@G.Moylan I asked in a local meetup and the organizers said they wouldn't give me the file because of copyright concerns. these are the same dms that offered to give copies to people at the table last night
@MageintheBarrel that's why it's balanced that the spell point system allows you do to that. You're casting 2/3/4 level 8+ spells but at the expense of your usefullness for the remainder of the time
@nitsua60 I'm not sure, I'm not that educated on druids
I was reading through this question and basically any answer can be undone by most if not all of these things:
Wish
Fates card out of the Deck of Many Things
Divine intervention
So I was wondering, is there any effect in official dnd 5e material that can actually not be undone by any of the...
Spiritualism: Spell slots are replaced by a reasource called orbs orbs restore by 1 per 3 turns and cap at 10 the number orbs required to cast a spell is equal to spell level divided by 2 rounded up.
@MageintheBarrel I would still use spell points, personally. It's an existing, tested, balanced system that is in the DMG, and some DMs allow some players to use spell points while others use slots at the same table
Okay. Got it. Well, please know that there are thousands of RPGs, D&D may not be right for everyone, and even if one sticks to playing D&D as one's "main" game I believe that game benefits when other systems are explored.
I honeslty think spell points fixes the slot problem. It functions much more like mana or "magic energy" and makes more sense thematically. I jsut can't find the stinking page...
Points at level are equal to what the full casters' slots would be, converted to points. Max level castable at each level is same as a full caster would be.
@nitsua60 and it doesn't restrict the slots you have. if you WANT to upcast verything to "5th-level equivalent" you can, but you're going to run out of points quickly. Conversely, you can get a TON of casts by only casting lower-level spells
It's much more flexible in the number and level of spells that can be cast, below 6th. It's not at all different in that it's a resource-management system to limit casters from blowing up everything they see all day.
The number you get at each level I didn't feel like listing, since it's what you get if you look at a caster's table and convert the slots they do get to points using the table I did copy.
basically in the spell point variant system you have a pool of spell points, which you automatically mechanically convert to a spell slot to cast a spell (or use an ability powered by spell slots)
you get enough spell points that you'd be able to cast as many spells of the same level as a caster using the normal system. You can just distribute them more flexibly.
Let's say you're a 7th-level Wizard. With slots you'd get 4/3/3/1 slots. With this you get 38 points. So you could cast six 4th-level spells and a 1st, rather than being limited to 1 4th.
Though I'll push back on that being bound to resources necessarily. I agree that casters need a limit; in some games that limit is group veto, or stress you're willing to incur, or rolling against the fate you're tempting....
Touched base with @daze413! He's okay, still (subliminally) active, voting, occasionally commenting, and had a vote in the recent mod election :) should hopefully see him again soon!
oh hey the most obvious case for yesterdays discussion was right in front of me. Going to level my Wizard who hit 2 last night and Potent Cantrip is a perfect counter example
> Starting at 6th level, your damaging cantrips affect even creatures that avoid...
@goodguy5 Well, I'm particularly whining about the "how many dice" one, where my answer is based on experience and has references. But really, I see other people's perfectly good answers downvoted all the time for who knows what reasons.
The way that 5e works, each class has a sub class that dictates a heap of class features. The question here is generally, can a character of a specific class take levels in that same class in order to gain access to the low level features of another sub-class.
The best example of this would eith...
How would that work with highest level spell slots? If they're Wizard 3 / Wizard 2, that means they have the slots of a 5th level caster, but can only prepare what a 3rd level Wizard has access to
And it's not like they're getting an expanded spell list, or new class features. The earliest benefit is copying some spells more quickly. Doesn't seem worth the loss of class level progression.
@mattdm If I were allowing this, I'd only allow the Wizard to take two School features, gaining them at half the rate. So like you'd get one level 2 feature at level 2, the other at level 4, then one level 6 feature at level 8, then the other level 6 feature at level 12, then level 10 at 16, then the other at level 20.
@mattdm Possible implementation: Wizard chooses a secondary school and an opposed school. The time and $ to add new spells is halved for their secondary school, and doubled for their opposed school.
