot of work for me to give them a balanced challenge. Although I've almost killed them twice by accident - once with Mind Flayers (Int saves) and once by putting three Banshees on the board at once. But despite some tense moments they pulled through like champs! XD
I watched one DND campaign where the boss was a Zellot Barbarian. It was fun watching the players get increasingly exasperated as health pools dwindled and things became increasingly desperate.
Does anyone know how to run a character which is a part of a Hive mind? I think it would be really cool!
Aberrant mind sorcerer?
@@Pablo17781I was more thinking in terms of Larp, but that is an interesting idea!
I played a Tortle Chronurgy wizard. Being able to choose whether I allow an enemy hit to land or if I want to block it with shield (22AC), chronal shift or silvery barbs is a nice feeling. Our artificer also has shield and impose disadvantage with his steel defender, and the sorceror has silvery barbs as well. Our DM has rerolled a lot of attacks and saving throws. My tortle got swalled by a shambling mound a couple weeks ago though.
Something I started doing with guards and other minions was using the charisma modifier of their superior. Their vulnerability to persuasion thus becomes a measure of either their loyalty or fear.
It makes for a nice scaling from city guards disobeying their captain to palace guards disobeying their king, etc.
Spat my drink out not once, but twice, on that dndshorts part. Fking loved it.
I have a divination wizard in the first campaign I started running. Rarely would a session span across more than one day/long rest, and she'd often forget the portent roll in the middle of a session, so she imposed the rule that portent is once per session instead of once per long rest. Her use of a portent dice ended up creating a major moment in the story when she forced her father figure to lose a saving throw against her Detect Thoughts spell, and the characters' relationship has been strained as a result.
For the college of eloquence bard you could introduce plotlines where spies have taken notice of their lies and persuasions and are investigating the party members, always following them around or integrating into the staff of places the party may visit in order to reveal their scheemes. Tjis way you will have hidden enemies that can counter the bard more easily and lead to fun encounters
Never banned any subclasses and never will. Learn to deal with whatever your players throw at you and let them shine sometimes. Let that twilight cleric outheal your combat every once in a while, let the eloquence bard do what the class was made for within reason. A good DM can adapt. Not to mention you can add homebrew fights and abilites to make it more interesting and possibly add some counters so the game doesn't get too boring.
Where are those clips when you’re talking about the chrono wizard from? Looks fun
This is a really well done and interesting video
I only recently started playing DnD with a friend of mine as the dm and his group. I'm generally pretty introverted as is in reality, but I wanted to try and push myself a bit to get more social by picking a bard, a class more known for roleplay than combat prowess. Eventually I picked up college of eloquence, not because I knew anything about it, but because I figured it would play more into the character. Eventually I see that I actually did have silver tongue, though at the time I assumed it meant you got to treat lower than a 9 AFTER you added the bonus, so I initially pretty much ignored it since I already had a +9 to my persuasion, as I had convinced myself that literally being incapable of rolling lower than a 19 would be way too broken for it to be how it works and clearly it meant in total. Lo and behold I eventually start reading up on my character as a whole only to find out that, no, it means that whatever shows on the dice gets changed. So even without having any idea of what I'm doing and not optimizing it at all, my shifter bard can pretty much talk his way out of anything.
Kinda surprised that Peace Cleric wasn't on this list. I hear people say they ban it this one a good amount.
My group has been playing together for years, and we use all of these :)))
I straight up made a premade party out of a lot of these subclasses without much thought and gave them to my friends for a one shot. It was very fun
Regarding eloquence bards, one way they can balance it is simply say these particular guards are well-trained and will always follow procedures and verify certain things regardless of what you say. That's reasonable because that's how a lot of things are done in real life. You might be able to convince them to bend a few very minor rules (like leaving you alone for a few seconds when they really shouldn't) but they will still stick to their core duties.
One of my early characters was a lucky halfling divination wizard. I was pretty new, and thought I had stumbled onto something fun unique powerful and of course, that no one else had ever heard of. When I found a video describing it like a month later I was just shocked, and I've kind of been sad about it ever since.
But
I always try to build fun and unique characters, so my intention all along was to make a little fun having gremlin type of guy, and I picked an interesting spell list with specific areas of focus, and skipped a lot of what I believed to be the strongest spells in 5E, I skipped a lot of mainstays including things like Fireball and Fly. I still have a pretty good spell list, still do a pretty good bit of support and some damage, and I've held myself to rules about when and why my character uses class features. Usually for selfish reasons of course.
I made a ranger that made druids useless basically I made it able to transform into any bird and has the whole druid spell list
13:20 "If players use them responsibly"... LOL
I play divination wizards a lot. As a support class, it keeps my party alive more than anything else. Occasionally it means player x that can't roll for anything gets to do something cool.
Twilight cleric can also fly in dim light and they get the busted "Circle of Power" spell at lvl 9, a Paladin spell usually not available until lvl 17, it's basically super evasion for the whole party.
one dm i know banned the wild magic barbarian.
turns out the default WM barb isn't busted, its just that the only player who plays barbarians used a homebrew version that he forgot to ask about
this homebrew version had a d100 table that had some busted stuff like casting magic missile at fifth level