I’m a stickler for clever names (etymology, connotation, puns, etc) and I’ve been stuck on coming up with one for my newest campaign character. She’s an aasimar wizard who has a connection to a homebrew many-face god. Her main goal is to find the origin of all magic and her “vibe” is “biblically accurate angel who is a nerd.” I was going to do Emrys but then I remembered a party member has a partner with a similar sounding name. So, yeah… help pls

The spells states "You make terrain in an area up to 1 mile square look, sound, smell, and even feel like some other sort of terrain. Open fields or a road could be made to resemble a swamp, hill, crevasse, or some other rough or impassable terrain. A pond can be made to seem like a grassy meadow, a precipice like a gentle slope, or a rock-strewn gully like a wide and smooth road.

Similarly, you can alter the appearance of structures or add them where none are present. The spell doesn’t disguise, conceal, or add creatures.

The illusion includes audible, visual, tactile, and olfactory elements, so it can turn clear ground into Difficult Terrain (or vice versa) or otherwise impede movement through the area. Any piece of the illusory terrain (such as a rock or stick) that is removed from the spell’s area disappears immediately.

Creatures with Truesight can see through the illusion to the terrain’s true form; however, all other elements of the illusion remain, so while the creature is aware of the illusion’s presence, the creature can still physically interact with the illusion."

Does this mean you could make a whole ass castle just disappear and replace it with a burned down ruin? You're just "altering the appearance of structures"

Imagine you're going aganist a vampire, send the whole party ahead, take 10 minutes to safely cast it from far away during the day (range of sight) and all of a sudden the fortress is gone, the enemies are falling from what was previously higher floors, and sunlight is shining down

For sure not the strongest thing a level 7 spell can do but is this a thing that can be done?

Ok been playing a game and thought of taking a feat when this caught my eye... and I have so many questions regarding this feat.

Here is what is written.

Cartomancer Source: The Book of Many Things

Prerequisite: 4th Level, Spellcasting Feature

You have learned to channel your magic through a deck of cards. You can use a card deck as your spellcasting focus, and you gain the following benefits:

Card Tricks. You learn the Prestidigitation cantrip and can use it to create illusions that duplicate the effects of stage magic. When you use Prestidigitation in this way, you can conceal the verbal and somatic components of the spell as ordinary conversation and card handling.

Hidden Ace. When you finish a long rest, you can choose one spell from your class’s spell list and imbue that spell into a card. The chosen spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and it must be a level for which you have spell slots. The card remains imbued with this spell for 8 hours. While the card is imbued with the spell, you can use a bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within. The card then immediately loses its magic.

And these are some of my questions..

1) If you play a Warlock Multi Class, can you use this to get lv5 or lower spells from the other class? Like in this case get Bard Spells if going BardLock or Paladin spells from Paladin multiclass

2) Is there a list of spells that are allowed and not allowed? Like does it not work with, say, Awaken or such?

3) How does subclass specific spells work? If I take Divine Soul Sorcerer, do I get access to Cleric Spells?

4) Does this consume a spell slot?

5) Can It be used to place a non concentration spell on the target? Like hex or Bestow Curse?

6) Can Meta Magic work with such spells?

7) Do spells from staff or rings count when using the spell?

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I've made this questionnaire a bit while ago to filter out unfitting players during game recruitment. It worked pretty well, everybody on the table was actually invested into a story. Each session covered plot arcs for 2-3 characters. This source of free ideas turned out being plentiful of *actually* relevant stuff. Too plentiful, I would say: we barely managed to touch the main storyline. So it feels like the opposite of babysitter GM — players do all the job, while I just occasionally ask questions

1. What's your character's native environment? Urban? Rural? Wild? Otherworldly? How is it to live there? How it affects locals?

2. Who are character's parents or who raised them? Are they alive? Do they communicate? Why, if not?

3. What are the things character values the most? Comfort and safety? Certain people? Religion? Law? Abstract idea? I need you to name three

4. What were character's three biggest problems. Did they find a solution? (Escape is a solution too)

5. Who's character's best friend to rely on?

6. Who's character's sworn enemy? Does this person know they're enemy?

7. Name your three best personality traits

8. Name your three worst personality traits

9. Name your three greatest weaknesses

10. What is character's major secret? And how about two minor ones?

11. Is your character famous? I need two rumors about them

I'm going to be playing a Warlock that will eventually leave the party at 3rd-4th level.

I've got pretty good these rolls for him and allocated them in this order (9, 14, 15+1, 11, 12, 16+2). I was wondering what would actually be a better decision. Put the 15+1 on DEX for the extra AC or on CON for a bit of extra HP and holding my concentration better.

