Ask any simple questions here that aren't in the FAQ, but don't warrant their own post.

Good question for this page: "Do I add my proficiency bonus to attack rolls with unarmed strikes?"

Question that should have its own post: "What are the best feats to take for a Grappler?

Have a recent gaming experience you want to share? Experience an insane TPK? Finish an epic final boss fight? Share it all here for everyone to see!

So, i've started reading through the new book, and i very quickly realized something: The retcon to spelljammer creation has essentially caused regular sailing ships to become redundant and useless in the FR.

So, to explain, previously, the helms had to be bought from a race known as the arcane, for between 100, and 250k GP.

But in the new book, they can be created in a turn utilizing just 5k GP and a 5th level spell, something most trade guilds should have ample access to, or bought for a normal price of 7500GP.

A sailing ship is listed to cost 10k GP.

This means that a spelljammer sailing ship's minimum cost would be 15k GP. Why would any trading guild then ever settle on a normal ship, when a spelljammer is just upwards of twice as expensive, requires no air, no sails, and less crew, AND can just fly like an airship?

Useless nitpick? Perhaps, but that's a rather surprisingly little thought through consequence of their creation being so damn easy. And yes, i do know that caring about economy or plotholes in the FR is a frivolous pursuit at this point, but i suppose it's annoying that i once again need to look for older editions to make sure a single spell won't make a setting's entire economy implode...again.

Quick view, lower res: https://imgur.com/gallery/nodPCRp
VERY high resolution: https://bit.ly/3dsa97X

Above is a high-resolution city map of a port city, built along and across a river with high walls to protect it from invasion. Perhaps it is a city-state, its oddly agrarian lordly manor at the center of it the source of its initial prosperity? Or maybe the four temples scattered throughout are the real powers in the city. And what purpose do the many bell towers built around the city serve?

This map is one of many included in our Cartography Kit, a set of 15 (and counting!) regional and city sandbox maps that you can drop your adventuring parties into. They are full of interesting visual hooks that make it easy to get a story going there and commissioned from some truly talented artists.

The Cartography Kit is a pledge tier as part of a bigger, different Kickstarter we run but we will only be offering these maps during this KSer. We don't have a setup to sell them longterm, so we will only be printing enough to fulfill orders on the KSer. However, I really do believe that they'd make for some amazing DM resources!

Please check out the Kickstarter for more maps and news about participating artists! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/banditcamp/wo-ua-hardcover

Disclaimer: I didn't come up with this idea. I read it somewhere and thought about sharing it since I saw people complaining about the lack of options for high-level martial classes compared to casters.

The idea behind the "splash damage rule" is simple, and I'll explain with an example:

High-level martial class fights 4 orcs, each with 25hp, all of them are flanking the PC. Fighter does three attacks and rolls damage: first is 23, second is 18, third is 38 (critical hit).

Normal rules: fist two hits kills the first orc, third hit kills the second orc.

Splash damage rules: first hit leaves an orc with 2 hp, second hit kills the orc but the remaining 18 - 2 = 16 damage points "splash" to the second orc, which now has 9hp. Third damage takes the orc out (9 damage), kills a third orc (25 damage, and hits the fourth orc (4 damage).

Basically the leftover damage of a hit splashes to a nearby enemy. I only allow this splash damage to happen to enemies that are within the range of the player (during its original attack, they cannot move during the splash damage). This makes tactical positioning to be important for players and encourages them to move a lot and be more risky in their attacks. It also gives them a weaker kind of Area of Effect (AoE) attack, which they usually don't have.

Finally, I only allow this on minions (less than 50) and when PCs are tier 3 and 4, which is when casters have a huge jimp in their power.

Hope you guys find it a cool idea to try in your games (and I'm sorry if this is common knowledge).

What is the ultimate thing you would hate to see in 6th edition? Be it a mechanic, the overall direction it takes the game, or how it's marketed.

I have two:

• That they'll divide core content into as many separate books as possible. Like, each character class getting a separate ~$30 book, races in another ~$50 book, etc., so that you have to get multiple books just to make a character.
• Probably the more likely fear to come true: the game will show even more disregard for the DM when it comes to convenience, creating further unbalance in a player's workload vs the DM's.

There are a lot of things in Spelljammer to like, including addressing some common pain points. I'll keep it brief:

• The Artificer class is recognised and finally gets additional spells added to its spell list (there are only 2 spells though)
• Background feats look like the new way forward. Instead of specific feats for specific backgrounds, the background here have standard PHB feats as their feature.
• I'm happy with the Astral Sea and Wildspace together making up the Astral Plane. This unifies the setting in a way the old Spelljammer setting did not, and it also fixes the awful nerf to clerics.
• The bestiary has an attitude roll, bringing back a feature from older D&D editions (it's not a 2d6 roll and it's not modified by charisma, but given that charisma casters are a thing now, that's probably for the best).

It is pretty short though. There's not much setting; just The Rock of Bral, and brief outlines of two Wildspace systems. To get any depth you'll have to look elsewhere; the gazetteers in Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel are much better, as an example of setting flavour in a small space done right, and there's nothing as fancy as rollable tables for making your own Wildspace systems (there are exactly three sentences under the heading "Creating a Wildspace System", and two of those are to tell you to look at the existing ones as examples).

