5E (D&D Next) Q&A

[Ken]

I've used that with my dragonborn fighter in my friend Rick's tabletop game, and it's been very useful. My fighter doesn't have much skill with ranged weapons, so in situations where multiple ranged attacks would be really, really handy, telling the rogue or ranger to act on my turn makes a lot of sense.

[Dave W.]

I like the maneuver... moving someone out of a sticky situation was the first thing I saw with it too, but you can also move people in... especially if Shorak needs a flanking buddy.

The downside is that it consumes the friend's reaction. Adamant likes to have those reactions for either his Fighter Protection Style (to impose disadvantage on someone attacking his adjacent friend) or Sentinel to lock down the enemy's movement. But yeah, I can see all sorts of possibilities for it's use.

I do see that it could slow down the action. I still think it's worth having. I'd be fine with turning our reactions over to Jeff really. Trust the DM to make appropriate use of them... but I'm going through a whole mess right now with my F2F group where I (the GM) am trying to teach them to trust the GM so it's near to my heart just now... (I described in an email to the group how I'm going to have an NPC Septa Unella -- GOT reference -- walking behind them chanting "Trust"... "Trust"... "Trust")

[Jeff]

Reactions are for sure the hardest thing to manage in play-by-post. The best we can do is establish basic contingencies—which you can override ahead of time at anytime, if you speak up. I will say, it helps when Dave W. reminds me on some of his turns that he's readying to use his reaction for imposing disadvantage. Then I confidently figure that first such attack made against an adjacent ally will benefit.

And as another example, in any given round, I've been assuming if Shorak is attacked and struck, he'll use his reaction to half the damage with Uncanny Dodge. Once or twice, knowing the math involved, I've decided to let him skip it on the first attack because the second attack is the likelier to do more damage. Like if a goblin with a knife goes to attack him just before an archmage casts a spell called Agonizing Beam of Terrible Damage, I'll go ahead and decide that Shorak would probably want to save his Uncanny Dodge that round for the archmage's spell instead of the goblin's knife. But that's a judgment call and it could backfire on me and Dave. Maybe that goblin's knife is the dreaded Knife of Unspeakable Vibrations That Try to Rip Apart Every Atom.

For something like Maneuvering Attack, would you guys want to set up a default way to handle it, or should we always stop every time and wait for the beneficiary to say "yay" or "nay" and specify how?

[Dave W.]

Well, in general I'd be fine with Brian or Jeff taking control of Adamant's reactions...

The one special case is if Adamant's adjacent to friend and it looks like the friend might get attacked, I'd lean towards imposing disadvantage on the attack. Unless, like Jeff's example above where the threat to the friend is minor and something better can be done by moving the warforged.

I promise I will never complain if you guys take control of Adamant's reactions in order to zip things up a bit... and that's a Paladin-level promise...

[Darren]

I'm okay with trusting Jeff for these things, with the caveat that if Kal is in battle with a spellcaster, there's a good chance he'd want to save his reaction to use Counterspell if it seems appropriate, but much like with Shorak and Uncanny Dodge, I trust Jeff to know when it's appropriate.

Ultimately, Jeff has proven that his goal is NOT to just kill us. If it was, he had plenty of opportunities to do so in that last encounter and yet he kept throwing us lifelines (and it was much appreciated).

[Brian]

And I would be cognizant of each players preferences from watching how you play. I see that maneuver as a last resort, use it before someone dies kind of thing. Still, it feels Battle Master-ish. And Melethos would still have several very useful direct combat maneuvers in his repertoire.

[Darren]

Jeff, is it possible to "dual-wield" wands? Can Kal hold the Wand of Lightning Bolts in one hand and the Wand of Splintering Fire in the other and use both during a fight (obviously not in the same round)?

[Jeff]

Yup. He can hold whatever. It’s just about action economy and hands needed. If a spell requires a Somatic component, he needs one free hand, but it can be same hand manipulating a material component or arcane focus. So his other hand cam be holding another focus. Can only use one of them in any given round but they can both be out.

[Jeff]

Hey, guys. So the official 5E Eberron book is finally out. It's ... pretty good, though I have some quibbles. Nothing groundbreaking, no real new lore (except for a few interesting tidbits), all in all a solid book for DMs and players getting into the setting if they were new to it. That said, there are some things we can but don't have to adjust in our own rules. I'd like to talk about them here.

Again I'll stress we don't have to change anything. Only if you want to. But with each item, it's kind of an all-or-nothing decision.

Dragonmarks (as dabbled with by Keith Baker before and then more recently in his not-quite-WotC-canon Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron) are now treated as subraces. Not feats. Should Darren or Joe be interested in mixing things up and would like to consider making this change to what their dragonmarks do for them, here's how we'd do it. Or they can leave things just as we've left them.

Starting with Kal and the Mark of Detection...

