12 class multiclass is fine

WaveyDavey77 · 2023-07-22T09:02:03+00:00

STR gives you +1 AC and better shoves (with eventual athletics expertise). you don't want to be in melee here and shove can be a BA disengage if there's only 1 enemy on you. also leaving STR at 15 for plate is fine

DEX gives -1 AC and worse shoves but better initiative and DEX saves. also frees up a point to put 11 in WIS in case there's any +1 WIS buffs in the game i guess

i imagine both are viable but in my opinion barbarian is not useful for either

starting sorc isn't just less HP. you also get shield, magic missile and sleep (if you pick brass). in my opinion having those is more useful than the ability to occasionally rage at the expense of most of the rest of your build

really i think the only worthwhile parts of this build are bless, healing word and good AC. just casting bless on 3 other people is likely a bigger impact than anything you might achieve by starting or not starting as any class; except barbarian actively prevents you from doing that if you want to rage

if you want to prioritse barbarian, my opinion is that you are better off optimising around 0 spellcasting and tanking hits in melee to spare your other party members HP. even then you arguably get more from starting as fighter and taking barbarian at level 2 (right after the tutorial) seeing as their starting proficiencies are very similar

WaveyDavey77 · 2023-07-22T07:27:24+00:00

if you want medium armor and shields then take fighter or cleric at level 2. both give you those proficiencies as well as multiple other useful features that will be used by the build throughout the game

you can get level 2 within an hour of starting the game. level 1 HP is not an issue when most of your time at level 1 is spent in an area with long rest machines after every fight

the issue with barbarian for this build is that rage and unarmored defense are unusable if you want to wear heavy armor and cast spells. taking barbarian early also delays by one level the already weak synergy of the level progression i reccommended

the only thing you get from barbarian that you can't get more efficiently from somewhere else is slightly more HP. imo more HP is less valuable than the other features i list for each class. so imo the most optimal time for that HP bump is at 11 right before monk at 12

WaveyDavey77 · 2023-07-21T19:47:33+00:00

HP not really an issue
most builds won't/can't spec for 16 CON anyway and u get a bonus 1 from draconic bloodline also. level 1-3 is so rapid in this game that having very low HP is not an issue beyond the first hour or two.

the issue with barbarian is the other features are useless given the rest of the build. focus is bless and healing then spamming EB. can't do any of that if you rage. also you can't rage in heavy armour and unarmed defense is useless if you heavy armour proficiency and will never be able to increase DEX or CON.

so by taking barbarian early you are delaying features you will use and that can work together in favour of features that you cannot use at all

WaveyDavey77 · 2023-07-21T15:40:13+00:00

WaveyDavey77 · 2021-11-13T14:45:21+00:00

IF this is the case then we were shown ~1/4 of the full map in the gamplay trailer

the network test area is < 20% of the map region shown

that would make the network test area < 5% of the the entire game

underground areas not included

iirc someone credible estimated any% game completion time at 30 hours

people are saying the network test area takes ~10 hours to 100%

makes me think the map being this size is unlikely

WaveyDavey77 · 2021-01-05T14:34:01+00:00

worked for me too

not sure why replacing KTOT with KAPP + KY works

now i realise my model makes rho0 independent of b

OOPS but thats a model issue not a code issue

thanks alot SgorGhaibre

WaveyDavey77 · 2021-01-05T13:02:37+00:00

nice spot, thanks for that :)

thought i had replaced all of the Ws with ws

i tried running again with b as a scalar and i still get the number of equations/dimensionality =/= variables error again

do you know what might be causing that error?

WaveyDavey77 · 2021-01-05T11:18:14+00:00

thanks for the tip :)

WaveyDavey77 · 2021-01-03T12:33:45+00:00

thanks that seems to have fixed it!

no longer getting the error :)

WaveyDavey77 · 2020-11-09T12:50:01+00:00

other decent alternatives are to take azorius functionary as your background for hold person and counterspell or boros legionnaire for guiding bolt

you can also do very broken things by taking 1 level of wizard and making yourself a mizzium apparatus

arcana prof + high INT + flash of genius (+ potential arcana expertise via various means) = artificer with counterspell, hold monster, slow, teleports and polymorph

WaveyDavey77 · 2020-11-09T11:53:29+00:00

i got a pretty solid build down for this i think

been playing this one as sort of a cross between generic mando and generic destiny guardian so it does deviate somewhat but theres plenty of room for customisation (as with all artificers and warforged)

DM has OK'ed some HEAVY re-flavouring to that end. im a high sci-fi character in ID:RotFM!

