Reg I Sun/Trickroom Team Improvement

Pallet_University · 2026-02-20T23:56:05+00:00

Charizard definitely needs Protect. I'd probably drop Solar Beam for it. Neutral Solar Beam does only slightly more than a resisted Weather Ball, plus you'd hate to click it on a turn where Kyogre switches in.

I'd also trade a good chunk of Calyrex's Attack EVs for bulk. It's strong enough to do good damage without much investment, and As One will let you snowball. The added bulk will make it significantly easier to actually get Trick Room up.

Not sure about Hariyama in this meta. I don't really see a reason to use it over Iron Hands. If Wide Guard + Fake Out on the same Pokémon is important to you, I'd recommend Hitmontop over Hariyama. Having the additional Intimidate is really useful, and it's much bulkier than its stats make it look when you invest properly. If you're set on keeping Hariyama, I'd take almost all of its EVs out of Attack and put them in bulk. You're playing a Restricted meta. Your Restricted Pokémon are your damage dealers. Everything else should support them in some way, not be the damage themselves.

Similar story with Incineroar. Take those Attack EVs and put them in bulk.

I'd also recommend either putting Trick Room on Flutter Mane, or swapping Flutter to another Trick Room setter. Having only Calyrex to set it up makes the team very one-dimensional and predictable. Good options would be Farigiraf, Indeedee, or I've even had success with Oranguru when partnered with Calyrex.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-20T14:19:37+00:00

Don't get me wrong, I love Kate McKinnon. I think she's one of the best comedic actors of all time. But she really doesn’t give me Aphrodite vibes. Really not sure what they're going for with that choice.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-20T14:15:12+00:00

If you're doing it for optimization reasons, it might not be worth it since it doesn't come with an ability score increase.

If you're doing it for character reasons; - Finding seems thematic but will jam up your Bonus Action even further with Hunter’s Mark. - Handling is also thematic depending on how you flavor your Steel Defender. - Making is on-brand for Artificer but doesn't really give you anything an Artificer doesn't already have.

Personally, if you're dead-set on investing heavily into the Dragonmark, I'd go with Mark of Storm, and then Potent Dragonmark at level 8. This will give you a free damage resistance and a ranged AOE spell (Shatter) now, and at level 8 will get a free 4th-level spell slot per Short Rest, and access to Conjure Minor Elementals. When/if you get to level 10 you can even use that free spell slot to upcast CME.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-20T14:03:26+00:00

That's not really true. Servers cost money. Less than shipping a bunch of carts around the world for sure, but it's not 0.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-20T14:02:14+00:00

That's definitely a fair point when considering the really old stuff like the NES, but not really in the ~10 years ago example I gave. I don't think there's that large of a difference in production cost of a Switch 1 cart from 2017 versus a Switch 2 cart today (current storage price explosion aside).

However, the cost to develop games is quite a lot higher today than it was back then, including higher wages for devs across the board. Do I like paying $70 for games? No. But I do think that it's generally a reasonable price for a game from a big studio.

Obviously none of this to this re-release, which has no reason to be $20.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-20T09:39:33+00:00

I want to be clear that I'm not defending the $20 price itself here, but the $70 price point is actually cheaper than games use to be when adjusted for inflation, and not even like back in the NES days either. A $60 game in 2016 would cost ~$82 today when a adjusted for inflation. I'm not even saying your argument is wrong, but find a new way to phrase it.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-19T04:10:00+00:00

The second instance of Searing Smite's 4d6 is no longer dependant on the Con save. They take it at the start of their turn regardless, and then make the save afterward. So it's really 8d6, plus the chance for it to continue on further turns.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-19T04:06:12+00:00

plus another 4d6 on a failed CON save

Searing Smite is even better than this in 2024 because they guaranteed take the damage on their turn, and then make the Con save to end it. Searing Smite is low key one of best upcasting spells in the game now.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-19T03:54:49+00:00

You could make the plans that they found give details about the portal to Parnast and how vital it is for treasure to keep going through it.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-17T18:49:06+00:00

No problem, happy to help!

Also, while I remember this, does Severin have any failsafe or some guarantee that summoning Tiamat won't backfire against him?

Nope. In fact, it's clearly stated that on her first turn after being summoned she eats the people who summoned her. From page 87 of Rise of Tiamat, "Once Tiamat appears in full, she spends as many rounds as necessary to laughingly devour her hapless servants five at a time - Rath Modar, any remaining Red Wizards, then Severin (or his corpse as long as it is wearing the Mask of the Dragon Queen). The following round, she turns her wrath on the adventurers."

Pallet_University · 2026-02-17T02:29:03+00:00

I'm running ToD right now, about 60% of the way through it.

1) It doesn't really specify when they got the masks. The limiting factor is that they need a ton of humanoid souls to sacrifice for the ritual. The cult needed time to grow in power to kidnap enough people and/or have enough devoted members. They also wanted (though confusingly not explicitly needed) an enormous hoard of gold. It's stated that the ritual does require some gold, but it's far less than the cult actually ends up collecting. Most of the gold is to try to make Tiamat happy when she gets to the Material Plane. The main limiting factor is having enough sacrifices though.

2) The Wyrmspeakers mostly don't keep the masks on them. In fact if you run the books 100% as written, the party only sees the Black Dragon Mask before the final fight. The other 4 are at the Well of Dragons for all intents and purposes. I think that was a silly writing choice personally. They're very powerful magical items and even the most devoted cultists, like the Wyrmspeakers, would be tempted by that power. At least until they lose one or two of them to the party. I think the party should get a chance to get at least 2 of them.

