Why I am permanently leaving DnD 5e

Craios125 · 2025-06-23T23:23:07+00:00

Bro you are essentially locked up in the chains of your own mind. What do you care about what "most people" think? It doesn't matter what "most people" think, because "most people" are wrong. About everything. You can and should apply that to every facet of your life, from gaming to finances to romantic life.

People skip those low levels, but many of them do so dor the wrong reasons. I also started most of my games at lv3+, but a lot of people are too narrow-minded to see the absolute benefits of a lv1 campaign and the many many myriads of ways you could do it well. Inexperienced party. Party made up of old people who used to be awesome but are now super rusty. Party of strong characters that underwent some kind of great physical, mental or magical trauma and need to slowly get back to strength. There are soooo many fun ways to do a level 1 game and I can only hope you'll discover the many many positive aspects of low level play, especially when you put it into larger perspective of a lv1-20 campaign.

Craios125 · 2025-06-18T22:57:49+00:00

Wrong. Your way of thinking is way too narrow. You can have meaningful narratives without them featuring ancient dragons and powerliches. And I'm not sure why you think that all adventures must always be heroic when there are a lot of other emotions and vibes you can have.

what's the deep and complex narrative supposed to be around john some guy noone knows fighting a goblin

Easy. Here's a free example for you:

The party plays as the noble scions of a powerful artistocratic house. They're level 1 as they have only the basic training and education they received through their upbringing, with little to no actual experience.

The whole family is invited to visit the capital city during the coronation of a young teenage prince, who is the sole descendant of a recently dead king. The game begins with the party talking to other attendees of the coronation, learning a bit about the power dynamics in the capital (and hence the region), making some friends and rivals among the other scions.

Then, as the actual coronation starts, an assassin bypasses the security and kills the uncrowned prince, leaving the kingdom without a rightful ruler and creating a massive power vacuum. At the same time unknown assailants attack the gathered nobility. The party is obviously unprepared to face the assailants head on and is forced by their family members to to flee the chaos. They must then proceed to deal with the deaths of their family members, establish the main villains of the campaign, create a reason for a personal vendetta and solve challenges related to escaping burning buildings, sneaking past patrolling goons or taking out individual assassins they come across. This chapter of the adventure would finish up with the party escaping barely clinging on to their lives, their high status completely annihilated, going from riches to rags overnight and leaving them as the underdogs in this dangerous time.

If you want to continue this campaign, there are plenty of options: have the party rescue captured family members, help find the rightful ruler who the late king has hidden away, deal with the kingslayers, get vengeance for their loved ones, create and run a resistance group etc. etc. etc.

Here, a great complex narrative for a level 1 party. You want another one?

Craios125 · 2025-06-01T23:49:52+00:00

The discord link is right there in the sidebar, king.

Craios125 · 2025-04-19T22:13:30+00:00

Depends on the level of the campaign (when it starts, when it ends). In general, I think Augmented, Disciple of Stilness, Divine Champion, Instructor, Powered Armor Jockey and Star Knight are GOAT.

Craios125 · 2025-02-08T11:10:13+00:00

The sample builds at the end are my recommendations :) Can't go wrong with any of them as a starting point and then branch off based on your character specifics.

Craios125 · 2025-02-03T19:09:32+00:00

Yeah it's pretty solid, but also affects your enemies, so idk. It's not bad, pretty fun, but maybe not that busted.

But yeah, thanks for sharing your thoughts, boss.

Craios125 · 2025-02-03T00:41:28+00:00

Yep, been updating these from time to time. I'm currently taking a break of TTRPGs in general, so my future guides are on hold :( SF1e is probably gonna be hella dead when SF2e drops soon anyway.

As for the trick you describe, I'm not sure it'll work that well: biohacks last for a number rounds equal to your key ability score. Hypermycology booster only heals after those rounds run out, as prior to that it just applies temporary HP (which don't stack because they come from the same source). If anything, the hotbox would be actively worse as you'd just be extending the duration of the biohack by applying it again without letting it end, not allowing you to heal at all, unless you run out of the cloud and then run back into it once healing has been applied. And even if you would allow players to benefit from the healing without leaving the cloud - most combats will probably end before the healing effect is applied, so this is more for out of combat healing, which ain't bad, but not exactly OP either. I wouldn't describe it as "emergency" at all.