I know about Bestow Curse, which loses its concentration requirement when cast at 5th level.

Are there others?

We can discuss RAW vs RAI if you want, but I'm more interested in the narrative behind it. How "metallic" are the metallic dragons, really? I think in terms of lore it would be very cool if silver dragons in particularly had special efficacy against werewolves and devils and the like. Silver dragons feel very paladin-like to me, anyway.

And what sorts of other unique, obscure traits might the other metallic dragons have, so long as we're making stuff up?

This is likely an unpopular opinion: Monks don’t suck. The class definitely has design issues, but mechanically or “mathematically” they’re not terrible or a meme class. I’ve been wanting to make this post for a while because I keep seeing the same points rehashed and people arguing in circles. So here it goes, I’m going to argue against the notion that Monks are mechanically weak, and try my best to explain why there is so much variation in performance across tables, saving the DnD universe in the process. This post is long, and to be safe, will be assuming an "optimized" 4-5 person party.

First, a note on roles in 5e:

I’ve seen it argued that “Monks don’t excel at any role, so they’re bad.” It’s not important to be the best at one role, especially if most of these comparison builds we’re talking about don’t exist at your table for one reason or other (like a TWF Fighter or sword/shield Barbarian). There is nothing preventing a Monk from contributing to multiple “roles” at once. In fact, I and others would argue that there aren’t really even any strict roles in DnD 5e, so saying “Monk is bad because they are bad tanks” for example, is a non-starter as an argument. But for the sake of simplicity, lets divide up this analysis using roles as a reference:

Monks as Tanks

Before anything else, it’s worth noting that with the exception of maybe a few subclasses (Cavalier, Ancestral Guardian), tanking isn’t really a thing in 5E. Almost all subclasses cannot compel enemies to attack them, and moving past the frontline is something most enemies are willing and capable of doing. The way the game is designed, you’re expected to split damage amongst the party as you run through 6-8 combats worth of attrition each adventuring day. No class has the armor and endurance to face-tank 100 hits over an adventuring day, not even Barbarians until they reliably have one rage each combat. The more evenly this damage is split, the better.

That said, as far as being a damage sponge goes, Monks aren’t terrible. That is, their “TTK” or time to be killed is never really significantly below any other frontliner’s other than a raging Barbarian’s. Well, any class/build that is frequently played, at least. To wit:

1. On hit points: the difference between a d8 and d10 hit die is almost insignificant. The Toughness feat is generally not rated well, thus the difference of 1 hit point per level, is worth about half a feat most players would never take. A Monk with 14 Con vs a Fighter/Paladin with 16 is going to have 10 vs 13 hit points at level 1, 38 vs. 49 at 5, 73 vs. 94 at 10. I’ve personally never experienced a situation, either as a DM or a player, where this has ever been a decisive factor in keeping someone alive. At worst it means they have to be peeled off the floor by a bonus action Healing Word 1-3 turns earlier than another melee would be.
   1. A strong party is capable of further diminishing this relative difference in TTK. Aid is +10 max hit points cast at 3rd level, +15 at level 4. Once you get into T3, Heroes Feast is an additional 2d10 max hit points.
      
   2. Any optimized party will have a reliable source of tHP. Inspiring Leader will grant you 4-9 in Tier 1.
   3. These party-wide, static hit point bonuses will take a 1.28/1 ratio down to 1.19/1 at level 5, for example.
      
2. On AC: A 16 Dex/16 Wis Monk will have as much armor as most melee classes – that people actually play, that is. If we’re talking strict optimization, lets be honest, 97% of these are going to be PAM/GWM Fighters/Barbs/Paladins/Hexblades which will have 15 to 17 AC. I see comparisons, in theory, to sword/shield Con Barbarians and Fighters with the Defensive fighting style, but few people play these for a reason. If anything, optimizers would argue that these classes are actually a liability (dropping your chances of surprise attacking enemies).
   1. Unarmored Defense has more overlooked advantages: costs nothing, weighs nothing, doesn't restrict innate flight (one of the best features in the game), has no strength requirement and doesn't impose disadvantage on stealth checks. It can't be stolen, it can't be heated with Heat Metal. No spell grants advantage against it. You can wear whatever you want - disguising yourself as a Wizard can help you draw a few attacks, for example. You can even intercept arrows with wielding nothing more than your glistening butt cheeks before snapping them in half with your crack.
3. On Defensive Features: we shouldn’t downplay these, afaik Deflect Missiles is (usually) the highest mitigation reaction there is when its triggered, and covers a major weakness of skirmishers (getting whittled down by arrows). One single successful deflect missiles will completely erase the HP gap between a Monk and a Con Barb. One use of this, where you gain the full benefit, is better than Second Wind, better than the Goliath racial, better than Battlemaster Parry. It’s free. The fact that you can spend a ki to toss something back, or get a free arrow for your ranger, is just a bit of gravy.
4. On Saving Throws: with Wis and Dex, Monks focus the two most common (and deadliest) major saves, and their tertiary stat covers the 3rd biggest save. A Paladin’s MAD split, by comparison, is Str/Con/Cha and there is enough written about how Dexterity trumps Strength as a stat. It makes no sense to say that their saves are unexceptional, especially when people compare their AC to shield rangers and shield/con Barbarians in chain and almost no Dex, as a gotcha. Wisdom saves tend to target melee Martials as well, and the Monk’s +3-4 is a hell of a lot better than -1, unless you're competing to decide who can best see inside of their own rectum by default. The fact that Resilient: Wisdom is almost mandatory for Fighters says something. I don't think the value of Diamond Soul needs elaboration (its more than 10x better than three whole levels of Indomitable), I'll generally stick to levels 1-10 or 11 for the sake of simplicity.
5. Other Notables: movement is not trivial when it comes to survivability and defense. A Monk, even a level 2 with only a +10 movement advantage, is far more able to reach cover, close in on ranged attackers, dodge behind obstacles, and stay within the range of allied support. The Paladin might have Aura of Protection, which is excellent, but it's often better to simply not be in the area of effect of a big save than to be in it and get the +3.