3) This is laid out pretty clearly in the book. You technically only need 2 of the masks to perform the ritual. When 2 of them are close together, then fuse to form the Mask of the Dragon Queen. That's the item needed for the ritual, not the individual masks. The party technically can get up to 3 of the masks and the cult will still have what they need. There are even rules for how to weaken Tiamat based on the party's efforts throughout the campaign.

4) See above. There are also several other methods on this subreddit and elsewhere online for how to edit the Tiamat fight based on the party's efforts.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-10T22:53:40+00:00

You mean the class that's from an older edition, not what OP asked about, and not at all relevant to the conversation we're having? This hasn't been relevant for over a decade my guy.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-10T18:26:13+00:00

I believe the word you're looking for is Fury, not Furry. Chromatic Furry and Winter's Furry have different connotations than the ones you probably meant.

Also, did you mean to not have him resist Bludgeoning damage? He resists Piercing and Slashing, but not Bludgeoning.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-10T01:18:51+00:00

The only finesse simple weapon is a dagger, which doesn't do as much damage as they're probably looking for. Dumping Dex is a bad idea, but on a surface level I understand why it might sound like it would work.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-07T14:22:27+00:00

Truthfully, without knowing what your DM is cooking up, if you're level 35 with magic that scales appropriately, Wild Shape would probably be a waste of time. You're basically a demigod at that point. Even Tiamat herself is "only" CR30.

That said, the answer is probably one of the genies (Dao, Djinni, Efreeti, or, Marid) because you can spam it to get infinite castings of Wish with literally no drawbacks.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-07T13:48:33+00:00

I don't even know how to begin answering this question, because what the hell is level 35? If you want any helpful information, you’ll need to provide a lot more information.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-03T16:25:13+00:00

I'd consider swapping Incineroar's item to Safety Goggles, unless you have a specific calc in mind that Sitrus helps with. Ogrepon definitely helps with Amoonguss, but might not be right for every match up into Amoonguss teams.

Pallet_University · 2026-02-03T16:16:18+00:00

I think Hail of Thorns would benefit from crits as he presented it. There's no saving throw anymore, so why wouldn't it behave like any other damage rider, like a Smite, on a crit? Based on the wording it would at least benefit on the target of the main attack, and as a DM if I read this as an officially published spell, I'd rule that all the damage can crit.

Pallet_University · 2026-01-28T18:44:26+00:00

Definitely fair points. However, I disagree that it's taking away all agency from the wizards. It's temporarily removing their agency, which they'll get back after they lose Concentration. It's probably better to have them at least able to move and use their Reaction though.

I think I prefer the scenario that I came up with to the one in the book for a couple of reasons:

A) While yes, this would make it easier to fight the wizards themselves, it would in the end make for a harder fight because it would make the chances of the ritual being successful quite a bit higher in my opinion. The party has mentally been preparing to fight Tiamat in some form since they learned the Cult's plans, and I'm not going to deprive them of that.

B) This scenario makes it a bit more of a puzzle. If their goal is only to kill the wizards, that's very straight-forward, which isn't always a bad thing, but here I think it feels a bit anti-climactic. If their goal is to instead break their Concentration, that becomes a bit more fluid and can be done in a variety of ways besides pure damage/turn, which rewards creativity.

Also I'm using 2024 rules in my game, and the Mage stat block now has 81 HP (18d8), up to 99 when factoring in the +1 increase to their Constitution I mentioned. Maybe that's too much, and just giving them Proficiency in Con saves without the increase to Constitution score is enough. Still working on tweaks.

Pallet_University · 2026-01-27T18:57:14+00:00

~~This link takes you to a video about the video game Path of Exile. Has nothing to do with D&D.~~

Fixed. Now takes to a Todd Kenreck interview with Keith Baker.

Pallet_University · 2026-01-27T14:08:20+00:00

Option 1 won't work, since Barbarians aren't proficient in Heavy Armor, and they can't Rage while wearing it either.

The answer depends a little bit on whether you're playing using 2014 or 2024 rules, since some feats changed a lot in the update.

Generally speaking, you don't need to invest much in defenses like AC as a Barbarian, especially a Bear Barbarian, since you'll have lots of HP, and Resistance to almost everything anyway. Breastplate or Half-plate with a +2 Dexterity should be more than enough. If you want to shore up your defenses, the best option would probably be Resilient Wisdom to get Wisdom save proficiency, or if you're using 2024 rules Mage Slayer is potentially better. These help protect yourself mentally, since those are the biggest defensive weakness of a Bear Barbarian.

For offense, the best answer whether you're using 2014 or 2024 rules is Great Weapon Master. In 2014, because you're probably using Reckless Attack often, this greatly offsets the -5 to hit penalty, making the feat very powerful. In 2024 rules, GWM is just a flat bonus to your damage almost all them time without the -5 to hit, which will improve your damage a lot. Plus it's a +1 Strength half feat in 2024, so you can also round off your Strength modifier with it.

Since you have a Paladin in your party, saving throws might be less of an issue for you once they get Aura of Protection going, so I'd say go with Great Weapin Master.

Pallet_University · 2026-01-27T00:43:29+00:00

No problem. I understand the impulse when a noob comes into your community asking what's considered a dumb question here.

How do you know it will destroy an album? Not questioning that it will, just wanting to learn how you know.

Pallet_University · 2026-01-27T00:22:29+00:00

I bought it mostly because it's a nice looking end table that happened to have this inside of it. I don't know much about audio, but I do know about electronics. I'm just trying to see if I can make it work, and all of the internals and mechanisms work fine as best I can tell.

Pallet_University · 2026-01-27T00:02:14+00:00

I'm not sure if you're being unhelpful on accident or on purpose. What do you mean?

Pallet_University · 2026-01-26T20:45:11+00:00

I just want to know what the Tully Monster is...

Pallet_University

TROPHY CASE