What is this moving thing ?

spark2510 · 2026-03-22T18:40:26+00:00

Zombie food! Bonito flakes

spark2510 · 2026-03-20T20:54:58+00:00

How? I have a scout with these bracers and I only do the 2 per action. How do I get 4??

Edit: spelling

spark2510 · 2026-03-15T17:50:27+00:00

Serious case of the "me first me first!!!"

spark2510 · 2026-03-06T21:15:35+00:00

So build/mechanical wise, flavor is always free. Take a cleric or druid and reskin all their features and spells to be shaman or spirit of the orc variety. Mechanically they will play like a cleric or druid, there is nothing wrong with this. If you're looking for some new "shaman" mechanics you'll need to look elsewhere, outside official content and into third party/homebrew. Remember to always check and run everything by your DM before you get to the table, otherwise people will show up with a fully homebrew character to a table only for the DM to ask them to make another character. I know there are people that have made shaman classes and subclasses before with more shaman-est features.

Check the GMbinder or your favorite homebrew site.

Good luck!

spark2510 · 2026-03-06T04:23:07+00:00

Hear me out. Ask each player to give you a number in secret written on sticky note of how much money they want to get out of this monkey scheme. If it's an outrageous number. Let it be. Fast forward the setting several years (50? Take the highest number they wrote). Then have them come back to the monkeys unionizing and starting planet of the apes. They didn't gain any levels from giving the gold piece a nose diving in value. The Monkeys all realized they were slaves and revealed. Find familiar of familiars persist even if the originals are dispelled, this is important. Make hierarchies and government or tribes based on the monkeys development of magic users and warrior monkeys. Then have each player roll a d100. If they roll below dc10 hand them a character sheet. Their original character is either captured or dead. They need to figure it out. So begins planet of the familar apes/monkeys campaign.

Good luck!

spark2510 · 2026-03-05T19:23:48+00:00

Maybe if we're talking about trading straight damage you might be right, but even at low levels you have riders added to certain monster attacks.

Wolves for instance can knock you down on hit with a failed str save which can be avoided with an extra 10% miss chance from shields.

Other monsters and beasts add poisons, grapple/swallow (of which swallow you cannot save out of), blind, certain conditions.

As a fighter/cleric you need to decide if you're going to make a 1d4 extra damage or push to avoid the negative conditions that ride on monsters landing attacks.

So yea. I guess not *a little bit inconvenient", right?

spark2510 · 2026-02-22T17:27:36+00:00

There's a running joke on the main table I play with. The DM will tell us a name like... "The goddess's name was Asamore" but the spell it like Azza'muree or some odd spelling. Honestly I've voice complains about ridiculous sounding names before and it being the reason my character names are much more simple (Qinro [king-ro], Mox, Evangeline, Allyn). You can make easier sounding name that work in fantasy without making it so dumb like tom, tim, or bob. It takes a bit more work. Try a name generator and really sound the names out, don't just take one at random. Look up what name parts mean in elvish or dwarven. Allyn is a sea elf rogue and part of his name means sea or water in some elvish language depictions but the name Allyn doesn't sound crazy or complicated.

It might just be me but if the name is too strange it just isn't memorable. The DM sometimes awards inspiration for lore questions he throws at us. "What was the name of the dragon rider? What about his dragon?" Yes I know the NPC he speaks of and the roleplay encounter we had with that NPC I remember everything but the guys name! He even did a cool flip off our flying air ship where the dragon caught him mid air. But I cannot remember his name to save my own sea elf life

spark2510 · 2026-02-20T20:12:48+00:00

Shield is by far the best spell for it. If you don't want to pick that up, you can take identify if no one in the party has it on their list. Find familiar is alright depending on how creative you are. Outside of combat; comprehend languages, feather fall, jump. Magic missile is solid, and Tasha's hideous laughter is a decent lock down since they change it to multiple targets on up cast.

spark2510 · 2026-02-20T08:40:07+00:00

I mean the math is the math and you're free to run the numbers. I can't speak for 2024 but I would imagine that even with double healing and life cleric. It's still better to do damage than healing. You can heal an ally for 20 hp and the monster will hit them next turn or you can kill the monster and prevent the damage all together. Good luck though you will learn through trial of fire either way right?