What we would remove: His Mark of Detection feat (and the four once-per-day spells it gave him), and this would free up the feat slot to be replaced by something else that makes sense. We'd also strip away the +1 on all ability scores that humans enjoy.

But we'd replace it all with the following:

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

 

Sentinel’s Intuition. When you make a Wisdom (Insight) or Wisdom (Perception) check, you can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the ability check.

Guardian’s Shield. You can cast the shield spell once with this trait, and you regain the ability to cast it after you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Vigilant Guardian. When a creature you can see within 5 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to swap places with that creature, and you are hit by the attack instead. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Spells of the Mark. If you have the Spellcasting or the Pact Magic class feature, the spells on the Mark of Sentinel Spells table are added to the spell list of your spellcasting class.

Mark of Sentinel Spells

1st - compelled duel, shield of faith

2nd - warding bond, zone of truth

3rd - counterspell, protection from energy

4th - death ward, guardian of faith

5th - Bigby’s hand

To clarify, the net effect of ability scores being adjusted is that Kal would lose 1 in all ability scores except Wisdom, but he'd gain 1 on his Constitution. 

And as for spells, those listed there are presented as class skills for him. Meaning when he learns a new spell as a sorcerer, he has those to choose from as well (or swap one for another). Obviously some he already has (counterspell), but normally a sorcerer can't choose Bigby's hand.

I'll get to Streko next.

[Jeff]

For Streko and the Mark of Healing, should you want to consider updating things...

What we would remove: His Mark of Healing feat (which gave him a bonus 2d6 healing touch once per day as well as as the ability to use a healer's kit to restore some hit points between short rests—which frankly, I don't think he's ever used), and this would free up the feat slot to be replaced by something else that makes sense. We'd also strip away 1 point on his Charisma and the Naturally Stealthy feature. Both of those come from the lightfoot halfling subrace we've been using. 

But we'd replace it all with the following:

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Medical Intuition. When you make a Wisdom (Medicine) check or an ability check using an herbalism kit, you can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the ability check.

Healing Touch. You can cast the cure wounds spell with this trait. Starting at 3rd level, you can also cast lesser restoration with it. Once you cast either spell with this trait, you can’t cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Spells of the Mark. If you have the Spellcasting or the Pact Magic class feature, the spells on the Mark of Healing Spells table are added to the spell list of your spellcasting class.

Mark of Sentinel Spells

1st - cure wounds, healing word
2nd - lesser restoration, prayer of healing
3rd - aura of vitality, mass healing word
4th - aura of purity, aura of life
5th - greater restoration

From that spell list, the only ones I think you'd benefit from (since the rest are already cleric spells) are those three aura spells, which are normally just for paladins.

[Darren]

So, while those additions are cool, I don't think it's worthwhile for Kal. Losing one off all his ability scores would be somewhat devastating for him, and since as a sorcerer his primary ability is Charisma, I don't think it's worth losing one off that in order to gain on Constitution. And while the new powers are cool, Kal getting hit instead of someone else is almost never a good thing since he is the squishiest of the group by a pretty wide margin. So I guess we'll just keep things as-is.

[Jeff]

Okay! No prob.

[Elvis]

What does this mean for future characters?

If a new dragonmarked character is created down the road are we stuck with using the new book, or can we choose to use the Wayfinder version?

[Jeff]

Scrapping a character and dropping in a new one is no light matter, for one.

But also Wayfinder is apparently going to be auto-updated (of course, not our alreadyd-downloaded copies but any re-downloads will be applicable) to bring it in line with this one.

I will say one thing, unrelated to dragonmarks: I definitely do not like the way they're handling warforged body/armor. No way, no how. Keith Baker and I have been commiserating about it by messenger; he can't publicly gripe, of course. But we both can.

[Brian]

Just my two cents on new characters--Elvis, I've played DE for over a decade now, and no PC has ever permanently died. Not one of us has had to roll a new character. We've come close, but we still managed to survive, if only by our fekking teeth. It's up to you, but I wouldn't be spending time behind the scenes developing someone new to replace Thul. Hell, I'd miss the guy. He grows on you like a melanoma.

[Jeff]

Don't mistake what Brian's saying as some kind of safety net. Things have gotten seriously lethal, but you've also all developed more abilities to stay alive. I was very much expecting Adamant to need Revivify to get Kal out of that shipwreck a couple chapters ago, for example. But some good rolls and resource uses kept it from being necessary.

Of course, things will always ramp up.

[Dave W.]

Adamant just can't seem to keep you kids out of trouble...

I haven't bought the book yet (too close to christmas for me to be buying things for myself). Is the warforged the same as in the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron? hve they changed it?

[Joe]

I think I will keep Streko the same as well. No use trying to relearn new stuff while in the midst of a Masters Degree and two novels. <shudder>