The Rogue had expertise in stealth, athletics, thieves tools, and perception. She was also very good at charisma stuff. I had a very hard time with regular DnD modules and the modules I made myself I had to change to give some challenge. The Rogue had a automatic 21 with charisma based skills and her four expertise skills had automatic 27. So any trap, lock, ambush, etc. had to have a Difficulty of over 25. All she had to roll was a 13 to get difficulty level 30 stuff done with her expertise skills. So she was a face, warrior, scout, and engineer. I feel that is pretty over powered.
You had a level 12-15 rogue, with +6 proficiency & a 20 in Charisma, Dexterity, Strength, & Wisdom? I believe there may be another issue other than Reliable Talent.
Not a lot better of a situation but a different possible reason for such crazy high checks. Ioun Stone of Mastery +1 Prof bonus Luck Stone +1 all ability checks 6 prof +10 reliable talent +1 luck stone + 4 charisma = 21 6 prof + 6 expertise + 10 reliable + 1 luck stone + 4 str/dex/wis=27
I mean, still crazy high stats but just a little lower thanks to an uncommon magic item. But just wanted to point that out as a possibility.
Expertise on Athletics to Prone enemies for Sneak-generating Advantage is a cool idea. I've played rogues though, and I can safely say that taking on even one balor 'all by myself' would be an absolutely horrifying proposition at 12th level, or even 20th. I'm not necessarily discounting your story, but I don't think Expertise with Athletics to knock a balor prone multiple times is quite as powerful a way to win that fight as one might think. Against regular mooks? Absolutely, that's a neat play and it should be rewarded. But Sneak Attack is nowhere near as 'massive damage' as people make it out to be, and the rogue doesn't get a giant mess of Extra Attacks to shove with. Unless this rogue was beyond overloaded with Vestige-level gear, I would feel pretty confident as a DM that I could flatten any single given 12th-level rogue with a balor.
For this to work well you need to combine it with a high strength, extra attack and a bonus action grapple from tavern brawler.
I've seen this work very well with shove - unarmed strike- grapple, action surge sneak attack, attack. Subsequent turns either pull out a Raiper and stab away with advantage or if he breaks the grapple you go unarmed strike, bonus action grapple, shove.
This does not work against enemoes that teleport, but against other enemies up to huge size it is pretty effective. You also wear them down on action economy since they need an entire action to break a grapple and you only need an attack or bonus action to land it.
The normal solution to that is to just not break the grapple. The balor is kinda underwhelming for its CR, but it still has a substantial pile of hit points, an auto-hit aura that's probably hitting multiple times per round (once because you're next to it, once because you have to touch it to trip or grapple), and a +14 to hit, sufficient to have a good chance even with disadvantage.
A player chooses to excel at one thing and the DM auto-scales the world to challenge him exclusively. That's TES: Oblivion on a tabletop.
It's the way every game everywhere works. DMs are predisposed to make games interesting, and automatic success is not interesting. It's also a side effect of 5e apparently not having a real numbers person to make sure that the design intent is actually followed.
Technically DMs aren’t suppose to be setting DCs higher than 30. Honestly they should rarely be set at 25 or higher. DCs are suppose to be set by the task difficulty not the player skill in the task.
The Rogue I was talking about had Reliable Talent so ever role was a 10, 20 Dex and expertise. They took expertise in Athletics for auto-prone sneak attack advantage, Stealth, Thieves Tools, and Perception. If they rolled a 1 on a D20 they added up their bonuses and it was 27. They were annihilating combat opponents with massive sneak attack damage. The Rogue took out 3 Balrogs all by themselves at 12 level. Yeah, I tried to step up my game as DM so that everyone was having fun but a lot of the modules that you can buy just could not challenge that Rogue. Even the player got bored and rolled a different character with a different class. We even talked about homebrewing a rule that nerfed reliable talent.