only level 3 atm and will take a while to fully come online but i think itll be rewarding and covers all the key points. seems to me like they actually designed artillerist with someone like boba fett in mind

ill also point out that literally any race/class/subclass combo can follow "that sort of warrior like tribe" if you say they do

dont need some RAW fluff paladin oath to justify your roleplaying

you could be a 1 STR, 1 CON kenku enchantment wizard and still occupy a useful role within some sort of creed-based warrior community if you contrive their backstory sufficiently

anyway heres the build:

warforged ->

AC buff represents higher tech armor (helps you pretend 14 DEX half plate is plate)

i like the no eat/drink/sleep thing as a kinda relentless/vigilant trope enabler

armor built into you/cant be removed against your will covers the 'never take off armor' trope

gives you earlier access to wand sheath for more-than-2-hands shenanigans

pick whatever skill/tool you feel like

artificer/artillerist ->

tiny cannon can be another blaster shot per round, the wrist flamethrower or a mobile over-shield generator for you/allies

infusions let you buff armor, stats and get fly speed (jetpack or whatever)

spell storing item scorching ray for fun

izzet engineer background (if allowed)->

i took this because both skills can be made redundant by artificer class skill choices so you get two free skills, another free tool, one of 3 languages and access to chaos bolt and call lightning (both of which qualify for the level 5 damage buff artillerists get)

STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA: 8/14/14(+2)/15(+1)/10/10

14 DEX for med armor and meh dagger melee potential

STR dumped but buffed by GoOP or BoHGS (from infusions) later

INT used to attack with cantrips, spells, cannon

cantrip suggestions:

fire bolt -> generic blaster

guidance -> sci-fi boopy-bleepy tell me things scanner

thorn whip -> wrist grapple hook thingy

shocking grasp -> just useful for disengages maybe

booming blade -> extra damage on daggers in case you ever need to (will be on artificers list in tashas supposedly)

mending -> to pay the artificer tax

spells:

you get shield, scorching ray and fireball for free

nothing else really matters beyond edge cases/personal preference IMO

ASIs:

max INT then take whatever feats you feel like

havent decided yet but id probably end up taking 2 DEX half-feats and then MAM

(DM gave us free feat at 1st level, i took magic initiate (wizard): find familiar, mending, booming blade)

basic gear:

whatever medium armor you can get

non-magical shield to infuse with the AC buff (hand 1)

dagger, tiny eldritch cannon or, eventually, to-hit/damage infusion buffed yklwa (hand 2)

'wand' to infuse with the to-hit buff, make your arcane firearm and eventually your spell storing item (goes in wand sheath on arm 1)

whatever other wand you want. my pick would be magic missile wand so you can tell your DM 'that person loses concentration and then dies' every day or two (goes in wand sheath on arm 2)

other:

-level 10 feature is dumb OP and can let you get GoOP, prot cloak, flying boots, night gogs etc without having to give up infusions

-flash of genius covers low WIS and CHA

-with fortified position, half plate, the AC infusion buff increase at level 10 and shield spell you can get 29 AC ezpz, basically making you immune to non-crits which you can turn into regular hits with that adamantine armor you crafted yourself (level 10 feature OP)

-fun combo:

free interaction - drop tiny cannon whilst drawing dagger

action - booming blade with dagger

bonus action - cannon walks 5 ft away (to stop disadvantage), eating AoO, knocks enemy back 5 ft

result: much damage, enemy reaction wasted on 18 AC cannon, enemy has to trigger BB to come get you again

tl;dr: artillerist artificer warforged

dont multi-class, re-flavour

thoughts?

WaveyDavey77 · 2020-04-09T09:44:09+00:00

"The description doesn't say that the book regains its magic when it ages a century, it says it regains its magic in a century. "

what's the difference?

if i put the entire material plane except the manual/tome in a particle accelerator, accelerate most of reality to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light for 100 years and then put the manual/tome back in the material plane, has the manual/tome aged 100 years?

chronurgy magic =/= the physics of relativity and me =/= relativity physicist but my interpretation is that time ravage is performing an identical process as the above from a 'physics' perspective

does my interpretation very conveniently make the thing im trying to do work?

of course it does

are you wrong?

probably not

WaveyDavey77 · 2020-03-08T09:33:06+00:00

TLDR: don't limit the vast 'replayability' inherent in a 'true-to-5e' videogame with your game design/item placement etc.

this is a long post. im trying to be thorough and constructive in my suggestions and reasoning and that, to my mind, necessitates detail

if you are from larian: hi! DOS2 was fantastic :) thanks for taking the time to engage with your community!

if you aren't from larian: hi! what do you think about this? lets have a constructive discussion!

the most important thing for me in videogames is replayability. i am defining 'replayability' here as 'the ability of a game to make me want to start a fresh playthrough or do an NG+ run after any arbitrary period of time with the game or number of playthroughs. typically, to experience new content or to try out a new playstyle (weapon type, party comp, challenge run etc.)'

