@NautArch I don't think it really matters. I was giving an example of something my character would remember over a 2-day span, but I would forget over a 5-month span
@MikeQ To me, there is a difference. Once is a task, the other is a name. Forgetting to write down a name isn't a big deal. Forgetting you were actually supposed to do something is a big deal.
@NautArch It depends, forgetting you were going to X city to warn the king of the Dragon Horde, would be pretty bad. Forgetting on the way that you had a sidequest for a little noble that wanted to deliver a letter to a shifty guy in a tabern while you are going to warn the king about the dragons... while bad, it's not so terrible, and I would probably remembered them that they HAD a card to deliver
Otherwise, I'm basically managing their characters. Are they choosing not to do X because they forgot or because they just didn't want to do it? HOw do you know unless you continue to remind them about it? But then are you just playing their character or trying to guide their actions to the actions YOU want them to take?
@MikeQ But wouldn't forgetting to do something be not a general idea of what's going on?
@MikeQ @NautArch this is easily solved with a session 0 and everyone knowing what the want and are going to get from the game, you just want to play differently and I don't see any of these ways wrong, as long as everyone is ok with how is handled
Depends. It's common for players to say something in recap like, "I think we just arrived at the city with the weird clocktower, the front guard was a jerk but we didn't fight him. I think we have to deliver something? Or fight something? Uh..."
@NautArch That's my fear, I always try to help them remember things, but it's difficult to not just tell them what to do. OR sometimes they are being secretive or coy with their players and I just blurt: "Eh, Krona, you've got that wrong, the Dragon guy DID tell you the secret formula"
@NautArch I would prefer that too. But when you ask your players to level up their characters for their next session, and they all get to the next session without having leveled up, and all say "I did not have time!", but you work the same hours as them, and you did prepare that fancy map, the props, the letters, made the paper minis for the NPCs and monsters...
you know that them remembering everything is too much to ask
I need a new group. I love my friends but they are clearly not into it as much as I am :P
@Helwar I think I'm more of a hard case, but if they were supposed to level up and pick everything and didn't. I'd probably just say have it ready for next session, but we're not going to waste time while they do it now unless they can do it as I'm setting up.
@Helwar I also think it dangerously blurs the line between player and character skills/expertise. If I'm a forgetful player, should I be penalised for it even if the character I'm playing wouldn't forget?
Well there are two issues. One is players forgetting details their characters would know, the others is players not taking the time to prepare their characters before the session
Slightly out of context: I have one group that I can only trust to play Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader with. Others have been experienced to the same system, bit the saw game makes all the difference
I hate citing Critical Role, just because while I enjoy it as a show I think it's a very bad example of real D&D, but... One character there has Eidetic Memory, and the player sure doesn't have it. The gm just tells him what the character knows. For other characters it should be as extreme, but I do think that player and character knowledge shouldn't be confused, and helping a player remember something their character DOES remember is ok
I actually got very angry at one of my players when I gave them three months in which to create a character, and they literally waited until 2am the night before the first session. That's different from the game-to-game information tracking.
Another example: I'm in a intrigue-heavy game with maybe 10-15 concurrent storylines, and anywhere from 1-3 months between sessions. Despite organizing notes into multiple spreadsheets and docs, I kept forgetting my character's priorities in between sessions. But no in-game time passes between sessions, so I basically have a character with an inconsistent and rapidly changing personality
@Helwar It was extremely frustrating for a long time, but eventually I decided to own it
This is the game where my character's #1 objective is to meet as many eldritch horrors as possible and make them join his friendship club, which is a result of me remembering to meet the tentacle beast from beyond space and time, but forgetting why
Now that we are talking about it, I really need to look for another group. POssibly one with someone willing to DM, as I've not been a player in anything other than one-or-two-shots in years... And I don't even know where to begin looking
@Wibbs I want to play 5e :P SO it shouldn't be a problem. Roll20 is good but is not used very much in spain, and finding games in spanish is near impossible.
I am a pretty good english speaker, but I don't think I'm good enough to not stutter or having to find roundabouts to say what I mean... wich is not optimal while roleplaying
well, he articulates that it's OP for players to have passive stealth, for some reason tahts' not said, but says that rogues kinda have something similar (wich is not similar at all)
@Helwar depends on the edition. 3.5 had almost universally agreed upon tiers (maybe a little wiggle room in tier 3), and 4e is pretty evident too. 5e is a lot closer to balanced tho
@Helwar but tbh those tier lists don't matter that much at most tables. I can make some pretty great warlords in 4e even though it's arguably the worst defender leader
@DavidCoffron mm... 4e had a tier list, but it also resolved (gone!) traditional power disparity issues like the martial vs caster gap, while D&D 5e's built on the paradigm that created those power disparity issues.
so they kinda solved different balance problems in their own ways
@doppelgreener there are still balance problems in 5e, don't get me wrong, but the main classes are more equal overall (subclasses are not, and races and feats are worse)
that's pretty much how they resolved the martial vs caster issue: they just said "y'all can all do extraordinary things now. we'll call them powers. all of you have them. also, have a ritual system for all the non-combat spells. all of you have access to it."