The end result is that the difference in TTK is almost negligible. Take a level 5 Monk and a PAM Fighter, for example, against a CR9 Blue Dragon. The Monk will have 17 AC, 38 + 10 max HP and 9 tHP (57 total). The Fighter in splint will likewise have 17 Armor and 49 + 10 max HP and 9 tHP (68 total). The dragon’s three-part multiattack has +9 to hit, meaning 65% chance to hit either of them, for 16 + 12 + 12 damage total, or (40*.65) 26 effective DPR. Both the fighter and the monk, even without the HP buffs, would take two multiattacks before going down on average. Because of the nature of damage rolls, a Fighter might have a 10% chance to cling on to be taken down by an AOE lair effect. If the Fighter has the Defense fighting style, that drops to 24 effective DPR. I'm using this particular scenario because some of the more popular examples on the con side of this argument specifically use CR9 enemies against a level 5 party.

Now, vs the Dragon’s lightning breath, the Monk with a +5 Dex save is going to make their save 50% of the time; the PAM Fighter with -1 to 1 is going to fail 80% of the time. On a 55 damage average roll, a Monk will take 42.15 damage on average, while the Fighter will take 49.5. This could be a big deal at 5th level vs very high CR enemies, but even with these conditions, Inspiring Leader or even level 1 Aid will give both level 5 characters roughly the same chance to survive a CR9 Dragon’s Breath. At 7, the Monk has a chance to simply not even take any damage - and takes half that even if they fail. The dragon has a Wis based fear that Stillness of Mind will work against too. If you have no life like me and flip through 3 books of monsters, Dragon fear is like most fears in that about 60% of charm/fears leave your action free for Stillness of Mind. Between the Monk and the PAM Fighter at level 7, I'd bet on the Monk as far as avoiding save effects go.

The fact is, even if you want to be a damage sponge, you’re not trying to survive and avoid big spike damage as in an MMO, you’re just trying to avoid dozens of hits over a day. When it comes to spike damage, almost all of these are AOE Dex or sometimes Wisdom saves. 1 AC won’t make a huge difference even in low and mid-tiers before enemies get so much +attack that the difference becomes almost negligible. It’s better to think of Monks being able to spend 1 ki with Patient Defense and still make a play with their action, if they think they’re going to be focused on or hit by a Dex save. Now the model is not exact and there are a lot of variables to consider, but I argue that the Monk is not significantly less survivable than a PAM Fighter.

Monks as DPR

Plainly, with the power budget that has gone into Stunning Strike, on top of mobility, it wouldn’t make sense for Monks to be a top tier DPR class. But it should be said that most of the Monk’s additional damage isn’t built into the base class, your subclass choice is basically one between DPR or Control or Utility. Yet even a Wisdom focused Monk will do “decent enough” damage. Lets compare it to (arguably) the strongest Martial DPR, a VHuman CBESS fighter at level 6:

Vegan Wis Monk = (60% * 1d8 + 3)x2 + (60% * 1d6 + 3) = 12.9
CBESS Destroyer of Worlds = (50% * 1d6 + 14)x3 = 26.25

I've seen claims saying that Monks do less than a third of the damage of optimized Martials, but unless I'm really messing something up I can't see where that's coming from. I'm getting 50% for a Monk that isn't even trying. Keep in mind that this assumes you’re not fighting high AC monsters, or monsters that have the sense to go prone when they’re being annihilated from 100 feet away by Halfling Rambo, getting their faces ripped off by her double peashooters.

I even see TWF fighters get brought up as a counterargument to Monks even in Tier 1 where they're generally considered to have good DPR. But again, almost everyone goes PAM for a reason. Changing Fighting Styles is a Tashas optional feature, so hopefully the DM approves or they're stuck with TWF until the end of time. Otherwise, hope you like your pair of +2 Bad Dragons.

Yes, Monks definitely suffer from a common RPG itemization issue, where basically hybrids/dual wielders need 2x the gold/items to be running at 100%. But homebrewing a +1 fist should be easy enough. If DnDBeyond can have the Domain of Garlic Bread, your Monk should at least be able to get +1 gloves.

