FAQ/OOC

[BobtheWizard]

2 hours ago, PixCO said:

Yonpine's ranged combat -- are you still backing bows? I haven't gone through the equipment stuff yet, but if 5e still scales damage with size, then she might be better off taking Thrown Weapons and whipping various potions, glues, or other utility weapons rather than d4 damage. It's hard to make a good call without knowing how it plays out in practice.

 

EDIT: Wait, I think I know this one. Archery Fighting Style with Crossbow Expert? Having a clockmaking father who was forced to support your murderous career choice by your mother could have some nice bonuses there.

Having not played anything between 1E and 5E, this doesn't make much sense to me. Shortbows and hand crossbows are 1d6. Archery style gives you +2 to hit which is big in 5e. Sharpshooter feat lets you ignore cover, ignore long range penalties and take -5 to hit for +10 damage, which is worth it when you have advantage. Crossbow expert gives a bonus action attack with a hand crossbow but as a gnome you won't get a feat until level 4.

With 5e's object interaction rules, thrown weapons are difficult to manage. Loading an arrow or bolt is part of the attack, but drawing a thrown weapon requires your object interaction, and you only get one per round.

[PixCO]

1 hour ago, BobtheWizard said:

Having not played anything between 1E and 5E, this doesn't make much sense to me. Shortbows and hand crossbows are 1d6. Archery style gives you +2 to hit which is big in 5e. Sharpshooter feat lets you ignore cover, ignore long range penalties and take -5 to hit for +10 damage, which is worth it when you have advantage. Crossbow expert gives a bonus action attack with a hand crossbow but as a gnome you won't get a feat until level 4.

With 5e's object interaction rules, thrown weapons are difficult to manage. Loading an arrow or bolt is part of the attack, but drawing a thrown weapon requires your object interaction, and you only get one per round.

• Thrown Weapon Fighting. You can draw a weapon that has the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon.
  • In addition, when you hit with a ranged attack using a thrown weapon, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage roll.

 

Sounds like you missed out on Weapon Shrinkage. At some point it was decided to scale weapon damage with creature size. 3.5 maybe? Creatures sized Small used smaller weapons that did less damage. And there were significant penalties to wielding a weapon scaled to a Medium sized creature when you're Small. Glad to see they got rid of that.

TWF removes the draw penalty on throwing. But I'm here for advice and if you say Archery, I'm good with Archery. Are crossbows worth the feat Yopine would need to spend on Crossbow Expert, or should she stick to bows?

[PixCO]

Hah! I knew I remembered Weapon Shrinkage from somewhere. A pretty good discussion thread on it as well.

 

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?357882-Why-The-Weapon-Shrinkage-Belkar

[BobtheWizard]

2 hours ago, PixCO said:

• Thrown Weapon Fighting. You can draw a weapon that has the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon.
  • In addition, when you hit with a ranged attack using a thrown weapon, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage roll.

 

Sounds like you missed out on Weapon Shrinkage. At some point it was decided to scale weapon damage with creature size. 3.5 maybe? Creatures sized Small used smaller weapons that did less damage. And there were significant penalties to wielding a weapon scaled to a Medium sized creature when you're Small. Glad to see they got rid of that.

TWF removes the draw penalty on throwing. But I'm here for advice and if you say Archery, I'm good with Archery. Are crossbows worth the feat Yopine would need to spend on Crossbow Expert, or should she stick to bows?

Thrown weapon fighting would work, but you are limited to daggers (d4 and 20/60 range) as a DEX build. It's fine. It's just not as good as taking the archery fighting style for +2 to hit and using darts. And neither is as good as using a shortbow or crossbow expert.

As far as crossbow expert, it is a great feat. That BA attack is very powerful, especially at level 1-4 if you make a variant human. At 4, you could take it, but the hand crossbow will only have a range of 30' until you take sharpshooter. It still works, you just have to carry a light crossbow for longer ranged fights.

I generally would use a longbow (shortbow for a gnome) and take sharpshooter first to get longer range and to ignore cover, but either would be a good feat. I also like taking +2 Dex at 4 and bumping my to hit, damage, and AC. But with only 2 or 3 PCs, the no penalty at close range from crossbow expert might be more important. Any of those 3 are good options.

But at level 3, shortbow is your best option. d6 damage, 80/320 range, and can still make your Gloomstalker attack in the fist round.

[BobtheWizard]

2 hours ago, PixCO said:

Hah! I knew I remembered Weapon Shrinkage from somewhere. A pretty good discussion thread on it as well.

 

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?357882-Why-The-Weapon-Shrinkage-Belkar

I'm glad I missed those rules. I very much appreciate 5e's simplicity.

[PixCO]

11 minutes ago, BobtheWizard said:

Thrown weapon fighting would work, but you are limited to daggers (d4 and 20/60 range) as a DEX build. It's fine. It's just not as good as taking the archery fighting style for +2 to hit and using darts. And neither is as good as using a shortbow or crossbow expert.

As far as crossbow expert, it is a great feat. That BA attack is very powerful, especially at level 1-4 if you make a variant human. At 4, you could take it, but the hand crossbow will only have a range of 30' until you take sharpshooter. It still works, you just have to carry a light crossbow for longer ranged fights.

I generally would use a longbow (shortbow for a gnome) and take sharpshooter first to get longer range and to ignore cover, but either would be a good feat. I also like taking +2 Dex at 4 and bumping my to hit, damage, and AC. But with only 2 or 3 PCs, the no penalty at close range from crossbow expert might be more important. Any of those 3 are good options.

