What are the biggest things DnD 5e needs to be passable?

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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Also, the Illusionist wizard is crazy-strong in 5E D&D. Malleable Illusions and Phantom Reality are two of the best abilities ever published in D&D, period. If you those features to their full potential, you're basically not playing fair anymore.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Also, the Illusionist wizard is crazy-strong in 5E D&D. Malleable Illusions and Phantom Reality are two of the best abilities ever published in D&D, period. If you those features to their full potential, you're basically not playing fair anymore.
I don't doubt it. If their spell DC is high enough, and as long as they are allowed to maintain their spell concentration by the rest of the party being effective enough to deal with Diplomacy/Knowledge checks, a 5th level spellcaster in 3e can theoretically use a single casting of Major Image to clear many obstacle to adventuring before they have to rest for the day. By recycling their 10' cubes into solid objects for the party to bypass physical obstacles, create unkillable, teleporting/ flying, monsters to deal with combat encounters, create "mirrored" forms of hiding that transpose what light is on opposite sides of the cube, as well as additional camouflaging effects like illusionary fog/darkness.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by RobbyPants »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Also, the Illusionist wizard is crazy-strong in 5E D&D. Malleable Illusions and Phantom Reality are two of the best abilities ever published in D&D, period. If you those features to their full potential, you're basically not playing fair anymore.
What do those do? I'm not planning on buying a 5E PHB and they only have the evoker path on the SRD.
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Post by DSMatticus »

Malleable illusion is level 6, and lets you spend an action to change what the illusion is of. Illusions are already mobile in 5E (i.e. you can reposition them as you move so they follow you well outside their original range), so malleable illusion turns one ten-minute illusion into ten minutes of at-will illusions.

Illusory reality is level 14. "When you cast an illusion spell of 1st level or higher, you can choose one inanimate, nonmagical object that is part of the illusion and make that object real. You can do this on your turn as a bonus action while the spell is ongoing. The object remains real for 1 minute. ... The object can't deal damage or otherwise directly harm anyone." The wording on that is fucking weird. Can you create one real object period either when casting the spell or at any point later, or can you create one real object once per round in addition to once when casting thespell? Because it feels like they were trying to say the former, but the way it reads is absolutely 100% the latter. If I use malleable illusion - or even the standard illusion movement rules - to make the real object not part of the illusion anymore, does it pop out of existence or does it last the minute? It reads as lasting the minute, but I don't know because they don't specifically address consistency of the illusion, which seems like a really fucking obvious and important thing to address. There is no save against this. The real object is really real for the duration that it is real. The example object is a bridge, so they really do intend for you to use this shit to make small structures.

Melee brute? You cast silent image, a 1st level illusion. You have a 15ft cube to work with, so you make a cage of the hardest material you are aware of. As part of casting the spell, you make the cage real as per illusory reality. The enemy is now trapped for a minute.

Melee brute's archer friend? You spend your action to malleable illusion the cage into a solid cube around the archer. The cage around the melee brute, a real object, continues existing question mark? You spend your bonus action making the cube around the archer real.

Yes, as it reads you get one no-save-get-fucked AoE battlefield control effect each round.

Malleable illusion isn't super crazy on its own. I mean, one good illusion is often enough battlefield control to win the fight anyway, so unless you're stringing together a bunch of fights in one ten minute window you're not giving yourself extra milage. Probably has some nice non-combat applications (ten miutes of arbitrary stealth-assisting illusions). Illusory reality is level 14, and high-level 5E is pure unfiltered cancer. It is as broken as high-level 3.5 and as boring as high-level 4E. So, not really surprising.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Fri Oct 13, 2017 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

The key innovation as far as illusions owning your ass in 5e is simply the change in concentration rules. In 3e you've always been able to move your illusions around and change them up by concentrating. It's just that in 3e that's your standard action each round. In 5e, concentration is basically your buff slot. All casters are pretty much expected to be maintaining a concentration effect all the time.

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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

As far as Malleable Illusions go, there's a ton of great shit you can do with it.