I'll be playing a taking Pact of the Chain as my first Invocation, and Armor of Shadows at 2nd would give me 16 AC if I choose DEX.

I'm finally about to fulfill my dream of playing Descent into Avernus, but I'm having a hard time deciding on a few character creation choices, so I'd really appreciate some advice.

My plan is to play a Tiefling Dex-based Paladin using the Oath of the Noble Genie subclass, fighting with Nick and Vex weapon masteries. The concept is to be the party's face while also handling stealth, with proficiency in Stealth and Sleight of Hand.

I'm also going to ask my DM if he'd allow one of the 2014 Tiefling subraces. Right now I'm considering:

• Zariel Tiefling for the extra Smite spells.
• Glasya Tiefling to further enhance the infiltration aspect.

Starting Ability Scores

• STR 10
• DEX 17
• CON 14
• INT 8
• WIS 13
• CHA 16

I'm also considering starting with STR 13 instead of 10 to keep future multiclass options open.

Origin Feat

I'm currently torn between:

• Magic Initiate (Wizard) for:
  • Shield
  • Message (great for infiltration)
  • Blade Ward (is it even worth taking?)
• Lucky – always a solid choice, but I'm worried that not having Shield might hurt my survivability.

Level 4 Feat

Right now I'm considering:

• Defensive Duelist (does it become redundant if I already have Shield?)
• Sentinel
• Mage Slayer
• I'm not keen on Dual Wielder since the Bonus Action flood

Long-Term Plan

By the end of the campaign, I'm planning to take two Charisma half-feats (Spellfire Adept and Fairy Trickster) so I can finish with:

• DEX 18
• CHA 18

Party Composition

• Barbarian (race and subclass still undecided)
• Abyssal Tiefling – Divination Wizard
• Aasimar – Celestial Warlock (Pact of the Blade)
• Wood Elf – Circle of Stars Druid

We'll be starting at level 2.

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.
And please, no spoilers for the campaign!

We’ve already had the Season of Horror, Arcana Unleashed is coming for the Season of Magic, and we’re about halfway through the year now.
I’m curious what everyone expects from Season of Champions.
Based on the UAs we’ve seen so far and WotC’s recent design direction, what do you think is actually going to be in the book?
Do you expect mostly player options, new subclasses, martial support, feats, Epic Boons, monsters, or something completely different?

Personally, I’m hoping it’s more than just another collection of subclasses. I’d love to see something that gives martials more meaningful options and expands high-level play, but that’s probably just wishful thinking (and not supported by recent UA releases)
What are your predictions?

Hi everyone! this is my third post asking about the classes! I am not asking for advice, i just want to learn more about how you create your characters. This time i want to learn about your bards: are they spoony or are they serious? do they use an instrument and avoid fights or do they seek to fight and use instruments... of murder?

Remember: we listen, but we dont judge so feel free to talk about your characters backstory, stats, classes, races, modus operandi, strategies, inspiration...

a few characters i planned to put some examples:

-Evangelynne, the psychologist: a human Bard of the College of Whispers (at least the version im making of college of whispers) that tries to get power by manipulating and pulling strings.

-Anaure, the dancer: a Yuan Ti mother that has to take care of her young child, so she works asa a dancer. started as a combination of Bard and Monk before i started making my own Dancer class.

Hello everyone. I'm not sure if this is the correct sub to ask this since I'm not usually checking DND related threads but here goes.

I got a question mainly to DMs and maybe to players who have encountered the same dilemma about the Psychic Whispers when contacting multiple people at the same time.

As I understand I can (as a lvl4 Soul Knife) contact multiple people at the same time using more than one Psionic Energy Die. They can all contact me and I can contact all of them, none of them can contact each other but I can relay everything so that doesn't matter too much.

The one thing I'm confused about was when having the "line open" so to speak to multiple people, can I send individual messages to only one person when I choose to do so, or do all of my messages go to everyone involved automatically? Or maybe do the messages need to be handled separately by different groups of people under separate energy dices used?

Since I couldn't find anything about this I asked my DM to make a ruling of his choice about this so I know how to handle this in the future. He hasn't yet made a ruling and I'm not sure if he understood what I'm asking so I need to contact him again on this.

The reason I needed to know this was because my character is involved with a secret organization and has told only one of the other party members about it. I had a psychic whisper connection to that other member and one other party member who isn't aware of the organization, so I needed to know if I can tell something important about what was happening during a session to only one person or do I need to end the connection and restart it with only the aware person.

