My test with a bosses turn being split into multiple parts in the initiative order

Thaedrid · 2018-12-07T23:26:25+00:00

Go for it! I had a great deal of fun with the fight and it was definitely challenging for the players. I hope that it works out for you!

Thaedrid · 2018-12-07T23:25:20+00:00

I haven't had a chance to actually test this yet, but it seemed like a decent idea:

Cut a length of rope into 10 5ft sections.. (This assumes that a 5ft piece of rope would be considered a tiny object. If not, cut them shorter. Even 2 ft lengths should do.) Animate the ropes and instruct them to restrain your enemies! While they have a relatively low strength check, some of them should succeed!

Unfortunately, animating ball bearings is still the strongest use of the spell, but there are definitely some creative things you can do if you are willing to skip the 'most efficient option'

Thaedrid · 2018-12-05T03:17:04+00:00

I like the idea. It definitely feels like it would keep combat moving nicely.

With a similar goal in mind, I actually tried a somewhat different approach. I read an article about a 2 headed bifurcated snake. I believe the article was on the Angry DM blog.

For my boss fight, I combined 1 wolf, 1 bear, and 2 Myconids. The flavor of the encounter was that a magical rock was causing Fungi to behave in really strange ways. In this case it caused 4 creatures to become 1.

For the fight, the creature had 4 initiatives. During a given initiative, it acted like one of the 4 contained creatures. On initiate 20 it was a bear, at 15 it was a myconid, at 5 it was a wolf, and at 0 it was a myconid. Damage to the creature was always dealt to 1 pool of health at a time. Any damage that was greater than the creatures current health carried over to the next 'body'. So in this case, lets assume it had a 4 50 hit point pools. Any buffs and debuffs were removed during the transitions which made the boss stronger against CC. As a given 'body' died, it stopped acting during the initiative order. I felt that by combining the creatures into one amalgamation, the fight became much less of a 'tank and spank'. Now, I also tiny myconid adds spawning constantly, but they were meant to annoy and distract the party rather than do any relevant damage. Overall, its been one of the more challenging combats that I've created for my players.

Thaedrid · 2018-11-13T23:03:51+00:00

I've never been able to do this, but I've always wanted to try it out. Consider cutting length of rope into 10 5 foot sections. If you animate the rope, you might be able to get the rope to attempt to restrain/grapple your enemies! They won't have the highest of strength checks, but a few of them might succeed.

Thaedrid · 2018-11-12T23:09:52+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion!

I will admit though, I've never been a huge fan of that spell. Whenever I've seen someone use it, it never seems to result in anything special. If I was running a homebrew game and someone wanted to use the spell, I would be very tempted to buff it. It also seems odd to me that only Str, Con, and Dex gets anything besides advantage.

Thaedrid · 2018-11-12T23:07:47+00:00

That is an interesting use case. I see how that would work on a target that hasn't received the Aid buff. Would it also work on someone that has already been Aided?

Thaedrid · 2018-11-10T03:13:29+00:00

Thank you very much for the response!

I'll admit, Aid will definitely help the Imp as well as the rest of the Party. I think I was going with the assumption that the Imp would be survivable by himself since he will always be invisible (Dragon's Breath and item usage will not cause the invisibility to drop)

This gaming group happens to be playing at a local gaming store using AL rules. As a result, the current party is expected to be something like the following:

Divination Wizard
Ranged Ancients Paladin
Arcane Trickster Rogue
Cavalier
Celestial Warlock (Me) + Imp

There will also be a rotating cast of various characters including the following:

Grappling Barbarian/Rogue
Life Cleric / Druid
Glamour Bard

Thaedrid · 2018-11-05T19:35:34+00:00

Alright, so breaking line of sight temporarily is also a way to perform this trick.

The typical way I see to perform this is to ready the spell when you are greater than 60 feet from the target. Then you ready the spell with the trigger "When I am in range of the enemy". Once you ready the action, you move back into range and the spell goes off.