[*] Permanent Major Images are a cute parlor trick in the hands of most mages, but in YOUR hands it's devastating.
[*] It makes Dream go from a 'snipe the Mounted Archer Captain' trick to 'Snipe the Mounted Archer Captain, their general staff, and their first lieutenants'.
[*] It makes Mirage Arcana hilariously, ridiculously overpowered. Not only can you cast it in downtime, but you can also MOVE it. Meaning, you can have your Mirage Arcana have a huge tree or a spire and then move it from outside the dungeon to directly on top of it. And hey, you can then use Malleable Illusions to cause structures to appear (or disappear) as you see fit.
[*] Use it on Simulacrum to bypass the 'can't regain spell slots, regaining hit points is hard' limitations.
[*] Use it on Creation to get one of the best parts of Illusory Reality 5 levels early. Make a wooden arrow, carry it around with you, then Malleable Illusion it the way you want.
[*] You can be boring with it and use it with Seeming. It's a good way to get around the whole 'how are you bringing your zombie army into town'?
[*] Use it with Project Image for Ministry of Truth-style fun.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Cervantes
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Post by Cervantes »

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/07/17/il ... reality-2/

So the proper reading of Illusory Reality is the former one, even though it is very badly written. I still don't know whether you can make the object real at cast-time or only as a bonus action after the spell is cast.

Either way - it is strong as hell and makes every Illusion spell into crowd-control if you use it creatively enough.

Malleable Illusion seems... annoyingly defined. "Change the nature"? I guess they wanted something like "what it looks like" or whatever because being able to MA a Dream spell into something that targets multiple creatures is very weird. Using it with Creation as a Small caster is wonderful since you can turn that arrow into a 3/4 cover iron crate. And using it with Simulacrum is really just "undefined" to me since there aren't any parameters you feed into Simulacrum other than the "copy a thing that's near you while you spend 12 hours casting the spell". Is the parameter "a thing near you" or "a thing near you for the whole casting duration"? Ugh.

e: As an addendum: is there a way to have Illusion magic that isn't either overpowered or underpowered? I love Illusion magic as a concept but jesus
Last edited by Cervantes on Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Voss »

Wow. That is a terrible fucking format for answering rules questions, especially with all the other crap and advertising in there.
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Post by Username17 »

Cervantes wrote:As an addendum: is there a way to have Illusion magic that isn't either overpowered or underpowered? I love Illusion magic as a concept but jesus
In SR, you just control the horizontal and the vertical and you can make your illusions do whatever the fuck you want in a six meter radius sphere and people who don't resist can't tell which images are maufactured and which are real. If you want to make a dozen mirror images or simply prevent your opponents from seeing anything important, you just do it. And that's not ungamebalanced because you could also have a grenade launcher.

Illusions of that sort are pretty hard to balance with swinging a sword, because swinging a sword is inherently pretty low power.

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Post by OgreBattle »

You could balance illusions as "targets your sense/willpower defense" attacks as oppose to fireballs being the "targets your not-get-hurt-physically defense".

So a physical patch of thorns slows you down by attacking your physical defense, an illusory obstacle slows you down by attacking your sensory defense.
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Post by Ice9 »

Not gonna lie, abilities like that make 5E a little more palatable to me. More so than 4E, despite being a worse-constructed system than 4E. Because at least in 5E I could amuse myself by doing some broken shit, and the char-gen is less work.

Re: Illusions as damaging spells. You could do that, it just makes illusions boring as hell and fairly pointless as a thing to exist. I don't think illusions are all that impossible to balance, it's just that D&D has historically not made up its fucking mind as to how they work, which makes it hard to balance ("It's an independently existing image ... but you can save to see through it ... but only if you 'interact' with it ... and we don't specify what exactly that means"). I think the two clearest models are:

1) It's all in the target(s) head. Make a Will save, you see through it completely. Don't make the save, you get fooled, and it will fill in all details as required to do that. So it's an environment-limited SoD, like Suggestion.

2) It's not mental at all, it's a hologram (possibly a semi-solid hologram for the higher-level stuff). You can't save against it, although probably you can make a skill check to notice inconsistencies if applicable.
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Post by DSMatticus »

It's a level 14 ability. You're never actually going to get to use it, and if you do try to play the game at that level it will make you want to kill yourself.