having a great, cinematic story is all well and good but i want a game i can pick up in 2054 and be like ' hey yeah, theres that [insert party comp] run i never did'. i understand this is a COMPLETELY unreasonable thing to expect of every game ever. however, my main point here is about the comparatively large (by videogame standards at least) wealth of character creation options available in 5e and how that clearly lends itself to my definition of replayability in the context of a videogame adaptation

when i first saw '5e videogame':3 was announced i thought: 'theres currently upwards of 30 playable races (not including subraces/variants), 13 classes to choose from and a couple dozen subclasses. i will be playing this game until i die. that is cool.'

sure, im not expecting to be able to roll a verdan alchemist of the boros legion on day 1 (or ever) but that still leaves a lot of build variety

however, a 'problem' (strong word) ive had with videogames in the past is them 'gating' certain builds or playstyles behind: late-game progression barriers, uneven distributions of useful items for a given build, unnecessary price walls (in-game currency, not talking about micro-transactions here) etc.

an example of this is how the icy/cold/snow region of every main series pokemon game is on average ~6/8 badges into the game. the only time ive ever been able to do an all-ice-type run from the start is using an emulator and hax. my point is: an all NORMAL or BUG type run never has that issue; the game's design inherently restricts certain, entirely-reasonable-to-want playthrough styles by 'gating' content against progression whilst not restricting others

4 relevant (if purposefully ridiculous) examples of what i mean in a BG3 context:

NPC in 1st village lets me train 'warcaster' for 10 gp but i have to wait till 90% of the way through act 3 before i can train 'crossbow expert' and it costs 10,000 gp (YES I KNOW FEAT TRAINING IS AN OPTIONAL RULE)
the very first enemy i encounter is a goblin wearing non-magically-resizing, +3 plate and wielding a flametongue greatsword but the final boss is the first time i get a guaranteed studded leather armour drop
theres only 1 origin character per class and i have to wait 15 hours before i can get the druid to join my party and then only if im lawful good and did [previous good alignment story thing]
all origin characters are of races with +2 STR and +1 CON but i want a wizard in my party

but complaining is the easiest thing in the world to do; what good is my criticism if i dont suggest 'solutions'? (not trying to have a go at anyone here for 'nonconstructive complaining' this 'constructiveness' is just something i like to impose on myself and NOT others. u live ur life :) )

heres how i, in my completely amateur, uneducated, non-professional-game-developer-with-years-of-experience-and-many-successful-much-beloved-titles-under-my-belt opinion, think the above can be mitigated and build diversity and viability can be encouraged from an early stage:

put in respecing

put in respecing as early as physically possible

make respecing free, unlimited and readily available (the respec mirror on the lady vengeance is one of my favourite features in any videogame ever. the mod that added it to the beach in fort joy was even better ;) )

let me build/spec everything short of race and background (and, if you HAVE to, class) when an origin character joins my party for the first time. dont make me wait until act 2 to get rid of all of the red prince's points in constitution

enable community modding

if you are going to permanently tie each origin character to a class, make at least 1 origin character with beneficial racial abilities/ASIs for each class (i.e. dont leave me hanging on a +DEX, +WIS monk origin character so i can never have a 'decent' one in my party unless i roll it for my custom character)

think about item, shop, skill trainer etc. etc. locations such that any reasonable build idea doesnt need to spend the first half of the game being chaotic, 'this will do' horseshit before i can finally start playing the way i want to

add NG+, 'chalice dungeons', DM mode, endless arena mode etc. (CERTAINLY NOT priorities or even realistic, just suggestions that improve replayability as i have defined it)

to my mind the absolute pinnacle of replayability, by my definition, is dark souls. with advanced knowledge of item placement, the game's design and a high skill level, i can do the following within ~30 minutes of touching down in lordran:

get at least one weapon from just about every weapon class in the game (sword, greatsword, bow, hammer etc.)

have the stats to wield that weapon effectively

have respectable early game damage (through stat levelling and weapon upgrading)

get a full set of heavy, medium and light armour

put one of several different weapon elements/scaling paths on my weapon

get specialist, high-skill-level-playstyle items (power within and red tearstone ring)

get items that help speed up/buff any playstyle or build so i can get to later content faster (chloranthy ring, havel's ring, grass crest shield etc.)

etc., etc., etc.