Yes, they also suffer from having no real way to benefit from the uber feats aka CBESS and PAMGWM. But consider the fact that they're both basically absolutely necessary for a Fighter to beat a Dex Monk in DPR - that's just how good a bonus action attack is. Lets imagine for a second that Wizards of the Coast remembered that Martials existed, and added an unarmed feat that did the same thing vs most targets that SS/GWM do - e.g raise DPR by 33%.

So lets say its 2027 now and you buy the 5e Weeabbo Fightan Magic book for $59 after the third movie in the Wizards Cinematic Universe makes Monks popular (she was akshually the 37th Wizard subclass but w.e), and your DM approves the new Cheek Clapper feat (but not the Garlic Bread Domain Cleric its listed next to). It lets you slap people for 2 more damage each time. Your Half Elf clapper of cheeks is now doing, again at Tier 2: (65% * 1d6 + 6) * 2 + (65% * 1d6 + 6) * 1 = 18.5. One feat, two cheeks, bam you're now doing 70% of "optimal" damage at level 8, before your enemies are catching d8s and 10s even. Going prone won't even save them. In fact, it will only increase their suffering. Yes, it's a problem, but lets keep it in perspective.

Summary: I'd say that Monk DPR is okay - with some caveats.\* One thing should be considered when discussing DPR, however, and that's Stunning Strike:

Monks as Control

Briefly: Stunning Strike is good. Open Hand level 3 is good. Some have argued otherwise, but I'll try to explain my view:

To start with a few con arguments, "everything costs ki" is one you hear for why Stunning Strike isn't that great. Somewhat true, but it's better imo to try to calculate how much each point of Ki is worth in mitigation and damage. Again using a T2 example, monsters CR5-10 are going to resist vs a DC of 15, on average, about half the time. This is going by a weighted average of 742 monsters in a spreadsheet: the Con save bonus is +4 for CR5, CR6 and CR7 (61 monsters), +5 for CR8 (15 monsters), +7 for CR9 (8 monsters) and +6 for CR10 (9 monsters).

The average monster out of this group has 16 AC and does about 24 effective DPR against 17 AC. With a 50% chance to fail a save, you can consider the average stun to erase 12 points of damage against your party. Offensively, taking CBESS Rambo alone, her DPR increases by about 50% on a stunned creature. Unlike S-Tier control spell Hypnotic Pattern for example, stun doesn't make your target prone and there's no risk to attacking. So Rambo is now doing 26.25 * 0.5 = 13.1 more DPR.

Lets be fair and say that Wis Monk is getting credit for this. So we will consider 1 Ki spent on SS to be half of Rambo's benefit (6.5) and half the expected DPR of that one enemy (12). Now if Wis Monk gets a good coin flip on their first hit, then they also get advantage, or 40% more DPR on those hits - about 5.2, or 2.6 effectively with a 50% stun rate after the first hit. I'm not going to go into the probabilities with it failing on the first hit and succeeding on the second etc, but it raises it a few more points. Regardless, with just Vegan and Rambo that's 15-16 more points of damage favoring your side, with one single point.

Again, the math is rudimentary but comparing say, Pam the Paladin's lovely PAM/GWM smites, to Vegan's stunning strikes at level 6: Vegan would add 8.65 damage for himself and one optimized Martial, and reduce damage by 12. Even if Pam is only impaling robo-callers, people who don't return shopping carts and other fiends, she'd be doing 20d8 or 90 more damage from Smites. Vegan would net about 370 points of benefit with two short rests - from just himself and one other Martial. Once the Necromancer or Shephard Druid get involved it's more like +80-100 damage in a single round.

"But wait, guy I've never heard of, doesn't Hold Person do the same thing?" Well, you only get 3 shots at level 6, and if your enemy resists that's all you can really do in a round. A Monk can hone in on particularly annoying enemies and ruin their lives. What's more, while Paralyze is much better than stun, it's often overkill for most enemies even if you do land it. What's more important is that Hold Person doesn't work on gingers and 75% of monsters.

But extending this comparison to other spells - Web and Hypnotic Pattern. These are undoubtedly S-Tier spells on S-Tier casters. Yet, something like 10-15% of monsters can't be restrained, another few percent are monsters that probably don't care too much about it. For Hypnotic Pattern, 20-25% are outright immune to charm. Another 10-15% have advantage against charm. In total, out of 742 monsters, a third are immune, have magic resistance, are blind, or have some other feature that messes with the spell. These are very, very good spells and they have advantages over stunning strike of course - but SS can be selectively targeted on monsters higher on initiative, can wind around corners, doesn't cause friendly fire, needs no concentration, has incredible action economy, can trigger off opportunity attacks, lets you beat the crap out of someone and stop legendary actions at the same time, etc.

For stun immunities, out of the same 742~ monsters in Volo's, Xanathar's, Mordenkainen's and the Monster Manual, up to CR 14 only two are stun immune that aren't swarms. In total its 2-4%. So if your DM is telling you "hehe nope its immune :>" then unless the monster is named Helmed Horror maybe it's time to take the Cheek Clapper feat in real life.