It's also a no-save get-fucked trick, which is honestly a pretty boring kind of broken. "I push the 'I Win' button. Do I win? Do I?" "Yes, Bob, you win. Ugh. You guys just wanna play Smash or something?" There are counters, of course, but I'm confident most enemies don't have them because 5E monster design is boring as shit.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Truesight is a hard counter to illusions in 5E D&D, and unlike 3E D&D a lot of higher-CR monsters have it. Counterspell is also a fairly common spell for out-of-the-book spellcasters to have prepared, especially in non-Monster Manual hardcover material.

It's not an instant 'I win' button, but for all of the wrong reasons. It's better when used as part of a toolbox of other questionable shit. And 5E D&D gives more than enough tools, if you know where to look.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Cervantes »

Voss wrote:Wow. That is a terrible fucking format for answering rules questions, especially with all the other crap and advertising in there.
It's actually worse because it's a compilation of answers to rules questions; (afaik) there isn't actually an official medium for it.

I don't think Truesight counters Illusory Reality since IR makes the illusion real. But yeah, level 14 and the DM is just going to say "okay that's real fucking cute huh" and houserule some sort of nerf. Probably something related to "you can't IR an illusion that's been seen through" or whatever so Truesight does counter it.
Last edited by Cervantes on Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by codeGlaze »

As I admitted in "5e has failed" I've embraced/resigned myself to it's use.

Would anyone who's been using it be willing to distill/share their basic tweaks/additions/improvements?

Any standard gear or bonuses you hand out at the start?
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Post by Voss »

Point buy. People who insist on lol!random for stats can go fuck themselves. In fact, let everyone roll, and force the worse set of stats from the group on the people who insist on random.

I've seen people hand out bonus feats at level 1. Aside from a few trap options, this isn't bad, since it actually allows for some customization.

Similarly, I'd argue to keep stat ups as stat ups, and just give feats at some regular interval (every 5 levels), because the two mixed together is just fucking insane- you either fall off the math train or have no real choices in character development.

I'd also argue for starting at level 3, so everyone is actually playing their class, rather than a stripped out version.

Humans suck. +1 to everything is not equal to +2/+1 (or +2/+2) plus a giant pile of racial bonuses. Every class is inferior in the stats they care about with humans, unless they're super MAD. Feat humans aren't as bad, but they're often obliged to take half ability bonus feats, and still get stuck with fuck all.
Any standard gear or bonuses you hand out at the start?
Not really necessary. The main problem is the GM doing encounters by the book or randomly, and not taking into account the HP bloat or absurd damage capability of even low level monsters. No starting bonus is going to overcome DM inattention in 5e.

I'd actually like to try 5e without the random bullshit special powers on all monsters (hobgoblins fuck you, goblins are super squirmy, orcs are super fast, kobolds are super accurate), and 2e hit points, just for novelty of quick combat that isn't a terrible grind of drudgery and wankery.

What I'd really like to do is adjust all the numbers so the game can support PC vs group combat, but that is a lot of work. I immensely dislike the fact that 12-20 shitty humanoids are the most likely thing to break the game and end in a TPK.
Last edited by Voss on Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Cervantes »

there's a few houserules out there and i've seen at least one overhaul that puts all classes on short rests + replaces spell slots with a spell point variant. i'm gonna just list off houserule ideas i know

1. Getting knocked down imposes a level of unconsciousness. Prevents yoyo-ing but completely fucks over your Cleric. Arguably yoyo-ing is part of the game design.
2. Nerf Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Fighting and replace the "-5 penalty, +10 damage" with "-X penalty, +2X damage" where X is your proficiency bonus. I went with "choose your penalty up to your proficiency", possibly that's stronger if you actually know the enemy's AC. The base feats are insanely strong.
3. Background skill proficiencies should just be freely chosen if the player can justify it, who cares
4. It'd be nice if racial bonuses were uncoupled with attribute bonuses more
5. Skill reshuffling. Change History to something like "Society" so you it has more use. I remove Intimidate because I don't think that it's useful enough to warrant its own skill, and merge Animal Handling + Survival + Nature (Int) into one Nature (Wis) skill. Nature knowledge is still Intelligence (Nature).