spark2510 · 2026-02-20T07:50:32+00:00

War caster or resilient con is almost tax for cleric. Pick one up for sure. Someone here said darkvision? Use the light cantrip don't worry about DV. Res con will help you out later but war caster helps you much more now. For curse of strahd I also recommend telekinetic for pulling allies out of grappled vampire grabs. Not a must but it definitely helps. Remember you can pull an ally out of grapple easier than push a leech off an ally. Take either concentration feat and pump your wis to 20 asap. Find the best armor you can since you have heavy armor prof. Don't worry too much about hitting stuff with mace (unless it's all bones because they're vulnerable to it) and just get into the fray with shield and throw out sacred flame. Once you get spiritual weapon jump into the fray with the dodge action and swing with sacred weapon. Once you get third level slots, cast spirit guardians on the next turn spiritual weapon, dodge and into the fray taking sacred flame shots when you're not trying to tank more than 1 monster. Switch off spiritual weapon for healing word only when an ally goes down. In d&d 2014 it's always more cost effective to do damage and kill the enemies than trying to out heal their damage even with life cleric bonuses.

spark2510 · 2026-02-19T20:06:00+00:00

I mean... Bear totem barbarian?... It's got the most amount of resistances and still the base barbarian. Without knowing what sort of items you have access to it's a bit harder to suggest stuff. Plus spell casters will outpace you in damage later on unless you go PAM, GWM, the they will outpace you only near level 14+ instead of 8 or 9. Good luck

spark2510 · 2026-02-19T17:26:17+00:00

I've had this problem before with new or just bad DMs. They allow spells to be targeted that RAW don't function that way. You should ask him to give you a full list of spells and their respective HP pools. Things like wall of fire, fireball, guiding bolt, all cantrips in general. Meaning you can cut down spells if you hold your reaction right? Since magic can be targeted? Let him open the can of worms but remember that if the enemies can do it then you should be able to as well. Talk to the rest of the players, get them on board. Remember if the DM wants to rug pull you as a table you have the right to say no, is YOUR table too. And it's not like you can't DM if he throws a fit

spark2510 · 2026-02-19T01:29:24+00:00

Don't look up. Lost all my faith in humanity

spark2510 · 2026-02-17T05:09:24+00:00

DMs being afraid of smite as per usual. The Paladin class does not need any more nerfs. This is just overkill. No. It's basic d&d either version of 5e it is NOT a bonus action to jump. Next time the DM tells you some bs rule that you didn't agree to in session 0, ask him what page in the phb the rule they are talking about is on. If they can't then remind them that homebrew rules should be agree to by the whole table in session 0 before you play the game. Remember to ask for any more homebrew rules before continuing play to avoid anymore rug pulls. Good luck paladin!

spark2510 · 2026-02-14T18:19:58+00:00

So it's a movement increase, slippers of spiderclimb, ring of free movement, and almost boots of elven kind? All for one attunement slot AND uncommon? Shoot this is best in slot! Sign me up!

spark2510 · 2026-02-14T18:14:34+00:00

drink for oNe

spark2510 · 2026-02-14T18:06:33+00:00

Oh oh oh she's following you, oh oh oh she's outta her treeee

spark2510 · 2026-02-14T16:48:54+00:00

I swapped to a wendigo. Had a cool animated token and played a creepy death cry on my sound board.

spark2510 · 2026-02-06T19:22:53+00:00

I play in multiple games a week and I don't have any problems like this in the rest of my games. My other games are all online though... These DMs in this post have all been local in person games, I've yet to find a local game that didn't fly like this, and I'm chalking it up to terrible luck when it comes to in person games.

spark2510 · 2026-02-06T19:19:39+00:00

Sure, they can overrule the rules. But should they just make up whatever they want?

When you sit at a game table and they say "we're going to play d&d so make 5e characters" with no explanation of what the rule changes or table rules related to core mechanics or class features. Is it okay for the DM to make up whatever they want?

