Try these tricks (providing they are applicable!):
Lower down the number of enemies under your control, but make them stronger. This way, you won’t have to deal with so many pawns.
Don’t force your NPCs to fight to death. Assume that once, say 25% of your pawns are wiped out, their leader halts the fight and asks to parlay, or that if 75% of them/their leader go to the ground, the rest escapes.
Tucker’s Kobolds.
If a combat action leads to multiple dice rolls one after another, roll all of the dice at once - this speeds up the game.
Use combat managers/helpers - Excel file, dedicated software, whatever helps you in math, use it.
If the combat becomes too overwhelming, introduce some unsuspected elements. Sudden earthquake, volcano eruption, castle falling down, incoming of a truly powerful enemy, etc. Have some good in-game explanation for such an event!
To add to that last point, I always like to have a few quest-specific Deus Ex Machinas that I’ve got up my sleeve, in case I really badly miscalculated a battle.
Once I realize things are going badly for the PCs, I switch to playing as if they were supposed to lose this battle the whole time, so I can introduce this cool new thing. I try to make it seem like I planned it, but really, I’m just pulling a Deus Ex to save my party from my own dumb ass.
99% of the time, PCs abilities aren’t your concern, all you need to worry about is knowing if it sounds like they something they might be able to do. Worst case scenario just ask them to read the ability description.
I would recommend buying a Player’s Handbook if you want to be a player and add on the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide if you want to DM.
roll20.net is a good site for online play. I believe you can also find games on there.
My biggest tip on character creation is to read through the stat blocks and think a couple levels ahead. Generally, you want to allocate stats:
Your best stat should go to the main stat for the class
Second best stat generally goes to Constitution.
Third best stat goes to second stat for the class (example: Charisma for paladin) or planned subclass (example: intelligence for Eldritch Knight.) If neither of these apply, put it in Wisdom.
The rest of your stats can go wherever, it doesn’t really matter.
Do that and your character will at least be decent.
What kind of tips are you looking for? Do you mean that you want to create characters with a lot of depth and backstory? Or do you want to min-max and create a very powerful character? Or just some general tips for how to come up with ideas? There are a lot of resources on youtube, and for example if you’re interested in roleplaying and character depth I think Ginny Di might provide some ideas and suggestions. I don’t have any links for min-maxing because I don’t play that way myself, but I’m sure those exist too. If you only want a little inspiration to get started I think a character generator can serve as a starting point, and you can modify and/or expand on the random character until you get something you like.
Personally I find a lot of inspiration in watching professional DnD (there are indeed people who get paid to play TTRPGs), such as Exandria Unlimited: Calamity which is a prequel/spinoff to Critical Role (a group of voice actors) and a collaboration with Dimension 20 (a group of comedians). Just don’t expect all your home games to be like that, at least not in the beginning.
As for finding groups, you could be the first person to post to /c/[email protected] :) If you live in Sweden there’s the Sverok national organization that sponsors tabletop and rpg clubs all over the country. Otherwise you could try finding a local store which sells these kind of games and ask there.
As someone else already said on here start at your local game or comic shop. They almost always have a D&D night we’re you can jump in with either your character or a premade and learn the system. The main rule is just have fun with it.
There’s probably a gaming shop in your neighbourhood which will either host games or have a message board for GMs looking for players. The best way to learn is to jump in with both feet. Most experienced players will be happy to help a newcomer get to grips with it.
The easiest way to start with character creation is by using dndbeyond.com
Unfortunately, the more advanced features on this site are paid, so once you’re ready to try more advanced features, use 5e.tools and fill in your character sheets manually.
I’m not sure how BG3 handles this but to my understanding they are pretty close to actual 5e rules.
In that case the scribing feature is from the wizard class and only lets you add wizard spells to your book. These spells would use INT as their spell casting ability.
Part of it depends on how you want to play. Personally, I love playing a CC/buffer/debuffer version of cleric. Outside of the spells mentioned by others, here are some of my favourites:
Sanctuary — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve saved an ally/myself from death because of this spell.
Shield of Faith— cast this on your melee meat shield and let them do what they do best.
Faerie Fire — IMO one of the most underrated spells in the game.
Guidance — One of the best cantrips for people who like to role-play in towns and villages. Cast it on yourself or your bard and make haggling with townsfolk a whole lot easier.
Those are all pretty low level spells. And FWIW If you’re a fan of buffing/debuffing/CC than Twilight Cleric is fucking incredible. It’s basically broken if you know what you’re doing.
Sanctuary is a super interesting spell. There’s a trick with it on the artillerist artificer where you can keep it up on yourself while attacking with your turret/gun
For sure. Just bear with me, this is gonna get a little long-winded. Like, too-long-to-fit-into-one-post-on-Kbin long ;p
A lot of it depends on party make-up and playstyle. I'm gonna assume your party is rocking with the usual set-up: two melees, a ranged character, and a healer/spellcaster (you).
First thing to remember is that, as cleric, you kinda sorta have more responsibility than anyone else in your party. For instance, all the barbarian has to do is rush the bandit and swing his axe. As cleric, you're gonna be expected to attack, heal, buff and debuff. To be a great cleric, you’re going to have to pay attention every round—see who needs healing or a spell to cure frightened/confused/what have you. Some people don’t like this responsibility but I absolutely love it.