How did the Rogue overcome the fact that a... what the heck is a Balrog? Assuming you mean Balor, the Rogue would be too short to shove the Balor prone. Did someone use magic to make them bigger? Or do you mean a pit fiend, which is vulnerable to Shove from a Medium PC?
A "standard" Rogue at level 12 can't roll a 27 on Athletics on a 1. That absolutely requires a level 17 Rogue: Strength 20 (really?) + Expertise in Athletics with a base +6 so net +12 gets you 27 base on the roll. At level 12, the same "base" roll with Strength 20 (which is really high and implies the Rogue has no feats at all and dump-statted Wisdom, Charisma, and Intelligence) is 23, not 27. That means the fiend stays upright on a 15 or less, regardless of whether it's a Balrog against an enlarged PC or a Pit Fiend against a normal-sized one.
Neither a Balor nor a Pit Fiend should just be "hanging out" 5' from a Rogue. Both have a fly speed and are dangerous from farther away than that (a Pit Fiend at 150', a Balor at 30'). I call shenanigans.
This does not work against enemoes that teleport, but against other enemies up to huge size it is pretty effective. You also wear them down on action economy since they need an entire action to break a grapple and you only need an attack or bonus action to land it.
The normal solution to that is to just not break the grapple. The balor is kinda underwhelming for its CR, but it still has a substantial pile of hit points, an auto-hit aura that's probably hitting multiple times per round (once because you're next to it, once because you have to touch it to trip or grapple), and a +14 to hit, sufficient to have a good chance even with disadvantage.
Like many monsters, a Balor is more dangerous once you fix WOTC's inability to write rules:
The equivalent of +14 to hit (PB +6, stat mod +8) is a DC 22 save, so the save to avoid being moved by the whip should be 22, not 20. You can raise the Balor's Charisma if you want this DC to remain Charisma-based, not Strength-based - raising the Charisma won't modify the CR, but will also raise the DC on the Death Throes.
That means, in general, a failed save should deal an additional +2d6 damage from being pulled up and then falling.
WOTC has never clarified how rules based on "touch" work. If the forced pull pulls the target into the Balor (e.g. from 20 feet away, so there's 5' of movement available to try and fail to move the target into the Balor's space), presumably they touch the Balor and bounce off - which would inflict another 3d6 fire damage.
Assuming it whips first from 20-30' up, 80' of movement is often plenty to follow up with a longsword, which the Balor will have advantage with due to the target being Prone from falling.
The whip is simply incorrect for a Huge wielder's whip. Fixing it from 2d6 to 3d4 slightly raises its average damage.
You can replace the 50% summoning chance with a 100% chance of summoning 2 vrocks or 1 nalfeshnee without changing the CR. Reducing the Balor's variance will make it far more functional in a fight.
Likewise, you can give the 1 nalfeshnee a 100% chance of summoning 1 hezrou and the hezroue a 100% chance of summoning 2 dretches. Action economy is what a BBEG needs most, and this lets you give your Big Bad minions with a statistically nearly identical shape (technically it's a slight nerf in terms of the number of dretches, on average).
Like with most monsters, and relevant to this discussion, WOTC just forgot to give it any skill proficiencies while pretending they're not relevant to practical CR on the field. I like to assign Expertise in 1 skill appropriate to the relevant attribute for each Save a monster is proficient in. This won't impact the CR at all but make the monster far more functional. For a Balor, that's:
Strength: Athletics (+20)
Constitution: For this one I pick any 1 skill I think is appropriate to the monster based on its stats - in this case probably Investigation (+17), since Balors are military generals.
Rangers need a nerf to Favored Enemy. Being able to deal 6d6+mod is broken compared to rogues being able to sneak attack twice a round and it gets more broken at level 4 & 5.
Change the wording from "don't have to concentrate on hunter's mark" to "gain advantage on concentration checks when concentrating on hunter's mark."
Rangers need a nerf to Favored Enemy. Being able to deal 6d6+mod is broken compared to rogues being able to sneak attack twice a round and it gets more broken at level 4 & 5.