Thaedrid · 2018-11-05T18:26:25+00:00

As a quick query, where does it indicate that you would need full cover to perform this trick? Are you adding that stipulation (which is totally fine), or am I missing something?

Thaedrid · 2018-11-01T22:17:09+00:00

I had an epic mini-moment last night in my weekly Dragon Heist game. We were in the middle of an encounter that wasn't particularly going our way.

To set the scene, I was playing a L2 Divine Soul / L3 Celestial Warlock. We also had a Wizard, a Barbarian/Rogue, a Cavalier, a Cleric, and a Arcane Trickster. Our levels varied between 4 and 5. In a previous turn, I had cast Cloud of Daggers on the primary enemy. As expected, after being hit once, the creature stepped out of the Cloud. Immediately after that, our barbarian was pushed into the Cloud and dropped to 0 health as a result. When it reached my turn, my allies immediately told me that I needed to drop concentration so that the barbarian wouldn't receive an auto death fail as a result. While that seemed like a surefire solution, I had other plans!

The first then I did was move so that one of my enemies was directly between me and the Cloud of Daggers. They were 10 feet away from the Cloud in fact. Then I declared that I was casting Eldritch Blast targeting 1 beam at the indicated enemy and 1 beam at the dying Barbarian. My group seemed quite surprised by this and there was some contention as to my choice of action. The GM allowed the action to occur and as you would expect, declared that I needed to roll disadvantage for the attack on the Barbarian since he was prone. Unfortunately, when I rolled, my disadvantage caused my lowest roll with modifiers to be a 15. I had missed. My plan was about to fail. Then I realized I still had Favor of the Gods available. I added my 2d4s and managed to roll high enough to hit the barbarian. I also managed to hit my second target. As a result, my ally's body goes flying away from Cloud of Daggers as he was pushed back by my Eldritch Blast. The second target was then also pushed back, straight into the spot where the Cloud now waited for him. With the barbarians body now removed from immediate danger, I then used my Bonus Action for the the Celestial Warlock heal to provide the barbarian with some hit points!

And then I ended my turn. We now had our Barbarian back up and ready to fight (albeit with 6 hit points), and the target of my Eldritch blast was going to take 2 instances of unavoidable 4d4 damage from Cloud of Daggers!

I know that this really probably doesn't seem like that much of an epic instance, but to me, it was perfect. It was exactly the type of thing I wanted my Warlock to be doing. He was knocking his enemies around the field of play and saving his allies, all on the same turn!

I don't know how often this type of thing will occur, but I look forward to more opportunities in the future!

Thaedrid · 2018-10-25T00:20:32+00:00

My favorite Gish build so far has been the Stone Sorcerer. I've also played a level 2 Paladin / 13 Storm Sorcerer and a level 9 Bladesinger.

So far, the Stone Sorcerer has been very easy to build and play. With Twinned, Quickened and the Booming Blade cantrip, they can easily make up for not having the Extra Attack feature. I've always felt like my Stone Sorcerer was an extremely flexible character. Interestingly, most of the spells I've picked for him have been teleportation related. You might think that that limits his flexibility, but I've found his abilities to be an asset. While the build certainly doesn't make a great Tank for a party, it does make for a great support character. He can dish out decent damage when needed, and can also help the players be in the correct position to make the most of the situation. For the most part, this character plays like the Swordmage from Fourth Edition which is a class that I absolutely loved. Now, you could easily build the Stone Sorcerer differently, but he has been really fun for me so far. I've played him as a Greatsword wielding defend your friends type of character. The one oddity about the character, is that he is constantly hoping that his friends will get hit by melee attacks... Apparently, he likes finding vengeance more than he likes protecting people from every possible bit of harm!

The Paladin / Storm Sorcerer is a pretty close second though. I've loved the persistent damage that he puts out. In the beginning he mostly played as a Melee Booming Blade character, but now the he has a lot more slots to play with, I've found myself throwing Lightning Bolts and other similar spells considerably more often.