Yes, absolutely only use point buy. Do not use critical fumble bullshit. Encounters are gonna have to be done yourself by hand because the CR system is kind of a mess
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Post by Ferret »

Passive checks are skill+5 instead of skill+10 (to make it less likely that not-searching for a thing is better odds than searching for it).

ASI/Feat split needs to go away. My favored solution is that Feats come whenever you get an ASI based on classes, Stat increases at 4, 8, 12, 16.

Advantage/Disadvantage stacking - if I impose disadvantage 3x and you generate advantage from only one, you have disadvantage etc
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Post by Stubbazubba »

1. Advantage/Disadvantage cancel out 1 for 1 but don't stack, so if you have 3 disadvantage and 1 advantage, you just have disadvantage.

2. Instead of racial ability modifiers, all 1st-level characters get a +2 to their class' primary ability (see PHB p. 45), and then +1 to two other abilities.

3. Point buy, obviously.
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Post by Voss »

Cervantes wrote: 2. Nerf Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Fighting and replace the "-5 penalty, +10 damage" with "-X penalty, +2X damage" where X is your proficiency bonus. I went with "choose your penalty up to your proficiency", possibly that's stronger if you actually know the enemy's AC. The base feats are insanely strong.
I disagree with this, rather a lot. Between the shit bonuses players are limited to, hit point bloat (or, at low levels, monsters with effectively nonexistent hit points that hit hard or are just weird), monsters that can impose disadvantage (surprisingly common), have an innately high AC (rare) or have shit like shield, these feats are surprisingly niche.

At first level, they're particularly hilariously bad, as they're cancelling out your entire to hit bonus, and forcing you to take straight d20 rolls against AC. And often, they don't actually help, as you're attacking creatures you'll splat regardless of the +10 (stirges, kobolds, goblins), or creatures that you'll still have to hit at least one more time (satyrs, etc) to actually kill them.

And with the math, and ways of fucking with the math, that -5 will always be relevant, and the +10 often won't be. Crits don't double static bonuses, so that doesn't matter, number of attacks are pretty capped so that doesn't matter much, and a lot of fuckers have some form of fuckery and HP numbers where -5 to hit is crippling in the face of the system's slow progression and +10 damage simply doesn't have that much impact.

The other side of the coin is just HP bloat. There is a lot of shit in the 5e MM that's boring as fuck to fight and has triple digit hit points at absurdly low levels, which includes large animals and elementals (except earth elementals, because go fuck yourself- they also have high AC). Fighting these things can be stupidly unfun, so killing them faster with these feats is a clearly positive thing.

I just don't want to be fighting CR 4 were-tigers at 2d6+4 damage per swing when they've got 120 fucking hit points (effectively double that if you don't have silver or magic). Fuck off and let's get on with it.
Last edited by Voss on Sun Dec 10, 2017 4:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Cervantes »

That's a fair argument. SS / GWF are necessary for the highest DPR builds BUT, well... you're not a caster, so at least you get to do something. My experience is biased here because my DM foolishly gave me magic stuff that gives +2 to Attack rolls and I'm the only one who actually puts out damage (other group member is a Lore Bard who didn't go Skeleton Party).

I didn't realize crits didn't double static bonuses. Wtf
Last edited by Cervantes on Sun Dec 10, 2017 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Voss »

That's actually part of my point. If you're thinking of these feats as pure DPR maximizing, you're kind of missing how big that -5 is in this system.

Of your two real bonuses (stat and prof), -5 is all of one at its maximum value, and almost half of the total of the two (+11). A 20th level character with these feats attacks as a 3rd level character, plus or minus magic weapon bonuses that are 'supposedly' completely optional.

But if you actually mathed this out (at various levels, mapping attacks vs AC with a large sampling of monsters, both with out without the feats), I suspect you'd find that the two feats are actually a detriment to DPR quite often.


Also, yeah. If your experience with 5e is a two person party with artifact bullshit to prop you up, your experience is unhelpful to understanding how the edition functions.
Last edited by Voss on Mon Dec 11, 2017 2:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Stubbazubba »

Oh, also change Inspiration so it just works like FATE points.
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Post by Cervantes »

I mean, let's not overlook Fighting Style: Archery here. But yeah lemme math it out in a bit, I THINK the calculations I found include accuracy considerations but I can just do it better myself
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