Change the wording from "don't have to concentrate on hunter's mark" to "gain advantage on concentration checks when concentrating on hunter's mark."
Except: 1) the rogue only gets 1 sneak attack a round under the 1dnd test. So even running a TWF rogue to at least get a second attack and hopefully it’s damage your way behind no matter what. Max damage all attacks hitting the L1/2 rogue gets 2 hits with a light weapon for 2d6 + 1d6 for the sneak attack + stat bonus damage. The L1/2 TWF ranger with hunter’s mark up gets 2 attacks each getting hunters mark damage for a total of 4d6 + stat bonus. At L3/4 the rogue adds a D6 to sneak attack and the the ranger adds a D8 for hunter’s prey so the rogue falls even further behind. At L5 the rogue adds a D6 to sneak attack for 5d6 + stat bonus while the ranger adds an extra attack for 6d6 +1d8 + stat bonus but the ranger basically stalls out there.
Rangers need a nerf to Favored Enemy. Being able to deal 6d6+mod is broken compared to rogues being able to sneak attack twice a round and it gets more broken at level 4 & 5.
Change the wording from "don't have to concentrate on hunter's mark" to "gain advantage on concentration checks when concentrating on hunter's mark."
Except: 1) the rogue only gets 1 sneak attack a round under the 1dnd test. So even running a TWF rogue to at least get a second attack and hopefully it’s damage your way behind no matter what. Max damage all attacks hitting the L1/2 rogue gets 2 hits with a light weapon for 2d6 + 1d6 for the sneak attack + stat bonus damage. The L1/2 TWF ranger with hunter’s mark up gets 2 attacks each getting hunters mark damage for a total of 4d6 + stat bonus. At L3/4 the rogue adds a D6 to sneak attack and the the ranger adds a D8 for hunter’s prey so the rogue falls even further behind. At L5 the rogue adds a D6 to sneak attack for 5d6 + stat bonus while the ranger adds an extra attack for 6d6 +1d8 + stat bonus but the ranger basically stalls out there.
So being able to deal 6d6+mod at level 1 is broken beyond measure.
All you need to do is take the background that gives you magic initiate (arcane) like Cultist or Sage for Hex. Lets say the ranger's dex mod is a 4 and dual wields two crossbows
Cast both Hex and Hunter's Mark on a creature which will give you 2d6 a swing. With dual wielding hand cross bows that is 3d6 per hit which 6d6+4 in a round. At level 2 you take fighting style two weapon fighting which now you can add you ability mod to your off-hand crossbow which is now 6d6+8. Hunter's Prey at level 3 will add an extra 1d8 to one attack so that is now 6d6+1d8+8. At level 4 you take the charger feat which ironically works with range weapons and all you need to do is move 10ft per attack which adds a d8. Now that is 6d6+3d8+8 in a round at level 4. With extra attack at level 5 that is now 9d6+4d8+12 a round.
You still still think a ranger can only stall out at 6d6+1d8+mod at level 5? There are loopholes in favored enemy that need to go as those are broken and they should be able to do that kind of damage as they are supposed to be a skill monkey class like rogue now. My suggested change to favored enemy would make it balanced and would get rid of the loophole. Also charge feat charge attack needs to only work on melee attacks.
Landing both Hex and Hunter’s Mark on a creature requires two rounds to pull off. Most combat encounters last 3.5 rounds. It literally takes more than half the combat to set up.
Landing both Hex and Hunter’s Mark on a creature requires two rounds to pull off. Most combat encounters last 3.5 rounds. It literally takes more than half the combat to set up.
Depends on what kind of combat it is and as most DM's try to draw out combat as much as possible as CR levels in 5e don't make sense and some boss creatures have a much shorter HP pools than what it is made for in most encounters. Still that loop hole is there and it needs to go.