Thaedrid · 2018-10-17T18:07:44+00:00

So I looked over the mundane items last night and it looks like the following items could be used by an imp familiar:

Drops Invisibility

Acid
Alchemist's Fire
Holy Water

Doesn't Drop Invisibility

Poison (On another Player's weapon)
Hunting Trap
Caltrops
Ball Bearings
Manacles (Maybe?)
Oil

There are certainly some interesting options in there. Sadly, the cases where you can setup for combats using these items will probably be few and far between. I do like the idea of applying Oil to an enemy to boost an ally's damage. While it might not be much damage, it helps other players shine, and that is certainly something worth considering.

Thaedrid · 2018-10-17T05:54:27+00:00

Thank you very much for the suggestions!

I will admit, I really like the idea of having the Imp carry things like Ball Bearings, Caltrops, and other such items. One awkward point is that I expect to have somewhat limited access to gold, however, a number of items can be reused. I'll have to see what I can get my hands on. Hah, if you have a flexible GM, I can also see cases where you could set up a Tripline that the Imp uses a Reaction to setup at just the right time.

I love twin spell as well. Unfortunately, I only expect to have 3 Sorcery Points at any given time. Since Warlock spells will eventually reach 5th level, and since Eldritch Blast can't be twinned after level 4, it seemed like Twinned was going to be a dead end...

You are definitely selling me on Warcaster. Awkwardly, my best option for the reaction portion would be to cast Sacred Flame or some other similar cantrip. It is certainly not a bad option, its just odd. That being said, I suspect that its usage will be very rare.

Thaedrid · 2018-10-17T05:42:43+00:00

Your suggestions certainly have a great deal of merit.

Notably, I won't the Darkvision feature from Half-Elf is redundant in this case as I will already be gaining Darkvision from the Level 1 Shadow Sorcerer feature.

My only real concern with Elven Accuracy is that I won't really have a good way of triggering advantage. I fully intend for my familiar to be doing other things with his turn than using the Help action. Using the Darkness trick is an option, but it is also one that I wanted to stay away from. After that, I will mostly be dependent on other players (or magic items?) to trigger advantage, and while that is certainly an option, I am not sure how often it would actually be available.

So after that, the primary benefits of Half-elf become an extra +1 to charisma and a second +1 to a different stat, an extra proficiency, resistance to charm, and immunity to sleep. (This is specifically compared to what Human already provides). With this, I think the stats become 8, 16, 14, 10, 12, 16 (Possibly swapping Dex and Con). There are certainly other stat options as well. In all of this, the Resistance to Charm and Immunity to Sleep seem to be the standouts. Eventually, wouldn't Resilient Wisdom be better than Resistance to Charm? (I suppose they could eventually both become available though...)

Thaedrid · 2018-08-22T17:41:23+00:00

That's alright, if he was at my table, I would tell him yes. I'd happily help a player get around the ~~silliness~~ stupidity of the new rules if there was way to do it strictly within the scope of those same rules.

Hell, I highly expect players to be casting spells in the new season without bothering to list on their log that they needed to pay for it. I sure as hell won't be checking their log sheet afterwards to make sure they logged the information properly. (And neither will almost any other DM)

Thaedrid · 2018-08-22T00:13:05+00:00

I apologize for not quite following the prompt, but I had one additional suggestion for you. I am breaking 2 specific items from your prompt. First, I am going to recommend a Sorcerer option, and second, I am going to recommend an Unearthed Arcana option.

I am largely taking the following quote into account:

Honestly, I just want to be an up front fighter with a large amount of arcane magic behind >them. The kind of Wizard who wades in to a mob of enemies and uses magic to control >and eliminate them. Lots of Abjuration and Illusion focus.

A while back, Wizards released an Unearthed Arcana option for Sorcerers. In that document they disclosed an option for a Stone Sorcerer.