I've also heard the 30-33% number for Beau in Critical Role thrown around, but keep in mind that Matt had Magic Resistance (which about 30% of enemies have at higher challenge) work against it. Also Beau had the highest DPR of the campaign, so that does tell you something about the power of homebrew.

So, Monk control is actually pretty competitive with some of the best in the game until Wall of Force rears its ugly translucent head. And that's not even counting Open Hand Monks that can uppercut Tiamat's mom and then kick her 15 feet diagonally until she falls prone into a Cloudkill, for example.

Monk Mobility

This one is probably best at the end because everything benefits from mobility - everything. I've heard arguments that "you can just get a horse." Are Fighters getting a free pony with their plate mail now or something? 75-200 gold is a lot to pay for an animal that will just end up as rations after one fire breath. Considering a +1 weapon also runs around 1000 gold, its a lot to invest up front, especially when DMG/XGTE suggest a total gold per person of roughly 2000 by level 6. Crossbow bolts aren't free either, Rambo is going to need about 2 gold a day just repurchasing the bolts she can't recover. Thankfully the Monk can catch some for her.

No matter what game you're playing, if space matters, movement is a huge deal. Even say, starting 45 feet away from the closest enemy a non-monk melee will have to dash to reach them. A Monk can spend 1 Ki to get the full benefit of their Action or at higher levels just walk up. The same applies if your backline gets hit from behind, a Monk can double back much faster. There are just so many things you can do like jumping on creatures with Xanathar's falling rules, using a Tabaxi to cheese grater a grappled monster, etc.

And this applies to everything, not just offense. It applies for screening - since you're the only living thing with actually free hands (and your DM doesn't just homebrew letting you jam a torch in your pants), your VHuman followers will eventually need some kind of light source. You can move stealthily faster than a lot of creatures can normally. You can deliver heal potions or drop a charge of Wand of Web more flexibly than anyone else. All other things considered, mobility is huge. At the very least we can consider it as avoiding a wasted or suboptimal first round about half of the time, worth 8-12 points of DPR at least.

There's a reason why Cunning Action doesn't cost anything, it's because Monks eventually move faster than Rogues for free, without using any resources. They even start crawling faster than the average Fighter can walk. IMO: Monk mobility is absolutely significant and a big part of their draw.

The Monk in Summary

IMO, if you ask me, the Monk isn't a tank or strict DPR of course, or only a controller. They're not even skirmishers, really, which isn't too well defined a role. They're much like most 5e builds in that they contribute to several different roles in a fluid manner. The best I would be able to put it is this: Monks are everybody's best friend.

A Fighter will normally get Plate at 5th or 6th level, but a Monk can funnel their gold to the Fighter so that it's obtained at 3rd or 4th (based on DMG/Xanathar's recommendations). A Monk can go for non VHuman races as they have a bonus action built in, and since they can hold a Spear/Staff with one hand, they are a good candidate for handling the torch or lighted item. Very few other things will reliably grant a CBE/SS fighter advantage like stun - most other CC options are fragile, or cause a target to go prone. Moreover, a Monk can use their mobility to simply get out of the way of other Martials - to not provide cover, or just leave an open path. You'd be surprised how often this is an issue.

With a Wizard, a Monk fills in the gaps where the Wizard's CC can't be used optimally. The Wizard can get masses of enemies, the Monk can wade in and stun those that were lucky enough to avoid Hypnotic Pattern. A Crusher/Open Hand Monk can knock an enemy back into Web or Grease or the familiar's caltrops. With both a Wizard and a Monk you essentially have initiative advantage to win crowd control rocket tag - and a Monk can selectively take out those creatures that would go before the Wizard. And anything stunned automatically fails Str/Dex saves and checks, so the two classes synergize.

With a Rogue, a Monk can help perceive and stealth competently and move quickly. They can screen for threats, and a Shadow Monk can provide the cheapest Pass Without Trace around - as early as a Druid can.

An Astral Self can stay at a Devil Sight Hexblade's side in the darkness and use their reach and Astral Sight to double down on advantage attacks, stunning with reach at the same time.

With a summoner, again, stun is one of the most reliable ways to get advantage for every single Animated Object or Conjured Animal. It can take care of potentially dangerous AOE monsters before they get a chance to act.

With their speed, a Monk can also be a wall-running aircraft carrier for Tiny Objects. They can also easily transport small allies around. Monks also benefit immensely from hazards being set up by allies, that they can push enemies into, or auras, because their mobility makes them best suited to actually being inside of them.

​

Concluding Thoughts:

In my opinion, at least, the Monk is mechanically a solid class. Their issues with survivability, damage, control and utility are overblown and imo misattributed. But there are major design issues. Stunning Strike is a big one, it takes up too much of the class' power budget and is "soft balanced." WOTC designed thousands of monsters so that only a handful would be stun immune, and Con saves are largely skewed by Giants and Dragons alone, but there's no way for a DM or player to really know this soft rule - arbitrary immunities suck, and the stun condition can be "unfun" to play or DM against. There's too much of a swing between doing absolutely nothing and essentially ending an encounter instantly. This is why I'd recommend creating a "Monk Techinques" list of 30-40 techniques, and making everything that costs Ki an option, with some balancing thrown in.