Landing both Hex and Hunter’s Mark on a creature requires two rounds to pull off. Most combat encounters last 3.5 rounds. It literally takes more than half the combat to set up.
Depends on what kind of combat it is and as most DM's try to draw out combat as much as possible as CR levels in 5e don't make sense and some boss creatures have a much shorter HP pools than what it is made for in most encounters. Still that loop hole is there and it needs to go.
Landing both Hex and Hunter’s Mark on a creature requires two rounds to pull off. Most combat encounters last 3.5 rounds. It literally takes more than half the combat to set up.
Depends on what kind of combat it is and as most DM's try to draw out combat as much as possible as CR levels in 5e don't make sense and some boss creatures have a much shorter HP pools than what it is made for in most encounters. Still that loop hole is there and it needs to go.
I just don’t see it as that big a deal.
Absolutely agree. Realistically, I don't think anyone's going to take Magic Initiate or whatever just to be able to stack Hunter's Mark and Hex. It's really only useful against a single target with a ton of health, and it's just not very fun. There are way more exciting feat options for rangers. The game writ large has nothing to fear from it, individual DMs that think it could be a problem for them can just rule that Hex and Hunter's Mark can't stack.
Going back through the UA, two things occurred to me.
One can only use the Help action to assist with an Ability check using a skill you are proficient with. It would no longer be possible to help an ally use a tool you are proficient with. (I don’t think that should stay like that, one should be able to Help using tools too.)
I think the wording on the Magic Action follows under the assumption that "that casting" ends when the spell's duration begins. So you maintain concentration during "that casting" but once the spell's duration begins you only need to continue concentrating on the spell if it's duration is concentration.
Certain spells (including spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so. If your concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don't expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over.
The difference is concentration when casting a spell through the Magic Action concentration is only required for casting times of 1 minute or longer, where in 5e any spell with a casting time longer than an action (or reaction) requires concentration while casting.
This leaves room open for spells with casting times of 2 actions, or multiple rounds, etc to not automatically require your concentration.
Also it seems weird to me that 5e's rule here even mentions reactions. I've always considered them 'faster' than actions but I guess they don't even have a speed technically.
(Something about that doesn’t sit quite right with me, back-dooring concentration onto spells like that.)
Um, you always needed to use your concentration to cast spells with a casting time of 1 minute or longer.
The 2014 PHB says this:
Longer Casting Times
Certain spells (including spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so. If your concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don’t expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over.
Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time. Hunh.
The difference is concentration when casting a spell through the Magic Action concentration is only required for casting times of 1 minute or longer, where in 5e any spell with a casting time longer than an action (or reaction) requires concentration while casting.
That's mostly a distinction without a difference, as I don't believe any spells with a casting time between one action and one minute exist in 5e.
The difference is concentration when casting a spell through the Magic Action concentration is only required for casting times of 1 minute or longer, where in 5e any spell with a casting time longer than an action (or reaction) requires concentration while casting.
That's mostly a distinction without a difference, as I don't believe any spells with a casting time between one action and one minute exist in 5e.
Right. If you only consider 5e spells as they are currently there's no point to this change.
But new spells could be introduced (either in the playtest, or adventures, supplements, etc) or old spells tweaked in OneD&D to take advantage of this change.
In 5e, casting a 2 round spell would take the caster's action both turns and also require their concentration, meaning any spell they were currently concentrating on would be lost. Taking both your action AND concentration means you're likely not doing anything but casting this spell. This is a design space that discourages such spells from being cast in combat so there's very little point in designing any spell with casting time between 1 action and 1 minute.
In the UA, casting a 2 round spell would take the caster's action both turns but not immediately end any spells that require concentration. So you could have a concentration spell like flaming sphere up and still directly contribute to the combat while casting this 2 round spell. This is what I mean by this change leaving things open.
Further, it could be used to simplify one of the mechanics of the Slow spell. Instead of getting super specific about the steps needed to stretch a 1 action spell into two turns (without invoking mechanics that break concentration) it could just say that a 1 action or longer spell has it's casting time doubled.