Your position on the battlefield depends on playstyle and party. If your party is configured anything like the one I mentioned, then I think your best bet is to be between your melee and ranged allies. Basically, you want to be close enough so that your spirit guardians can really mess with your enemies but not so close they can fuck with your concentration.
SPELLS TO CONSIDER:
Other than the ones mentioned before, here's a few more…
Healing word: use it sparingly, mostly to bring your allies back to life. There's no point in wasting the slot if your ally just got nicked for 5hp. Save it for when they lose consciousness and are on the brink of making death saves.
Aid: Great for a majority of the game. Personally, I like using a third level slot to give my allies +10hp. Because the health from Aid ISN'T considered temporary, the extra temp. hp from Twilight Sanctuary stacks with the hp from Aid. So, with aid and TS, at low levels you can almost double your party's HP.
Spells gained through twilight domain: You gain access to some of the best spells IMO. Faerie Fire, Moonbeam, See Invisibility, Leomunds Tiny Hut, and Greater Invisibility are all great spells. Pair moonbeam with an ally who has booming blade and bosses (aka your DM) won't know where to go.
Put greater invisibility on your rogue (or druid) out of combat to steal anything you want.
Use LTH whenever your party needs a rest, and even as choke points to mess with your enemies (they can't go through the hut, neither can magic).
Eyes of Night: So much for having to worry about dark vision. Having this pretty much allows you, and everyone in your party, to pick a race that doesn't have access to dark vision. The game hasn't even started and you're already helping out your buddies.
Vigilant Blessing: Advantage on every initiative roll you–or anyone of your choosing–makes. This is huge. Just make sure you use it.
Twilight Sanctuary: This is what makes you god-like. In my opinion, it's the strongest skill in the game. Time it right and you'll mow through bosses. Pair it with spirit guardians and good luck getting the smell of dookie out of their pants.
Steps of Night: Useful at night and in dungeons. Aesthetically badass (imagine being a bandit and seeing a heavily armoured dude with wings slowly floating towards you with two kickass spheres ((TS and SG)) surrounding their party). Also great if you need to flee a battle.
– As cleric, you can swap out spells during a long rest. This comes in handy if you're about to fight elementals and need the right kinda magic to beat them.
– With Vigilant Blessing, you might find yourself at the top of the initiative order often. Use this to buff your allies if you can (Shield of Faith) activate TS immediately (So everyone gets temp. hp) or cast something like Faerie Fire on a mob before your allies get in range of the spell.
– Where other characters measure success by damage/round, you measure it in damage, healing, buffing. If it annoys you that you're not doing the most damage then cleric won't be for you. So just remember: your success isn't based on the damage you do but the damage everyone else can do.
– The hardest part about being a cleric is that you have access to a lot of bonus action spells, and figuring out when to use what can be tricky. Pay attention to your allies, enemies, surroundings to figure out which one to use. Same rules apply for spells requiring concentration.
That's all I can think of for now. If anything else hits me I'll reply with another comment. One final thing though…
I've played almost every class in DND, and multiclassed into anything and everything. By far, I never felt as god-like as I did when I played twilight cleric.
True story: I was playing with a DM who had a hard time scaling the difficulty for our four-person party. We had around 6 player death's in our first three sessions. When my bard died, that's when I decided to try twilight cleric. We went from 6 death's to none. I don't know if anyone even made a death save after that. Morale of the story: twilight clerics are an absolute game changer when played properly.
Enjoy the game and if you have any more questions ask. Twilight cleric is awesome. Seriously. The worst part about it is that every class will seem weak after you've played it lol.
I feel like Glory of Giants is just too light on content to justify a purchase.
One subclass, two backgrounds, a bunch of feats. Is that really it? I know they are most busy with 1DnD, but considering how that’s shaping out to be, I’m not really confident about the future of DnD.
WOTC has been phoning it in since Tasha’s. I’m so glad I switched to PF2e at the beginning of this year. Paizo treats their community well and releases tons of really good content, not these massive fluff books with only one or two new bits of crunch. They also don’t shy away from bigger content releases like entirely new classes.
I bought the big PF2 bundle during the OGL controversy and I really liked what I was looking at. Unfortunately my party isn’t really thrilled about changing system, so I’m stuck with dnd for the foreseeable future :/
You could start dropping hints about cool stuff in PF2 into your DnD game as house rules. Things like hero points, combat skill actions (demoralize, feint, etc.), and the 4 degrees of success (with differentials of 10 or more and nat 20/1) are fairly easy to incorporate into 5e. Then, once they are in love with all the cool house rules you’ve introduced you can be like “oh BTW those are just the tip of the iceberg of cool stuff in PF2”
In savage worlds you don’t really crit so much as just get raises.
You roll one of the polies, and if it lands on its highest number, you roll it again.
It is not uncommon to roll the same dice several times in a row, and the lower the dice the more often it happens.
You only need to hit 4 to succeed, generally. Every 4 over that is a raise. You also don’t really have health, you take wounds and if you take 3, you dead.
One raise might just be extra damage. But four raises… Well, my psion might have sprouted psychic tentacles for a moment and literally ripped the foe in two.
Yeah there are some interesting and cool systems out there. I like how Fragged Empire does it too where you roll d6s and you can use die that land on a six to trigger certain abilities and stuff.
I completely feel you there, and I genuinely wonder if another game system might help to practice RP via storytelling focus vs. D&D’s notorious crunch, ya know? Maybe a one-shot or short-arc in DOGS, Blades In The Dark, etc.?
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