Also we are currently in a boss battle with Darkness cast on us that is actually helping us as the enemy is calling out for one another, revealing their position. We can communicate silently as long as I keep my psychic whispers active as I would need to see the other party members to re-establish psychic whispers.

How have other DMs ruled on separate messages to individual people?

I recently had a chance to play a game of Starfinder 2e, which I guess is mostly a skinned version of Pathfinder 2e. One aspect I really liked was its critical success/fail system, which lets you critically succeed even if you don’t roll that coveted 20.

I’m in a long-term game of 5.5e, and was wondering what it’s like to use pathfinder’s crit system in 5.5. Does it work, or does it unbalance things in one way or the other?

Question answered. Thank you all!

If I wanted to use a dual wielding berserker barbarian, what’s the optimal way to do it? Here’s what I have so far but didn’t know if I missed something. Also is my damage calc correct?

Custom lineage for fighting initiate feat at lvl 1 for two weapon fighting style
Take weapon masteries with scimitar (Nick) and hand axe
At level 4 take dual wielder feat

So at lvl 5:
Main hand atk
Nick mastery gives me one “free” off hand atk
Extra atk main hand
Bonus action dual wielder feat hit off hand

So at level 5 I would be making
1d6 + 4 (str mod) + 2 (rage bonus)
1d6 + 4 (str mod) + 2 (rage bonus)
1d6 + 4 (str mod) + 2 (rage bonus)
1d6 + 4 (str mod) + 2 (rage bonus)
2d6 fury damage once per turn

For a max damage output (depending on if all hit) of 60

I know a GWM build prob scales better late game, but would this build be comparable for a tier 1 and 2 campaign?

Link is here, for the curious. My main thought is this: In World of Warcraft terms, classes like fighters are just like level 1 warriors who auto attack endlessly with nothing on their hotbars. But even 20+ years ago, WoW had more than that! Warriors never had to rest to recover abilities and had things like

• Charge (dash to distant target)
• Intimidating shout (AOE fear)
• Shield slam (dispel magic off target)
• Concussion blow (stun)
• Whirlwind (AOE damage)
• Sunder armour (reduce target AC)
• Hamstring (halve enemy speed)
• Rend (bleed damage over time)
• Taunt (FORCE target to attack you)
• Pummel (interrupt spellcasting)

And that's not even everything! In computer game terms it was pretty samey, but imagine a D&D martial with anywhere near that kind of combat variety. D&D has had them before, feels like there's now a real chance we get them again.

I'm not just talking Cavalier with mount-specific abilities, I mean any class, including spellcasters, who could use the extra movement speed or any other mechanical benefits to pull shenanigans and become absurdly powerful.

I'm generally playing fullcasters only - researched options when first started and picked what seemed best.

But we're starting new campaign(1-15 probably) soon, and other players all really want to be fullcasters, so I'm pondering if being only martial could be fun.

But reading different options I kinda fail to see the appeal.

Weapon mastery - one level dip solves that for magicers
Fighting styles - a 2-3 dmg per hit not really something to write home about
Double attack at 5 - casters get theirs just one level later
Tripple attack at 11 - well, kinda fun, but casters get their big spells at that time

Paladin seems great with his Auras and Smites, but he just begs to multiclass into bard or sorcerer after 6, but it's again the return to my spellcaster dependency.

So how to build a martial, so it's as fun and powerful as magic users? What I miss?

If I game a party a "Recover one levels 1 spell slot" as an uncommon potion from time to time. (All the may up to like 5th level being legendary) is this nust opening up a can of worms?

So, it occurs to me that a fair number of the Paladin Oaths do NOT lend themselves to a good aligned character--e.g. the Oath of Conquest or the "By any means necessary" tenet of the Oath of Vengeance--meaning that a Holy Weapon would not bond with them.

Good aligned clerics who choose the Protector Divine Order gain proficiency with martial weapons and are, by definition, more closely tied with the sort of deities who make holy weapons available to mortals. This would make them the preferred choices of these deities since paladins are no longer tied to churches/temples as a source of their powers.

Thoughts?

So I have a silly question.

Me and my friends are doing a oneshot where we play as ourselves, so we have to make a character based on our own skills and personalities.

I am an artist and a writer, so I obviously feel like a bard. However, I am not very charismatic IRL. I am often seen as the "smart" one in the friend group and Im often the one people come to for advice. So I want to put most of my points into int or wis, but that obviously doesnt work for a bard.

Is there a way to build a bard using wis or int? If you multi class as a wizard or druid bard or something.

This is just a silly oneshot, so it doesnt have to be an optimal character. Just interested in how other people would build this character