The tradeoffs are built-in, so you wouldn't have to sacrifice levels or class features this way.
Beyond that, letting a character double-up on archetypes could get iffy
@goodguy5 I wouldn't write it that way. Seems unnecessary, and it pokes into the territory of trying to offset major benefits with major penalties, which 5E usually avoids
@Ryan Suggestion - Look at the stuff they get at 2nd and 6th level, since those are the more defining features of the archetypes. Then narrow down to whichever fits the playstyle you want.
@MikeQ yeah that doesnt help. I love both. I like Transmutation Spells a bit more but I plan to take the Flames of Phlegethos feat at level 4 and that kinda makes me think I should go all in on Evocation
@Ryan There's no real reason to go Evocation to benefit from Flames of Phlegethos. Any wizard can cast fire spells and utilize the Elemental Adept and wreath of fire benefits.
In fact an evoker is no better at using Flames of Phlegethos except for the cheaper acquisition of new evocation spells that deal fire damage.
Evocation is a good choice if you intend to use a lot of AOE evocations, and want to utilize Sculpt Spells. The archetype's other features are nice damage bonuses, but they don't really affect or depend on playstyle.
@DavidCoffron Ok, I was wrong. Potent Cantrip means you will ahve slightly more damage rolls to utilize:
> When you roll fire damage for a spell you cast, you can reroll any roll of 1 on the fire damage dice, but you must use the new roll, even if it is another 1.
@Ryan Unlike the evocation archetype, which depends more on casting evocation spells, the transmuter archetype doesn't really require you to rely on transmutation spells
There's so much the Master Transmuter can do its kinda ridiculous
I guess if you had a way to make yourself immune to Necrotic Damage for a little while you could get stupid with Overchannel but otherwise its basically one nuke a day
how to balance this? Spiritualism: Spirit Infusion
Inject your spiritual power into your weapon and transfer it into your target creating death marks. After Stacking Death Marks up to 10 times with your basic attack you can use the action 5 fingered death to hit an enemy with a palm strike which deals 1d4 force damage at level 1 2d4 at level 5, 3d4 at level 15, and 4d4 at level 20 per stack. Due to the strain this technique places on the users spirit can only use it once per long rest.
@Ryan Is it really? I always expected GMs would just assume you'd used it in a previous adventure. Are familiars also a problem for AL since brass braziers aren't easy to come by?
@Ryan Nah even the necrotic immunity wouldn't work:
But you could just take the necrotic damage, especially if you have someone in your party with one of the ridiculous out of combat healing options (meaning all that necrotic damage is moot as long as you don't die)
@Ryan Haven't looked at AL at all since season 7. I have no idea how it works now
It started to look a bit too far away from how I like to play D&D for my tastes
I dont like it either @DavidCoffron but its a lot easier to find groups for it around here. Not quite sure why they dont just all play Homebrew and not worry so much about it
@Ryan In season 7 and before it was basically D&D with like 5 house rules to make play a bit more balanced assuming people are jumping from table to table (like not stacking up ridiculous amounts of magic items on familiars, and preventing permanent effects from transferring), but with season 8 it's a whole new game
@Ryan Or if you like the adventure modules, just play regular D&D with an honor code
I kept telling her Im not sure why you're bothering with the AL but she insisted on doing it that way even though we had a consistent group of 6 players for 4 months
> You can use a bonus action on your turn to make your ranged attacks with a kensei weapon more deadly. When you do so, any target you hit with a ranged attack using a kensei weapon takes an extra 1d4 damage of the weapon’s type. You retain this benefit until the end of the current turn.
but just delaying the 1d4 until one big attack at the end
@DavidCoffron Yes, the math works out that way, on average. Like I said, it depends who gets access to this ability, and what qualifies as "basic attack".
@MikeQ And, at later levels it might get a hair ridiculous, but it's once per day (so you could compare it to spells like meteor storm and see that it is not that bad)
The stacks thing seems fine (although I highly doubt you are ever going to get mileage out of 10 stacks, very few things survive ten attacks from a party).