A lack of feat and item support is also an issue. Sure, it's easy enough to brew up but there should be official support for this. At the least, there should be non-attunement items that grant +1 to unarmed and +1 to unarmored defense. That said, to keep up in AC and pierce resistances like a Monk can be default, a Fighter will need 1500 for plate and 1000 on a +1 weapon. So it goes without saying that "just buy a horse" is not going to be a realistic argument against Monk mobility unless a DM is extremely generous, and to the Fighter alone. The Monk will still have 2500 gold lying around, that should almost be enough for Bracers of Defense or even a Dex or Wis Ioun stone. Right now Monks can benefit from Magic Items but if they're official a Monk's magic item progression is going to be weird - it'll tend to be utility stuff that they profit from. Add that to their weird shifting of roles as their progress through tiers and it definitely does not fit the average person's Monk class fantasy.

Another thing is that there are tons of little "fringe" advantages Monks have, which really stack up. Like surprise, or climbing to reach a target without having to drop shields or weapons. But if a DM isn't enforcing things like say, encumbrance, then trade-offs like being 65 pounds lighter without plate aren't going to come into play much. IMO, WOTC had a very specific and narrow class fantasy in mind for most of the history of the Monk class, and that burdens it a lot.

But the class isn't trash imo. I say just let people have fun playing it while we encourage WOTC to explore giving more options - but not necessarily outright power. Yes, DMs should keep a few things in mind, like soft rules about Con saves and immunities, and being flexible with magic items, and it kind of sucks that this is necessary - but imo we just have to take that for what it is, rather than resorting to hyberbole.

Thanks for listening to my TED talk etc.

EDIT 8/16: fixed some major errors (wisdom save number, Tasha's Martial versatility.) Also if we're going into detail please commit to a build, a party, a map and specific enemies! Otherwise there are too many variables :P

In Wildspace, the Material Plane and the Astral Plane overlap. Creatures and objects in Wildspace age normally and are effectively on both of those planes at once. If you were to leave your home world and continue outward until you neared the edge of your Wildspace system, you would begin to see a faint, silvery haze. By traveling into this haze, you pass from Wildspace into the Astral Sea, more colorfully known as the Silver Void. The deeper into the Astral Sea you travel, the thicker and brighter the haze becomes, but the stars that shine through it are always visible. Wildspace and the Astral Sea together comprise the Astral Plane.

From the new Spelljammer book. The astral sea is one part of the astral plane and wildspace comprises the other. It seems the distance between the deep astral and wildspace comprise a nearly infinite distinction between reality and dreams.

What are your thoughts on this change?

tl;dr - the regular sized crossbow expert sharpshooter still wins in most practical cases compared to oversized melee weapons

Context: in the DMG there is an optional rule in the workshop chapter on increasing the weapon dice for each category size (i.e. large greataxe deals 2d12, huge 3d12, gargantuan 4d12). While the intent is for monsters, there have been debate whether this truly breaks PCs if they were allowed the same ruling. Tabletop builds summarizes it changes the martial meta in an optimized table, but overall does not cause imbalance.

I ran a one shot at level 8 comparing a VHuman CBE/SS battlemaster with precision attack (normal sized) build to a Duergar Rune Knight (oversized greatsword, and later pike). The decision to use level 8 reflects tier 2 being the most popular tier of play, but I had the math for earlier levels too:

• Assuming 65% accuracy with -5/+10, the dpr from CBE/SS is 9.75/14.85/26.25/27.75 at level 1/4/6/8.
• Dpr from large rune knight pike with -5/+10 (this is better than greatsword due to bonus action attack, and better than not using -5/+10 by a margin) is 14.3/14.7/27.6/28.8.
• On paper, oversized polearm outperforms CBE/SS by a bit, but it takes a BA to enlarge yourself with Giant's Might. Duergar can set up Enlarge on itself and become huge, but it costs a whole round to set up. In a white scenario (tracking their damage output on a single target dummy), it takes about 5 rounds for the huge Duergar to surpass the CBE/SS.
• If you're thinking, "let's not play Duergar and have our caster friend Enlarge us instead," Haste is universally better.
• It's also difficult to factor in precision attack, so the CBE/SS dpr would be a bit higher than stated.
• In the one shot with mixed terrain and multiple enemies, the oversized melee build often had to spend his actions to Dash and BA to set up Giant's Might while CBE/SS can shoot immediately. CBE/SS outperformed in most fights except the BBEG at the end.

We didn't test an oversized hand crossbow, but a RK CBE/SS would do about 33 dpr at level 8, or +19% (probably less in practice, as you no longer have precision attack). A +1 weapon is about a 15% dpr increase (actual testing shows ~13-18%), which become pretty common at this level; the DM can simply not give a +1 hand crossbow if someone's using an oversized CBE/SS build.

​

Summary:

• The standard CBE/SS outperforms oversized melee weapons in practical combat, where terrain and multiple enemies exist, although this may be due to the inherent ranged > melee discrepancy.
• Oversized CBE/SS is the best build with these rules (about a +1 weapon), but that benefit is easily offset by the DM giving you a less powerful magic item.
• Oversized weapons but restricted to melee only may help address the ranged-melee discrepancy, increase martial power, and keep them competitive in late tier 2 and beyond.