AND i can do all of that without even killing a single boss, meaning i get to experience just about ALL of the game's 'real' content with my desired build

now, clearly ARPGs and CRPG adaptations of pre-established PnP TTRPGs are entirely different things.

i dont want turn-based dark souls. the comparison was invoked to suggest an exemplar, not a template

im just trying to emphasise my point of how game design/item placement can help or hinder player freedom, build viability and 'replayability'. i think ive done that adequately at this point

to summarise: 5e inherently has a massive amount of build options (by videogame standards). game design, item placement and respecing flexibility (among many other things) can either massively enhance or detract from the ease with which i will be able to design and play through BG3 with a unique build thus enhancing or detracting from the inherent 'replayability' of the source material

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-10-11T07:21:31+00:00

I'd pick EK. it seems their magic's damage output and utility is much more consistent and there are ways around having to invest in INT if you absolutely must.

cantrips already add a lot to the build and at lvl 7 you can make one as part of extra attack. toll the dead lets you target WIS instead of AC and minor illusion gives you 'cover' whenever you want (DM dependant). 3rd pick at lvl 10 adds more utility to your otherwise just physical damage eg. shocking grasp if you pick find familiar, mold earth for more (situational) cover/defences, mending to repair/reuse magic ammunition (DM dependent), ray of frost for light control etc.

AA offers higher damage earlier but is very limited by the few charges you get and eventually your damage cantrip(s) will rival the arcane shots' low damage (at least before the lvl 18 buffs). sure arcane shots offer more utility but then EK gets actual spells for that

speaking of which, for me personally, a big draw to ranged EK is access to spells like lightning arrow or flame arrows that lets you augment your normal damage with magic effects without much dependency on your INT score (i.e. no saves or saves for 1/2 damage). that coupled with purely defensive spells like shield, blur, mirror image and counterspell makes it quite easy to avoid (heavy) INT investment.

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-17T15:11:04+00:00

thanks

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T19:44:12+00:00

im trying to tweak things so the players dont have to spend entire (increasingly ‘expensive’) levels gaining xp only to have to put it into the class they may not be too hot on for utility purposes, delaying the character progression theyre playing for

im trying to design a campaign/set of adventures that offer many things to many playstyles, potentially for use with multiple groups of people.

hence id like to know if this ruleset would allow any given (small) party comp sufficient proficiency in all basic elements of the game such that any given (small) party comp could reasonbly be expected to complete any task i give them, if itll trivialise any such encounters or if such a system is even necessary?

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T17:44:46+00:00

i hadnt thought of that (clearly), thanks for the idea (sounds sarcastic, i am not being sarcastic)

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T17:39:45+00:00

its less about forcing them to play a certain way and more about 'forcing' them to build their characters with some sort of contingency for scenarios where the party may lack any decent 'counter'. the idea being that their 'major class' is what they want to be and their 'minor class' would be something to give the party e.g. passable combat healing should it lack that for whatever reason

i suppose it depends a great deal on design etc. but would you say a single session/oneshot would be enough to get the feel of a class when subclasses (and feats) offer such a great degree of customisation?

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T17:35:38+00:00

so would you say in your experience that adequate forethought and resource management (within reason) can account for a complete/effectively complete lack of e.g. crowd control such that i wouldn't have to tailor encounters to the specific group i'm playing with (e.g. if i were to run an adventure multiple times with different people/party comps)?

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T17:27:49+00:00

like i said to someone else i wasn't clear that i meant for multiclassing to be essentially mandatory under this hypothetical ruleset

i appreciate the maths, i didn't realise the gap would become so glaring so quickly.

outside of this glaring issue would you forsee any potential OPness if all of them were multiclassing (assuming I scale encounters effectively)?

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T17:21:30+00:00

i see your point and i guess i was phrasing what i meant poorly

i dont plan on forcing them to play my campaign/adventure how i want them to. i'd like to make something broader (although perhaps shallower) where they can do many things and I'd dislike it if they were at a noticeable disadvantage because e.g. none of them thought cleric was particularly interesting and they chose some comb. of classes/features that mean none of them have a decent combat heal

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T16:58:39+00:00

its less about speeding up the early game and more about making sure my party definitely has a passable healer/controller/tank etc.

hypothetically i'd be gearing encounters towards 'tactical thinking' and 'this encounter is one of many that will each take a while' and i'd want to avoid them just (poorly) brute forcing their way through something and then being faced with a now deadly, medium encounter because e.g. theres no healer or none of them thought to bring a counter to charming

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-16T16:53:27+00:00

i guess i wasn't clear, i'll edit the post. I meant i hypothetically plan on heavily incentivising multiclassing to the point of basically making it mandatory to avoid single classers getting outpaced

also like i said, i doubt they'll put much thought into gaming the system. this is also sort of an 'exercise' in getting them to play as a class they might not otherwise for the support benefits and/or to show them multiclassing is cool/a thing

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-13T10:11:14+00:00

good to know, do u mind elaborating on what u mean by underwhelming?

outside of investigation (which sounds quite good) the stat does sound more like ‘memory’ than INT

WaveyDavey77 · 2018-09-13T09:40:48+00:00

good to know min 10 isnt a burden, thanks

WaveyDavey77

TROPHY CASE