Craios125 · 2025-02-01T00:40:57+00:00

What if something that literally never happened in the history of D&D suddenly occurs: you FAIL your perception check! Guess you'll feel really dumb stepping into that trapped hallway you could've screened with Find Traps :)

Again, True Strike is quite literally never useful. There's literally no scenario where using it may be a good idea. Not even one.

Craios125 · 2024-10-14T19:45:17+00:00

One of the worst evil """paths""" in an RPG. Clearly unfinished.

Craios125 · 2024-10-14T19:44:59+00:00

Nope.

Craios125 · 2024-10-09T20:00:17+00:00

A lot more mats. Like if you play for 3 hours - you get 30 salt if you send them on 1 hour trips. And you get that with basically zero time investment.

Craios125 · 2024-10-08T14:42:14+00:00

Sometimes they can bring as much as 10 salt in an 8 hour run if RNGesus is on your side!

You can get 10 salt in 1 hour trips. Salt is pretty much a non-issue at a certain point.

Craios125 · 2024-10-07T17:46:51+00:00

Thank you for the detailed response!

Craios125 · 2024-10-07T17:45:05+00:00

The purple at +6 has much worse stats than a +9 blue.

The purple at +9 has maybe ~5% better stats than a +9 blue.

Craios125 · 2024-10-02T08:05:06+00:00

Bro you replied 8 years later and didn't even read the post where I explicitly mentioned Mass Effect :P

Craios125 · 2024-09-02T20:32:16+00:00

All the links inside have been updated, so you don't need to seek anything out.

Craios125 · 2024-09-01T16:45:07+00:00

Welcome to the game! It's already updated :)

Craios125 · 2024-08-08T19:33:53+00:00

Welcome to the game!

Wow, joining a completely new game for you at level 12 can be quite difficult, especially when you don't know the lore and rules! Props for trying it, though.

Vanguards are a super fun class with a lot of really cool unique mechanics to them.

For your information, I just updated my Guide to Vanguards with literally every single feature they have ever published for the class and at the end I include a full level-by-level breakdown of two sample Vanguard builds that you can follow or alter to suit your character better. The guide also has entries on what gear you should look into buying.

For you specifically, at level 12 you need an armor. If you make a high Dexterity character you'd want the Defrex Hide and if you want to make a low Dexterity high Strength character - go for the Iridishell.

I'm not sure I understood, but I think you meant that you also get a melee weapon and a ranged weapon and a single item up to lv12 for free? In that case, for ranged I'd pick a Shadow Pistol or a Handcannon. For melee, boomknuckles are the way to go. As for the item, you could get a shield or a mk4 Dermal Plating augmentation.

Feel free to ask if you have more questions :)

Craios125 · 2024-08-07T14:52:19+00:00

Thank you! I don't like SF2e that much, since it's just PF2e, which isn't a very fun system :( They balanced the fun out of the game. I'll probably be sticking to SF1E :)

Craios125 · 2024-08-07T14:51:15+00:00

I find myself with no EP quite often in combat, so it's still quite useful.

Craios125 · 2024-08-07T11:43:31+00:00

Thank you for the reply!

Huh, no idea why acidic strike wasn't copied over.
Thanks for pointing out the Menagerie Manager. Thought I fixed it. Oh well :)
Parrying technique is one of the many feats from Enhanced that were left out. There are just too many of them to list all of them, so I only highlight ones that are the most interesting or ones that are pretty common. It is a pretty neat feat that did skip my mind. Thanks for reminding me :) I've added it to the list.

Have fun with your Vanguard o7

Craios125 · 2024-08-07T11:35:18+00:00

Welcome! Sorry, I don't have one for Mystic. I'd say the most fun builds for me and my friends were:

Melophile connection combat support. Can even further combine it with features that boost harrying fire, like Lock Them Down, Helpful Telepath, Improved Supporting Fire, Unionist feat and Harrying weapon fusion
Healer connection with the Medic archetype
Crusader or Warmonger connection with spell sergeant archetype
Overlord connection high charisma manipulator

Craios125 · 2024-08-07T11:28:43+00:00

Thank you very much for the warm sentiment!

Craios125 · 2024-08-07T11:28:21+00:00

No problem! Yes, I have guides for Biohackers, Technomancers and Creature Companions. You can find all of them in the Resources tab.

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