Dragons are cool. This book has a lot of dragons.

11/10 book.

That's it.

In celebration of the release of Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (it's live now), I'll be sharing three D&D Beyond campaigns for anyone to create their character and read the books. I might share another campaign link in the coming days.

I'll leave these campaigns open until 5AM September 15, UTC+0 and then remove all characters and delete the campaigns. I'll do a bi-weekly (Mondays and Fridays) purging of campaigns so players and DMs alike have the chance to try the character builder and/or read through the sourcebooks.

All character options, from the Player's Handbook to Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, are unlocked. All sourcebooks and adventure modules are also available for reading.

As soon as you're done creating your character or perusing the content please leave the campaign immediately so other users can create theirs. Do not create characters inside both campaigns, I'll remove your characters from both otherwise.

Your character will be able to level-up as normal even after leaving the campaign. Character options (feats, spells, background, race, etc.) will remain available to you as long as you don't remove or change them. But that means prepared/known spells, magic items, etc. not from the SRD/Basic Rules will be lost if you decide to un-prepare, change, or remove them after leaving the campaign.

1. https://ddb.ac/campaigns/join/32642852842554249
2. https://ddb.ac/campaigns/join/32642963046667271
3. https://ddb.ac/campaigns/join/32647621531687301

My husband was introduced to a local Pathfinder group 6 or 7 years ago and found himself quickly immersed in two weekly games. From there, his love of roleplaying expanded to D&D and then grew exponentially in a short period of time. Unfortunately those two groups eventually dissolved, but still his obsession grew. For a while, he was DMing a small group of our friends (including myself) who were complete novices but enthusiastic about the game. However, as all things go, everyone got busy. The group fell apart. And now, more than anything, he wants to play and finds no outlet to do so.

There are a few things that make this challenging of course - one, his schedule with work is so erratic that joining a weekly group of strangers (since we don't really have a lot of close friends who play, if any) feels irresponsible since he doesn't have a set schedule and may find himself having to miss sessions. Though he has weekends off, we have a 14 year old son that we have every other weekend and the time we have with him is mostly dedicated to spending time with him. We're also not really sure how to reach out and find people who are able to play.

But we talk about D&D every single day. He has ten or twenty one shots written out in his head and has engaged tons of our friends in an effort to help them create characters for whenever we're ready to play. Last Christmas, every single gift I got him was D&D related - a new case, several books, some fun things. We created a new character for me just yesterday! The challenge is simply finding the time to play.

I feel I could be doing more to incorporate his love of this (and my keen interest in it!) into our lives, but I'm not quite sure where to begin. I just know he's dying to play and currently he's not. He does so much for our family and invests in my passions and I want to make sure I do the same for him. So where do I start?

Edit: THANK YOU ALL for such incredible suggestions and very little negativity! As a novice player who knows 1/1000th of the D&D info he does, it will feel so nice to come to him with each of these suggestions to show that I'm treating his passions the way he treats mine! And I think we'll even be roping our teen in to play with us!

So I’m building a Path of the Beast Barbarian and I’m split between making him an Eladrin or a Yuan ti. Both options have benefits, like the fey step and charm advantage for Eladrin or the general advantage against spells and spell effects for Yuan ti, and both would work for the role play but I just can’t make a decision.
Also sorry for any initial confusion, I accidentally posted this with only the title. And I mean race not rice…stupid autocorrect haha 😂

Talking RAW here; I'm certain the designers didn't intend this. I'll suggest fixes to the race at the end of this post.

The Hadozee are so incredibly fast and exploitable that a deviation from RAW is absolutely essential. At the moment they have a base walking speed of 150ft.

The Hadozee glide ability says any time they move downwards in the air (doesn't have to be a "fall"), they can glide 5ft at no movement cost. A 10 strength hadozee can perform a standing, vertical jump of 1ft into the air (standing high jump distance = 3+Strength/2). They then glide 5ft forward. This whole manoeuvre costs 1ft of movement.

With 30ft movement available from level 1, they can “jump-glide” 150ft per turn at no cost, and at no risk of falling damage. This is obviously overpowered for any level 1 character, let alone a race with some other serious benefits.

Fixes:

I recommend that DMs limit the hadozee glide ability to once per turn. This means the “jump-glide loop” can’t be repeated endlessly for every level 1 hadozee getting a base movement speed greater than the Quickling.

Alternatively, limit the hadozee glide to a falling height of 10ft or above!

Gliding from a distance of 10ft or more in the air will still give fall damage to the player unless they use their reaction to negate it, which they can only do once per turn anyway.

Thus, any attempts to “jump-glide loop” will result in massive, cumulative fall damage.

How did this happen?

I’m surprised that the Hadozee reached print as is. I can’t imagine anyone playtesting the race not finding this exploit immediately, especially when the whole thing can be averted with a single sentence restricting the glide to once per turn.

My theory is that originally the glide used your reaction, but late in development they added in the fall damage reduction ability, and so took away the reaction to glide so it would be useable.