@Rubiksmoose I just played it for the first time in a current campaign (roleplay reasosn) expecting my combat to be mediocre and is make up for it in investigating and stuff. But it's so good
(I wanted a noninquisitor investigator, so I needed rogue expertise, but I decided on mastermind since I'd never tried it before)
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@NautArch I find that once you have fireball and haste you don't need to rush for much else. Going wizard 5 into rogue 3 and then finishing out wizard should be okay
@NautArch All higher level. I suppose it's a tradeoff. Go for those spells to have a use for bonus action or dip for it (which I can use all day, not with my few upper spell slots) and mis out on big spells
Multiclassing is either for RP reasons or for gimmick reasons, and the question becomes whether the RP/gimmick is worth the loss of progression in your main class
@HellSaint maybe remove the lol from the beginning of your comment under the TWF question? It sounds a bit mocking in that context though I don't think you meant it that way.
@HellSaint there's a tiny (tiny tiny) bit missing from your TWF answer, I think. You ignore hit-probabilities and acknowledge that and make a convincing argument for why it doesn't really matter. But I think that the math works out slightly differently if you do include hit-probabilities... because of crits. The TWF has 50% (then 33%, then 25%) more chance to land a crit (i.e. (a+1)/a) than the GWM, which isn't captured in your analysis.
@nitsua60 can you remove the "lol" from the beginning of this comment. I think it can easily be misinterpreted as being mocking which I don't think was hellsaint's intent. (especially with a new user).
But it's such a tiny impact that I don't think it'd change the outcome. Also, probably a smaller effect than the currently- and (reasonably-)ignored question of what the GWM is doing with their bonus action.
@Rubiksmoose Done. @HellSaint go ahead and ping me if this was in error.
The lol was mocking, but it was mocking myself for taking so much time to remember DW actually sucks and +1/+1/+1 doesn't suck as much as I remember that feat sucking.
OP's version is actually a homebrew DW feat I would use so it isn't that bad haha
@nitsua60 It doesn't have a higher chance to crit, it simply has more attacks. Given the average damage of an attack, it will deal (a +1) * that average. Essentially, what would change would be the part multiplying the (a+1) or (a), which would still be equal for both.
@DavidCoffron Exactly. It doesn't give extra damage either (although changing the weapon could, but he already did that on his math by increasing the dice)
But OP mentioned it as "TWF does require the extra Dual Wielder feat to be useful, but +1 AC/Hit/Damage and a useful reaction is pretty good." - and I actually made my math using that and I was like "well DW doesn't such that much, why did I think it did?" - then I read the actual feat.
@nitsua60 Changing the values inside the parenthesis will change the threshold for \$a\$, actually, so you're right. Oh well gotta remake that one. Well, I'll take that time to make a general equation as well.
General equation for average damage, IIRC, should be (# attacks)([probability of hit and crit][average crit damage] + [probability of normal hit][average damage]), assuming all attacks have the same to-hit roll modifier, otherwise you have to add them separately
@MikeQ Even if you don't, if you have a low enough AC to hit, or high enough modifier, it's already good. 14 AC against +5 modifier, for example, already provides an increase in DPR using GWM
"Before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage."
Right, so I have an axis for target AC, an axis for level, and height=(average damage with GWM - average damage with DW), accounting for the extra attack based on level
Overall GWM is better once you get the extra attack against enemies with AC<10-15, depending on your level
Are there a lot of people who think that Advantage means "roll two dice, add them together and use that as the result"? Because there have been quite a few answers on my recent post about Elven Accuracy that seem to either skip over the part where the question is about Advantage, or else seem to think that's how Advantage works.
I've read through the replies, but unless I'm missing something the two are not always the same. If I choose one of two die to re-roll, the outcome can be lower that it was before. The same does not happen when rolling three dice and choosing the maximum.
Example:
Rolling 3 - [1, 2, 3] - I choo...
They usually get deleted pretty quickly afterwards.
But it's weird that I've gotten like 5 notifications for varying flavors of the same basic mistake.