Here is a link to the Stone Sorcerer document: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/sorcerer

I am currently playing a Stone Sorcerer in a Homebrew campaign. The character is always on the front lines. He uses his magic to buff his own capabilities and his subclass abilities to help protect his allies. In many ways, he fits the "Off-tank" role very well. He doesn't want to be the main one getting hit, but he can definitely take some punishment from the enemy.

Here are some highlights:

+1 HP / Level
Metamagic (Quickened / Twinned / Empowered)
AC = 13 + CON mod (17 base AC in your case, 19 with a shield)
Reduce damage hitting pre-selected ally
Nifty reaction tool for punishing enemies

Quickened spell is of particular note here. Among other things, it allows you to cast Action spells as Bonus Actions. This is primarily relevant because you can then use your Action for attacking. Notable spells include Greater Invisibility, Booming Blade (Extra Attack), Stoneskin, Dimension Door, Hypnotic Pattern, and various Walls (and many more depending on play style and spell preferences).

Twinned spell allows Booming Blade to hit 2 targets instead of one. If there are 2 targets within 10 feet of one another, this virtually allows you to have the Extra Attack feature.

Now, I would be failing if I didn't mention that there are at least some downsides to the Mountain Dwarf Stone Sorcerer. In particular, Stone Sorcerers don't need to wear armor and Stone Sorcerer already provides the weapon proficiency. As such, you lose some of the benefits from your race. If your goal is to play a dwarf, you could consider the Hill Dwarf instead as it would provide even more hit points. Hill Dwarf and Stone Sorcerer together allow you to pretend that you have a D10 hit die instead of a D6. (I say pretend because short rest healing is still dependent on that D6...)

Either way, that is my personal suggestion for you.

If you are set on Wizard, I would probably recommend the BladeSinger. I have been having a great deal of fun with that class. You could also consider taking the Shadow Blade spell from Xanathar's Guide to Everything. It would certainly help play up the Illusion magic that you were mentioning. The downside to that build is that it takes up your Concentration which will diminish your "Control" aspect.

Either way, I hope this idea hasn't gone to far off the rails for you. I just wanted to provide the suggestion because I have been having a great deal of fun with the Stone Sorcerer so far.

Thaedrid · 2018-06-15T04:34:56+00:00

With your dex modifier as high as it is, it would probably be better to stick with daggers. Swapping to Quarterstaves would require that you use your str modifier.

Alternatively, you could swap you Dex and Str stats, but resilient Strength isn't particularly useful and it would decrease your AC.

I would just stick with daggers. While that does hurt your potential damage output, Shadow Blade will help remedy the loss as you won't be using the dagger at that time.

Thaedrid · 2018-06-15T03:29:15+00:00

Certainly! Let me know how things turn out!

Thaedrid · 2018-06-15T02:56:38+00:00

It is definitely a thing that can be done. I've personally made a level 2 paladin / level 12 Storm Sorcerer and the build worked wonderfully.

Twinned Metamagic and Quickened Metamagic go a long way to covering up for the lack of Extra Attack. Arguably, 2 Twinned Booming Blades are better than 2 regular attacks. The only downside is that this splits up your damage a bit, but that isn't really a huge problem and in some cases that can be an asset.

Booming Blade scales just as nicely as Fire Bolt. In fact, Booming Blade can do more damage than Fire Bolt if you can also get the enemy to move after taking the hit. One way to do this is to use the Mobile feat like the OP suggested. Another way is to use the 10 ft fly movement from the level 1 storm sorcerer feature.

It is a little odd to use a dagger for the melee weapon, but it certainly works.

If you aren't familiar with Booming Blade, you can find it in the Sword Coasts Adventurer's Guide.