But at level 3, shortbow is your best option. d6 damage, 80/320 range, and can still make your Gloomstalker attack in the fist round.

Yeah, don't throw daggers. It's not worth it. Throw vials of oil, holy water, glue, or other alchemy weapons available. Debuff and contain, good Support Class stuff. Darts work well too when poisoned. But it only works if the campaign has a good variety of stuff to throw.

Crossbow Expert mitigates the load time, but I'm not sure of the mechanics. Short bow it shall be!

 

EDIT: Argh, no. Rethought the close combat angle. I think there are ways to get that outside of CrossEx, but she's a city fighter. She'd work in close quarters most of the time. Might have to go crossbow to stay true to the concept.

Edited October 10, 2023 by PixCO (see edit history)

[BobtheWizard]

6 minutes ago, PixCO said:

Yeah, don't throw daggers. It's not worth it. Throw vials of oil, holy water, glue, or other alchemy weapons available. Debuff and contain, good Support Class stuff. Darts work well too when poisoned. But it only works if the campaign has a good variety of stuff to throw.

Crossbow Expert mitigates the load time, but I'm not sure of the mechanics. Short bow it shall be!

That makes sense. So for that, you'd want a Rogue Thief. They can use their use-object bonus action to spread ballbearings, oil, or caltrops. It works well at low levels but doesn't scale well. Poison isn't supported very well in 5e, but you can make it work somewhat. 5e encourages you to lean into damage or spells. For a ranger, you'll have entangle to tie people up, and goodberry to heal us if we need it. Ballbearings and caltrops would be a good thing for us to bring with a 3 person party.

Crossbow expert is a perfectly fine choice at level 4. We're just starting at level 3 so a gnome can't have it yet.

Edited October 10, 2023 by BobtheWizard (see edit history)

[SMARTAgentKC]

Just a heads up everyone, since I've been seeing a couple of warning alerts in the past day or so.

Do not post links to sites with unauthorized copywritten stuff like D&D rules and other things. If you must post a link to official 5e stuff, stick to Wizards of the Coast or DnDbeyond for the links. They have rights to post the stuff on their sites others do not.

The mods of Mythweavers run a very strict (and respectable) rule system that prevents them from being sued and being forced to shutdown.

I know it is an easy mistake to make, I've made it myself in the past year I believe.

So let's do our part in following the rules folks while still trying to help each other out

Thank you for your cooperation

[voodoozombie]

Can we sell starting equipment we don't in order to purchase something else?

[SMARTAgentKC]

Official Rules tend to allow people to sell off their starting equipment for half price.

But if you're starting from beyond level 1 I usually house rule to ignore the starting equipment and just equip yourself with what you need (within reason) to have all your abilities available.

[BlackFinch]

If it's okay by all of you I'd still love to play, just had a very busy week. I will finish my character as soon as possible and won't have you wait another week.

[PixCO]

WBBF! 😋 I'll say it again, really looking forward to the game. Especially since Yopine has taken on a life of her own.

 

ESPECIALLY especially since now I need something to do today. New deployment tool that nobody could figure out. For months I've been hearing "we just can't get it to work". So fine, give it to me and I'll spend the day figuring it out. Sounds like a fun challenge.

I mean... I love the people I work with, but sometimes I wonder. It just was not that tricky.

[PixCO]

I'll be on the road for the next couple of days. Posting will be sporadic until Monday, but I'll be watching for BlackFinch to reply.

 

Impression on 5e so far -- I like what they've done with it. I still need to see how all of the mechanics come together in-game, but it looks like it should be pretty smooth. The one thing I don't like is adding my Dex bonus to damage.

Years of playing Weapon Finesse has trained me that it trades damage for stealth. That was just how it worked. Tying it to damage now feels like a cop-out to all of us old-school Finesse fighters who wished it worked that way.

PB represents getting better at the skills of your chosen role. More experience translates to better accuracy and an Attack bonus. Makes sense. Dex represents physical coordination. Better coordination translates to better accuracy and an Attack plus Damage bonus? That's just a hard taboo. It does organize Str/Con vs Dex/Con builds though, so I'll take it.

 

@SMARTAgentKC - would you be interested in running a low stakes, street-level campaign? I have a storyline running in my head that culminates in Yopine's Conclave going to war against a branch of the Moloch charter of the Hangerback Thieves Guild. Plus ideas for a Harengon Inquisitive Rogue who goes full Sherlock Holmes. And I'm about to start on an illusionist build...

Maybe 5e made good character creation a little too streamlined? That's just dangerous.

Edited October 21, 2023 by PixCO
had->head (see edit history)

[voodoozombie]

For those in the BlackFinch simulation, I was wondering if it would be o.k. if I copied/clone the posting format that you are using?

It's very clean, streamlined yet has room for a lot of information. And it's easy to read and easy on the eyes!

[PixCO]

9 hours ago, voodoozombie said:

For those in the BlackFinch simulation, I was wondering if it would be o.k. if I copied/clone the posting format that you are using?

It's very clean, streamlined yet has room for a lot of information. And it's easy to read and easy on the eyes!

It is at that, and granting permission to use it seems to be a right of passage now. I had to ask Bob the same thing. Let its creator BWatford know you're enjoying it when you get the chance.