Not a lot better of a situation but a different possible reason for such crazy high checks.
Ioun Stone of Mastery +1 Prof bonus
Luck Stone +1 all ability checks
6 prof +10 reliable talent +1 luck stone + 4 charisma = 21
6 prof + 6 expertise + 10 reliable + 1 luck stone + 4 str/dex/wis=27
I mean, still crazy high stats but just a little lower thanks to an uncommon magic item. But just wanted to point that out as a possibility.
For this to work well you need to combine it with a high strength, extra attack and a bonus action grapple from tavern brawler.
I've seen this work very well with shove - unarmed strike- grapple, action surge sneak attack, attack. Subsequent turns either pull out a Raiper and stab away with advantage or if he breaks the grapple you go unarmed strike, bonus action grapple, shove.
The normal solution to that is to just not break the grapple. The balor is kinda underwhelming for its CR, but it still has a substantial pile of hit points, an auto-hit aura that's probably hitting multiple times per round (once because you're next to it, once because you have to touch it to trip or grapple), and a +14 to hit, sufficient to have a good chance even with disadvantage.
How did the Rogue overcome the fact that a... what the heck is a Balrog? Assuming you mean Balor, the Rogue would be too short to shove the Balor prone. Did someone use magic to make them bigger? Or do you mean a pit fiend, which is vulnerable to Shove from a Medium PC?
A "standard" Rogue at level 12 can't roll a 27 on Athletics on a 1. That absolutely requires a level 17 Rogue: Strength 20 (really?) + Expertise in Athletics with a base +6 so net +12 gets you 27 base on the roll. At level 12, the same "base" roll with Strength 20 (which is really high and implies the Rogue has no feats at all and dump-statted Wisdom, Charisma, and Intelligence) is 23, not 27. That means the fiend stays upright on a 15 or less, regardless of whether it's a Balrog against an enlarged PC or a Pit Fiend against a normal-sized one.
Neither a Balor nor a Pit Fiend should just be "hanging out" 5' from a Rogue. Both have a fly speed and are dangerous from farther away than that (a Pit Fiend at 150', a Balor at 30'). I call shenanigans.
Like many monsters, a Balor is more dangerous once you fix WOTC's inability to write rules:
Rangers need a nerf to Favored Enemy. Being able to deal 6d6+mod is broken compared to rogues being able to sneak attack twice a round and it gets more broken at level 4 & 5.
Change the wording from "don't have to concentrate on hunter's mark" to "gain advantage on concentration checks when concentrating on hunter's mark."
Except:
1) the rogue only gets 1 sneak attack a round under the 1dnd test. So even running a TWF rogue to at least get a second attack and hopefully it’s damage your way behind no matter what. Max damage all attacks hitting the L1/2 rogue gets 2 hits with a light weapon for 2d6 + 1d6 for the sneak attack + stat bonus damage. The L1/2 TWF ranger with hunter’s mark up gets 2 attacks each getting hunters mark damage for a total of 4d6 + stat bonus. At L3/4 the rogue adds a D6 to sneak attack and the the ranger adds a D8 for hunter’s prey so the rogue falls even further behind. At L5 the rogue adds a D6 to sneak attack for 5d6 + stat bonus while the ranger adds an extra attack for 6d6 +1d8 + stat bonus but the ranger basically stalls out there.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
So being able to deal 6d6+mod at level 1 is broken beyond measure.
All you need to do is take the background that gives you magic initiate (arcane) like Cultist or Sage for Hex. Lets say the ranger's dex mod is a 4 and dual wields two crossbows
Cast both Hex and Hunter's Mark on a creature which will give you 2d6 a swing. With dual wielding hand cross bows that is 3d6 per hit which 6d6+4 in a round. At level 2 you take fighting style two weapon fighting which now you can add you ability mod to your off-hand crossbow which is now 6d6+8. Hunter's Prey at level 3 will add an extra 1d8 to one attack so that is now 6d6+1d8+8. At level 4 you take the charger feat which ironically works with range weapons and all you need to do is move 10ft per attack which adds a d8. Now that is 6d6+3d8+8 in a round at level 4. With extra attack at level 5 that is now 9d6+4d8+12 a round.