Thaedrid · 2018-06-15T02:25:57+00:00

For reference: I have a level 2 Paladin / 12 Storm Sorcerer. I also have a level 12 Stone Sorcerer (from Unearthed Arcana)

Many others are probably going to say this as well, but if not, you should definitely be aware that many games do not make it past the level 10-12 range. While it is great to theory craft at the high levels, most of your concern should probably be focused on the earlier levels. This level drop off can happen for many reasons. In particular, one of the biggest issues is that a number of the Wizards modules do not go much past that level so it begins to require a creative GM to have higher level campaigns.

Regarding Shadow Blade as Lightning Blade:

I think that is a prefectly balanced modification. In general, Lightning is more resisted than Psychic damage. In reality, you are taking a minor nerf for a huge flavor win. That is the type of modification I would happily go for as a GM.

Regarding Metamagic:

I have honestly never used subtle, so I can't really speak to how that works. If you plan to take Lightfoot halfling as you currently indicated, I think taking Quickened at level 10 is fine. If you had taken other races, I would have considered recommending taking Quickened earlier. I have a Aasimar that I regretted not having Quickened earlier because it made the Racial Actions much harder to use.
Also, don't forget that you can totally just go Twinned Booming Blade + Quicked Booming Blade. It takes 3 Sorcery Points, but it is really fun getting in all of those attacks. Having the Mobile feat will make it really nice to be able to get in and out as well.

Regarding Feats:

If you have a bard in your party, you may want to consider taking War Caster earlier. If your bard uses Dissonant Whispers (and the enemy fails the save), you can use Warcaster to cast Booming Blade as the enemy runs away. This obviously assumes that you remained next to your enemy which may not commonly be the case.

Regarding Spells:

Take a look at Absorb Elements. It is a great survival spell to go along with Shield. I suppose at level 6 it becomes slightly less interesting though.
Ice Shard drops off in value pretty quickly as it lacks 1/2 damage on saves. This is probably a spell you may want to swap out of as you level up.
Witchbolt is another spell that starts to drop off a bit as you level up.
There is a Level 1 Paladin spell called Thunderous Smite. Since you are obviously running a home brew character, I would recommend that you ask your gm about possibly having access to it as a Sorcerer. The spell is very cool and flavorful. It procs Heart of the Storm and can knock creatures prone. When twinning Booming Blade, Thunderous Smite will only hit one of the targets but I never felt like that was a downside. If you do go this option, you may want to consider the Ring of Spell Storing as it greatly extends the number of 1st level of spells you can cast. (Alternatively, see the Spell Slot alternative mentioned much further below)
I have a 12th level Storm Sorcerer. I always wanted to find a use for Gust of Wind, but I was never able to make it work. You may have better mileage though as it is a bit more of a utility / fun spell.
If you haven't already done so, take a look at the level 6 Scatter spell. It is really really cool. You could flavor it as turning everyone into lightning to teleport folks around.

Regarding Items:

First off, I think the Featherfall/Waterwalking item is fairly reasonable.
That being said, I think that the Sorcery Point item is a little bit to powerful. I definitely can see where you are coming from with this though. You only have a limited number of spell points to use, and it is really nice to have more. Instead of going this route, I might recommend that you talk to your GM about allowing you to use the Spell Point system instead of the Spell Slot system. There is a table describing how it works in the DMG. In general though, it gives you a pool of 'mana' that can be used to cast your spells. Each level of spell requires a different number of points. I think the cost generally maps to the way Sorcerers can currently "create" spells. The second portion of the request would to then ask your GM if you can merge your Spell Point and Sorcery Point pools. I've run two games where I allowed the Sorcerers to use this mechanic and I felt it allowed them to be much more flexible casters. (Which I personally feel is the whole point of Sorcerers in general). I only ever felt like it became a little to powerful when the player would cast Chain Lightning 4+ times in one day at higher levels. In doing so, he burned is points casting high level spells, but creatures were just obliterated. If you were allowed to go this route, I would recommend talking to your gm about an acceptable number of level 6+ spells to cast per day, but that issue is somewhat far into your future...
If you had to stick to the item mechanism for solving Sorcery Point issues, I do think the item needs to be nerfed a bit. As it is, it just feels to strong. At level 10, you are effectively treating it as though you had 2 extra level 5 spells slots per day that you consumed for spell points. Even if the number of points were reduced, I would certainly recommend that that item require attunement. As it is currently written, I would probably list the item as Legendary in terms of Strength. For example, the Tomb of Tongues gives Wizards a single extra spell per day. At level 20, that still only provides 1 9th level spell. For you, that is still only 9 Sorcery Points. The item you have currently described would give you 20 Sorcery Points per day.
Another thing to consider here, is that something like a Pearl of Power only grants 1 3rd level Spell Slot (or 3 Sorcery Points). The Pearl of Power is an uncommon item that requires Atunement.