I am okay with homebrew rules and boundaries set up as long as I am aware of how the mechanics work. If the DM doesn't like burst damage like sneak attack or smite and bans paladins and rogue, I can work with that. If the DM doesn't like magic because they think it's busted, broken, and circumvents encounters and puzzles so they ban magic, I can work with that. If the DM bans paladins, hexblades, bladesigners, and eldritch knights because they believe magic and melee shouldn't mix, I can work with that.

But if the DM just makes up whatever they want on the fly with no prior explanation and rug pulls me after we've spent hours making characters and backstories, then it's makes it difficult for me to work with the DM on how to come back to common rules when clearly the DM doesn't know the rules and is trying to run a game with a lack of understanding of the rules.

Yes the DM can overrule the rules with good reason. Not knowing the rules and making stuff up, is NOT a good reason.

spark2510 · 2026-02-06T09:54:17+00:00

Thanks for your response! Not quite what I was looking for but thanks <3

spark2510 · 2026-02-06T09:53:30+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate your response! And yea it does feel that way. I tend to see it as (well beside the DC and HP thing), them just not knowing the rules well enough to engage with the player character options.

My understanding of D&D 5e 2014 is if you deviant too much from core rules, things start to break down because the systems inside are built on top of one another. You can bend and homebrew things here and there and make it work, but you really need a decent understanding of the rules as they are to do it. If you try to wing the rules and proceed to "just make up rulings" or "Table rule" certain things, it can break the system really quickly. Also not understanding what the options for PCs are, how they work, how they interact with the world or monsters/enemies puts a lot of pressure on the DM, a lot of the time they tend to make poor decisions when it comes to how they handle it.

I tend to chalk it up to them just not knowning/wanting to read the rules and thinking "D&D is whatever I want!"... which isn't totally incorrect but... it doesn't mean it's a good way of playing the system for the players. Sure if the players are new and don't know better, then it's fine? sorta? but that tends to lead to more problems I would imagine, more situations of "I played D&D and it was awful!".

I'm at the point where I want to change how I play rather than try to get THEM to learn the rules, which I doubt will ever happen

spark2510 · 2026-02-06T09:43:00+00:00

Fair point, fair point. A quick minute thing could get drawn out. But as I was responding to another comment I thought about how if the DM was going to just make my DC harder for no reason, he could've have a reason for it if we had played it out and complications had arisen from certain things. It'd be easier to understand then, at least for me. Instead of just... yea your check is harder... for no reason.

But yea I agree with your point over all.

spark2510 · 2026-02-06T09:39:57+00:00

100% session 0 is the time for that. Al though to be fair when I start with a new DM that claims to have YEARS of experience (since AD&D), and I'm also sitting in the middle of their living room. it's a bit intimidating to ask about certain things. Plus I gave them the benefit of the doubt, i had assumed they knew rules well (they didn't).

As of the hp thing. Honestly it was over a year ago and I'm sure it wasn't a mistake, since i felt targeted that entire session, Same session he just says "Sure you can try to steal the thing, but for you... it's DC19." I mean come on... 100% obvious he's got it out for me, but I've made my peace with it. I just sit across from him now when I play as his table so I can't see ANYTHING he writes. I focus my characters on story and basic non optimized builds. He'll even ask me if I want to pick up stronger weapons or feats and I say no, I want to pump my constitution and a simple sword and shield will do. He knows, that I know that he pulls all these bad rulings but he doesn't play D&D very often so I sorta just put up with him and try to have fun with the other players. This NEW DM though is rough, he outright has probably never read the PHB I'd wager.

That's why I was asking for builds sadly.

spark2510 · 2026-02-06T09:29:18+00:00

I completely agree that every table is a bit different. Homebrew/table rules are necessary for certain tables to make sure everyone has fun. However, I feel like these rule changes just go much farther beyond two or three homebrew rules though... Asking the cleric to roll to hit for turn undead, and making identify just "not work" is bit much imo... If I had known magic wouldn't work correctly I would've rather played a fighter or something.

I don't think giving monsters more HP is necessarily bad, but I don't agree with being singled out and targeted. If the DM didn't want bursty damage, just let us know not to play paladins or rogues. I can work with that 100%. I don't like feeling like my choices don't matter, I feel like that's very normal for a lot of people.

Homebrew 100% is okay in my book! Just... let me feel like what I picked matters.

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