You still still think a ranger can only stall out at 6d6+1d8+mod at level 5? There are loopholes in favored enemy that need to go as those are broken and they should be able to do that kind of damage as they are supposed to be a skill monkey class like rogue now. My suggested change to favored enemy would make it balanced and would get rid of the loophole. Also charge feat charge attack needs to only work on melee attacks.
Landing both Hex and Hunter’s Mark on a creature requires two rounds to pull off. Most combat encounters last 3.5 rounds. It literally takes more than half the combat to set up.
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Depends on what kind of combat it is and as most DM's try to draw out combat as much as possible as CR levels in 5e don't make sense and some boss creatures have a much shorter HP pools than what it is made for in most encounters. Still that loop hole is there and it needs to go.
I just don’t see it as that big a deal.
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Absolutely agree. Realistically, I don't think anyone's going to take Magic Initiate or whatever just to be able to stack Hunter's Mark and Hex. It's really only useful against a single target with a ton of health, and it's just not very fun. There are way more exciting feat options for rangers. The game writ large has nothing to fear from it, individual DMs that think it could be a problem for them can just rule that Hex and Hunter's Mark can't stack.
You don't like that you can use Charger to run backwards, fire a bow, and knock the enemy 10 feet to the side? That's the best part of it! XD
I think it is great for a skirmishing Ranger or Rogue concept.
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I was making a joke about the funny loopholes in the rule language. But that's actually a really cool concept. I love that image.
I do still think it should specify you have to push the target away from you at least though.
Going back through the UA, two things occurred to me.
(I don’t think that should stay like that, one should be able to Help using tools too.)
(Something about that doesn’t sit quite right with me, back-dooring concentration onto spells like that.)
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I think the wording on the Magic Action follows under the assumption that "that casting" ends when the spell's duration begins. So you maintain concentration during "that casting" but once the spell's duration begins you only need to continue concentrating on the spell if it's duration is concentration.
This works the same as casting a spell in 5e.
The difference is concentration when casting a spell through the Magic Action concentration is only required for casting times of 1 minute or longer, where in 5e any spell with a casting time longer than an action (or reaction) requires concentration while casting.
This leaves room open for spells with casting times of 2 actions, or multiple rounds, etc to not automatically require your concentration.
Also it seems weird to me that 5e's rule here even mentions reactions. I've always considered them 'faster' than actions but I guess they don't even have a speed technically.
Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time. Hunh.
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That's mostly a distinction without a difference, as I don't believe any spells with a casting time between one action and one minute exist in 5e.
Right. If you only consider 5e spells as they are currently there's no point to this change.
But new spells could be introduced (either in the playtest, or adventures, supplements, etc) or old spells tweaked in OneD&D to take advantage of this change.
In 5e, casting a 2 round spell would take the caster's action both turns and also require their concentration, meaning any spell they were currently concentrating on would be lost. Taking both your action AND concentration means you're likely not doing anything but casting this spell. This is a design space that discourages such spells from being cast in combat so there's very little point in designing any spell with casting time between 1 action and 1 minute.
In the UA, casting a 2 round spell would take the caster's action both turns but not immediately end any spells that require concentration. So you could have a concentration spell like flaming sphere up and still directly contribute to the combat while casting this 2 round spell. This is what I mean by this change leaving things open.
Further, it could be used to simplify one of the mechanics of the Slow spell. Instead of getting super specific about the steps needed to stretch a 1 action spell into two turns (without invoking mechanics that break concentration) it could just say that a 1 action or longer spell has it's casting time doubled.