So here, I am basically looking at variations people have actually used/seen used on a theme: Throwing AOE attacks in a melee that your allies are effectively immune to, with 5th edition D&D rules. Homebrews allowed.
The classic example is, of course, sleep spells in a melee where all your allies are elves.
In modern homebrews, I have used insecticide canisters and tear gas in melees where the party was wearing gas masks, it's surprisingly effective until the bad guys get the memo and start bringing gas masks into the fray too.
We have had to deal with werewolves dropping frag grenades into a melee, since they were immune to slashing damage (the type fragmentation caused) unless it was magical or silver (frag grenades tend to be neither), so bad guys can play that game too I guess. We also had to deal with bearded devils using white phosphorous grenades in a similar manner, since bearded devils are immune to fire...
And in a Fallout homebrew conversion to D&D 5th Editions (I dare you to find one popular RPG system that people haven't tried porting Fallout to, it was only a matter of time before a 5th edition D&D fallout homebrew was attempte.), there is always a pack of Feral Ghouls lead by a Glowing One. We were in urgent need of RadAway after that fight, and that radiation thrown around by the Glowing One gave the ghouls regeneration was just the cherry on top...
Alright, have you ever seen interesting variations on the tried and true tactic of throwing AOE attacks your allies are immune to in melees?
Grappler builds care a lot about getting Expertise in Athletics, which has always made Bards a surprisingly good foundation to build a grappler around. Rogue is an option as well... who happens to get Evasion at a decently-low level.
One possible solution to grapplers being overly-single-target focused involves building your grappler to cast AOE spells while running around the battlefield holding people in place, including possibly casting Fireball directly on yourself. There's lots of little finicky details to sort out to make the build effective, but at the core, the idea of someone who blows themself up or jumps into explosions while wrestling is a fun one.
Hello everyone!
So here, I am basically looking at variations people have actually used/seen used on a theme: Throwing AOE attacks in a melee that your allies are effectively immune to, with 5th edition D&D rules. Homebrews allowed.
The classic example is, of course, sleep spells in a melee where all your allies are elves.
In modern homebrews, I have used insecticide canisters and tear gas in melees where the party was wearing gas masks, it's surprisingly effective until the bad guys get the memo and start bringing gas masks into the fray too.
We have had to deal with werewolves dropping frag grenades into a melee, since they were immune to slashing damage (the type fragmentation caused) unless it was magical or silver (frag grenades tend to be neither), so bad guys can play that game too I guess. We also had to deal with bearded devils using white phosphorous grenades in a similar manner, since bearded devils are immune to fire...
And in a Fallout homebrew conversion to D&D 5th Editions (I dare you to find one popular RPG system that people haven't tried porting Fallout to, it was only a matter of time before a 5th edition D&D fallout homebrew was attempte.), there is always a pack of Feral Ghouls lead by a Glowing One. We were in urgent need of RadAway after that fight, and that radiation thrown around by the Glowing One gave the ghouls regeneration was just the cherry on top...
Alright, have you ever seen interesting variations on the tried and true tactic of throwing AOE attacks your allies are immune to in melees?
Grappler builds care a lot about getting Expertise in Athletics, which has always made Bards a surprisingly good foundation to build a grappler around. Rogue is an option as well... who happens to get Evasion at a decently-low level.
One possible solution to grapplers being overly-single-target focused involves building your grappler to cast AOE spells while running around the battlefield holding people in place, including possibly casting Fireball directly on yourself. There's lots of little finicky details to sort out to make the build effective, but at the core, the idea of someone who blows themself up or jumps into explosions while wrestling is a fun one.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.