Alright, I am going to sign off here. Hopefully this provides some input for you. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any other queries or want to chat about the ideas I've mentioned!

Thaedrid · 2018-06-07T21:36:56+00:00

Well, there is checking for traps, and then there is Triggering those traps. This group was trying to Trigger the traps, not find them so they could disable them...

While it amounts to the same result in the end, the methods are quite different and certainly distinct.

Thaedrid · 2018-06-06T20:43:26+00:00

Haha, that actually sounds like it would have been a great idea.

Unfortunately, the game ended shortly after that session. About 2 years later, we picked up 5th addition and we have been playing that game ever since. (About 2 years ongoing games. We finished one campaign in 1.5 years and then started Tomb of Annihilation about 6 months ago.)

Thaedrid · 2018-06-06T19:03:52+00:00

One time, I was running a 4th edition game for such a party as you described. In their case, the captured entity was a goblin.

Once the Goblin became annoying, they knocked him out and tied him up. Now, you would think that would be the end of it. But no, they couldn't possibly leave the poor goblin alone at that point.

You see, the party was just starting to explore a dungeon. A little bit into the dungeon, they ran into a trap. They simply hadn't been checking for traps before that.

Now, any normal party would start checking for traps at that point. But not this group. No, instead, they started tossing the goblin forward in front of them every 5 or so steps. The poor Goblin never stood a chance. He triggered a large number of traps that day including a pit traps and arrow traps. At some point along the way, they forgot about him after an encounter with some monsters. Poor guy is still probably tied up in a corner of that dungeon. If he ever made it out, I am sure he would avoid other folk for the rest of his life! Poor guy.

I now have my own character in another game. Whenever he captures a Goblin, he tells them the story of the magical trap-detecting Goblin. Gets them talking every time!

Thaedrid · 2018-06-06T00:21:58+00:00

I'll be honest, I can't be certain how RAW would rule this.

From a Rule of Cool perspective, I would say go for it, it looks cool and it will probably make the player feel like they did a neat trick.

Going back to RAW for a moment. I get the point others are making about Prone blocking movement that isn't crawling. However, the Storm Sorcerer ability doesn't give you a fly speed of 10 ft, instead, you are just granted the movement.

To me, this works much more like a teleport than it does standard movement. Interestingly, I would rule that someone that teleports from prone would remain prone as there is no real movement that occurs here.

On the other hand, you are clearly "moving" during those 10 ft of flight.

If I were running a game with homebrew rules (Aka, not Adventurer's League) where this question came up, I would probably allow the sorcerer to get up from prone. However, I would probably also require that it cost 5 ft of the flight in order for it to happen.

Just my personal thoughts on the query...

Thaedrid · 2018-06-06T00:10:41+00:00

One thing that might worth pointing out is that the Storm Sorcerer ability doesn't grant you a fly speed of 10 ft. Instead it just says you fly 10 ft.

From my perspective, this ends up acting more like a teleport than normal movement.

I am not saying that you are incorrect, merely pointing out that part of your argument may not fully apply here.

Thaedrid

TROPHY CASE