@DavidCoffron so RAW I earned 10 downtime days in a typical session. A transmuters stone would take 1 full day. Copying spells takes 1 full day, and it says youre supposed to do with the DM present. Trading a magic item takes 15 downtime days
@DavidCoffron I think AL is excellent at "get people introduced to the game, to other players, and now go run your own home table with some of the friends you've made." Unfortunately it tries to do both that and "drop-in ability for experienced players who travel around a lot" and "ongoing campaign for established play-groups."
@MageintheBarrel However much a paladin does if they blow all their smiting.
I've got a player who's going to play paladin for the first time in my next group, and first thing I had to tell him was "don't bother with divine smite, it's a trap ability". Yeah, you'll find situations, especially early in the game, where you blow a spell slot on it and you get a nice crit, but those situations are so few and far between.
@MageintheBarrel Trouble is, it is not quite a once per day ability. It is a once per day ability that is contingent on getting in a lot of hits first. I'd estimate (completely out the back) that you usually get it off with 4-6 stacks.
@DavidCoffron True. It's a cute gimmick mechanic, but it doesn't synergize much with party tactics (which is generally assumed). Could be difficult to anticipate when you should trigger the extra damage.
@MikeQ Yeah, you could save it up, and then the monster is brought really low, and you realize you should have just blown it last turn, as now you are wasting a ton of damage
@MageintheBarrel If you want a once per day massive nuke as an unarmed strike, the monk Way of the Long Death has Touch of the Long Death
> Starting at 17th level, your touch can channel the energy of death into a creature. As an action, you touch one creature within 5 feet of you, and you expend 1 to 10 ki points. The target must make a Constitution saving throw, and it takes 2d10 necrotic damage per ki point spent on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
@MageintheBarrel So a combination of a push effect and a mini-fireball?
@MageintheBarrel Well, the nuke you suggested scales way too much to be a racial feature. The only racial trait that scales past level 5 in the base game is the Dragonborn Breath Weapon
@MageintheBarrel Have you considered taking the subrace approach, one is melee, one is magic (like they did with the gith)
@MikeQ You could get that pretty easily with a warlock Invocation. Something that turns an eldritch blast beam into a small AOE. Then your first beam is Repelling Blast and your second beam is the AOE, and you just narrate it as that blaze skill
@MageintheBarrel Horizon Walker rangers (found in Xanathar's Guide to Everything) have a feature that does exactly that
> As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The next time you hit that creature on this turn with a weapon attack, all damage dealt by the attack becomes force damage, and the creature takes an extra 1d8 force damage from the attack. When you reach 11th level in this class, the extra damage increases to 2d8.
It might be a hair too strong as a racial trait. Problem there is no resistance to force damage, and one of the most common resistances is to weapon damages
> you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 radiant damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8
The Hunter ranger's 11th-level Multiattack feature has two options. One of them is Volley:
You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target, as normal, and...
@MageintheBarrel And for the experts who want to do it more often, maybe they become clerics and use divine strike as a way to do the same thing twice in a turn (you can reflavor it as the divine portion of their spiritual energy that they can tap in to thanks to their domain).
Although, I'm not sure how balanced it is as a racial trait. Even at a d4 it is stronger than features like cat's claws (which are limited to unarmed strikes) for everyone but monks
Perhaps once per short rest you can bestow spiritual energy into your weapon; then you can use a bonus action on your turn to cause the next weapon attacks to deal an extra 1d6 force damage
You could do like a proficiency bonus number of uses per long rest (2 at early levels, up to 6 at the latest levels). Then you can be a bit more liberal with the damage
Then you are looking at a damage range like the first verison of Breath Weapon of Dragonborn (who probably get 2-3 uses daily, and damage scaling up, whereas you get uses scaling up)
I was reading through this question and basically any answer can be undone by most if not all of these things:
Wish
Fates card out of the Deck of Many Things
Divine intervention
So I was wondering, is there any effect in official dnd 5e material that can actually not be undone by any of the...
The Hunter ranger's 11th-level Multiattack feature has two options. One of them is Volley:
You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target, as normal, and...