(I think my rep isn't high enough to see deleted answers, I don't know exactly how many there have been)
That question does make me think of another one :)
Is the player rolling dice or the character? In that if you have advantage, but are under the effects of DOminate Person, could you (as a player) pick the lower value?
@NautArch No, RAW, Advantage means "roll two dice, pick highest". The player isn't given a choice.
Elven Accuracy complicates it because the player is given a choice of which of the dice to reroll, but the rerolled die is still compared against the other unmodified die.
So a player is technically allowed to reroll a Nat20 if, say, they're avoiding crits to take a target down alive. Which complicates the math on that post.
That question and another one I posted around the same time are part of an effort to scope out the potential effectiveness of a Shadow Sorcerer build I'm planning that fights pretty much exclusively with Melee Combat, using their class features as a way to conceal my position + gain advantage in combat.
Sounds like they'll need at least 2 levels in Rogue, though, to be able to Hide as a Bonus Action.
@NautArch Well, the Shadow Origin for Sorcerers has a feature called Eyes of Darkness, which does several things: it permits directly casting Darkness directly from your Sorcery Points (basically a 33% reduction in cost, in practice), and when you cast it that way, you are immune to its effects. So basically, I'd be Hiding in my own sphere of Darkness.
This question refers to the closing of a question I submitted a few years ago.
Is the omission of a racial +2 to wisdom intentional?
At the time, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition had a gap, in that there were no player races with a +2 Wisdom modifier.
I didn't know why this was the case. Was i...
@NautArch Well, I cast it on my weapon, so the sphere moves with me. I stand by the side, run in 15' when I attack, run out, leaving my allies with enough room to see themselves and the enemies.
@MikeQ Lol, it's not about sneaking past people. It's about preventing them from hitting me in combat.
@MikeQ Because if I don't 'Hide', then they still have the ability to know where I am (from footsteps, clanking inventory, etc.) and if they hit me, it might cause my Concentration on the spell to fail.
@MikeQ Senior Guard: "Oh we get big spheres of Darkness around here all the time. Usually it's just low level adventurers trying to sneak in. They all get caught when they try to steal the throne or something stupid, just ignore it."
@MikeQ "I drop my weapon on the floor and unsheathe my spare weapon". Fully possible with free object interactions, IIRC. Then, if the sphere is interfering with my allies, I just pick up the weapon.
Two Rapiers are pretty cheap.
The other option is Mage Hand, though Mage Hand requires me to use up an Action to move it, so it's a bit more cumbersome.
@GreySage I don't need spheres of Darkness to sneak around, that's what my 18 DEX + Expertise in Stealth is for. 8)
@NautArch There's also one more solution for avoiding hurting my allies: I cast the Darkness spell on a Locket or some kind of small Trinket, and wrap it up in an Opaque Cloth if I need to retract the sphere of Darkness. So my allies don't get screwed over.
@MikeQ Only 2, to get Cunning Action, for the Hide, Dash, or Disengage as a Bonus Action ability.
My current build gets 2 levels of Rogue, 1 level of Fighter (Dueling Fighting Style) and 14 levels of Sorcerer, with 3 levels remaining to distribute somewhere for the fourth ASI.
@NautArch Some creatures (mostly Fiends) have it as a Racial Feature. Warlocks can also gain it as one of their Invocations, and Shadow Sorcerers gain the ability to see through their own Darkness spell if cast using their "Eyes of Darkness" ability.
@MikeQ Well, the difference has to do with the caster though. I think it would depend on what the source is. If the foreign Magical Darkness comes from an explicit casting of the Darkness spell, then it would depend on which spell the DM decides takes precedence. If it's Magical Darkness from another source, I think the Sorcerer would always be blinded.
@HellSaint Oh, good. Glad to hear I wasn't off my rocker. (I'd been pondering a crit-fishing build through the morning and was pretty sure that I had my finger on a thing that would actually make a difference.) But I'm also pretty sure that the GWM's usage of bonus actions is going to overshadow the tiny difference that proper crit-math throws on DW's side of the scales.
@MikeQ Why are your Ds the same on both sides of that (implied by the word "versus") inequality? Shouldn't one be D_{DW} and the other be D_{GWF}?
@nitsua60 as I said, considering the crits actually makes TWF even worse hahaha
GWF gets 2d6 extra damage on a crit while TWF gets only 1d8. Even if they crit less often (because they hit less often), the bonus damage on the critical is so huge that it compensates
This question has generated two answers (one deleted) that link to reddit discussions or sources.
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This question refers to the closing of a question I submitted a few years ago.
Is the omission of a racial +2 to wisdom intentional?
At the time, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition had a gap, in that there were no player races with a +2 Wisdom modifier.
I didn't know why this was the case. Was i...