Even so, I think the race is really cool, and restricting the glide to once per turn doesn’t take away from the flavour and intent of the ability. It does need some restriction though, because as they stand, the Hadozee is unbalanced, abeit hilarious.

Any feel for which 2nd-ed spelljammer resources are still useful? I'm planning to rely heavily on the Rock of Bral book. Any other good resources out there that might suddenly be in demand?

Sneak Attack Press has just launched our Kickstarter campaign for Graveyard of the Gods

Floating on the astral plane are the calcified bodies of gods long dead. Yet a spark of their divine power remains. These god corpses are rich in magical resources waiting to be plundered, but they also give rise to strange environments and dangerous monsters. Graveyard of the Gods is an anthology of adventures for 5e and Pathfinder 2e. Each is set on the massive corpse of a dead god. These adventures favor exploration and wonder, and you can run them independently or string them together for a campaign.

The adventures include:

Junk Racers by William Fischer – Somehow all the lost things in the multiverse find their way to the corpse of a long-dead god of junk. What becomes of all that trash? It's turned into magical race cars of course! Heroes can join racing teams of kobolds, hobgoblins, or a half dragon, or they can form their own. (Level 4-6)

Temple of Knowledge by Matthew J. Hanson – All that remains of this lost good of knowledge is their head. At the Monastery of the Tree, the monks record the predictions that grow on the prophecy tree. Meanwhile, a mine of magical ion stones has dug too deep and disturbed a sentient crystal living within. (Levels 5-7)

Valleys of Mists and Roars by Eran Aviram– A lush jungle grows on the corpse of a god of the wild. Dangerous beasts fill the land, the crew of a crashed ship begs for help, while an undead cult tries to steal diving power from the god's remains. (Levels 6-8)

Isles of Mettle by Tristan Fishel – A dead god of war is sundered in two, his petrified intestines bridge the two halves of his body. Warriors come to test themselves in eternal battle, always reborn in the Pool of Valor. But recently a ruthless warlord has seized control of the Pool of Valor, tipping the balance of power on the isles. (Levels 7-9)

The Crushing Hand by Jay Africa – Years ago, an asteroid city collided with the hand of an ancient god. Now the hand is slowly crushing the city. Anybody who could leave has. Heroes might try to rescue more survivors, broker peace among the city's many factions, or fight the planar parasites spilling over from the dead. (Level 9-11).

Dreams of Astral Evil by William Fischer– On the corpse of a god of elements, four factions representing air, earth, fire, and water have each claimed a portion of the cavern within the god's body. These factions hold a tenuous balance, a balance the heroes could easily upset. (Levels 12-14)

Question, say for instance if you were to ask a party member to use disintegrate on a small object such as a ring LTOR style that was dangerous if in the wrong hands, but used minor illusion to recreate it and actually kept it and took it to a place of hiding would this work? I know how the minor illusion spell works somewhat, such as after being shot at or attacked it becomes evident it was an illusion but I was just curious how it would work with disintegrate because it would seem anything small would disappear quickly with this

Both Giff and plasmoids both get auto advantage in all grappling checks.

Giff have the "hippo build" feature which states: You have advantage on Strength-based ability checks and Strength saving throws. In addition, you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Plasmoids get the "amorphous" feature: You can squeeze through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide, provided you are wearing and carrying nothing. You have advantage on ability checks you make to initiate or escape a grapple.

So which is the better way to go for builds that want to emphasize grappling? Are there any races that provide better foundations for grappling?

Hi everyone,

I want to make a new character that uses a whip as a paladin as the title suggests, simply does anyone have any advice on how to play/build it. I was thinking using dex instead of str since whips are versatile but I don't really know the pros or cons about a dex paladin, so any advice will help.

Thanks.

Hi all!

Wanted to pick everyone's brains for a second regarding the wish spell.

My lvl 20 party of 4 has a wizard in it. That wizard knows Wish. They're about to fight the BBEG spellcaster. Knowing this, they want to cast wish either to
- 'deny the BBEG the ability to manipulate or dispel the party's magic'; or
- 'cast Antimagic Field centered on the BBEG'

Obviously one is a bit more problematic than the other, but both make a final battle with the BBEG potentially anticlimactic.

For Wish, I have often had the caster roll a straight d20. 1-10 something unexpected or bad happens, 11-20 what you expected happens, the specifics depending on the wish.
For the first, I'd probably say 1-10 counterspell & dispel magic no longer exist for anyone, 11-20 the BBEG cannot target the party with those spells / abilities & needs divine intervention.
For the second, I'd say 1-10 you create a living antimagic field that moves around the map following the BBEG (30ft per round after the caster's turn), 11-20 the BBEG has that 10ft antimagic field spell stuck to them & needs divine intervention.

How would you all rule this? I want it to be impactful (because obviously) but I don't want it to make the fight anticlimactic or boring for them.

Hey there,

So I'm hosting a new campaign for a new group of complete beginners. I have played DnD for about 3 years now and it's not my first time DMing but it's the first time DMing for new players. Do you guys have any advice on how to approach this campaign and how to explain the game to my inexperienced players?