Fun Finds: 5e Edition

[linklord231]

Have 2 businesses, and run them on alternating days?

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

Doubles your gold per day for the cost of doubling your investment amounts.
Good call there.

[sambojin]

Sort of explains why Genasi are vaguely considered to still be the slave keeping bastards that their Genie parents were. If they can go for almost a week with just a quick feed and a nap, be sure that their servants will as well. Or worse.

It explains the Dwarven seige-mentality as well. "We have 8 cows and 4 dogs. We'll be here all year."

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

You know, a System that has Warlock as a class in the main book, doesn't have a strong understanding of contracts.
An unskilled hireling is 2sp per day
A skilled hireling costs 2gp per day
Training costs 1gp per day, therefore a skilled person can train 2 students at once
250 days of training turn an unskilled hireling into a skilled one.
Consider the nature of 3 year, and 5 year contracts.
Hireling is hired on a 5 year contract.
Contract is binding.
Contract states that hireling gets 2sp per day during their training period, then 5sp per day afterwards. Plus room and food.
Buy a few farms to supply food, and some cooks (Count as untrained as there is no cooking skill)
Build a boarding house near your farms for your workers
Have some trained in survival (and possibly 2 other skills if you use the feat option) they gather herbs and other alchemical raw materials
Have others trained as alchemists. They refine what the gatherers get into refined alchemical reagents.
Sell some of the Reagents to alchemists across the land, and use others to make lots of potions.
every 6 workers should be producing 5gp per day of reagents, after selling enough to pay for all expenses.
This is pretty expandable. Make sure enough of your peiople are training more people to keep the staff numbers growing and you can have a self sustaining potion and money engine.

That's when you begin to work on the potion mixing rules

after all, now that you have potions to burn, you can start trying to mix them (train some people in the Magic initiate feat, make them learn Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, and Identify.)
You will get many vials of poison to sell to assassins guilds and adventurers
You will get some explosions that will kill the mage hands... oh wait.
You will also get some half strength potions to use for whatever.
Some of the potions will come back at double strength, consider what that does to potions of strength.
The important part is the permanent potions... you will only get a handful, but they will be amazingly useful.
Permanent max HP increases, Permanent 42 strength. Permanent climb and fly speeds. Permanent +6 weapons...
GM wants me to make a business? Fine, I will go into the power business.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

iirc the 250 days also goes for training in a Language or a Skill.
So there's a reasonable pile of stuff to keep training.
PCs are super awesome, so they train faster (like between class level).
Sucks to be not a PC, ha ha suckers.

Survival has a thingy, about what #gp a lifestyle you can maintain foraging around.
You could easily not use all of that lifestyle, and spend that ~money elsewhere.
Like supporting your small horde of trainees.

Perform has a better #gp earner clause, but the local authorities would take note.

[druid91]

True Polymorph can let a player continue advancing beyond 20th level. Depending on DM of course.

Party hit's 20th level. Everyone starts shaking hands and going "Yeah, well maybe I'll roll up a bard next time." And then the wizard goes "Wait, I have a plan. We don't have to end here!"

And then the plan goes something like this.

True polymorph replaces your game statistics entirely with the transformed form with the exception of alignment and personality. If concentrated on for the full duration, the target form becomes your base form. So your old character sheet becomes worthless. You turn your party into a CR 20 monster of their choice. Ancient Brass Dragons are nice for everything except Rangers, Rogues, and Monks, for reasons to be explained later.

Ok. Everyone is monsters forever. Now what? Well. You start over as a first level character. A first level character who happens to be a CR 20 monster. Since XP doesn't scale, you'll breeze through the first levels. But wait, monsters can't take class levels can they? Well. There's no real reason why not. According to the Multiclassing rules, in order to gain levels in a class you either need natural aptitude (A 13 or higher in the chosen classes required ability score) or years of training that was presumed to have happened before first level.

Since you chose a monster form conducive to your new chosen class, And first level requires 0 XP, which you have. You then take first level in whatever class you were before. An Ancient Brass Dragon has high enough scores to pass muster in everything but Dexterity, which is why they can't be Rangers, Rogues, or Monks. But I'm sure there's another critter around for those who need dexterity.

And then you just play from there. When you hit 20th level again? Do it again. Switching over to a BETTER dragon.

For wizards this trick is especially good if you set aside your spellbook prior to transformation. As you keep your original spells in your spellbook, but you also get another two every level. Meaning after enough cycles you'll have all the spells you could ever want.

[linklord231]

You start over as a first level character.

[citation needed]

[druid91]

You start over as a first level character.

[citation needed]

Your game statistics are replaced with those of the monster manual entry. Which has no levels, which are different from CR, and thus in order to 'multiclass' into a new class, they just need to meet the attribute requirement and have 0 XP.

[Amechra]

The real question is whether or not monsters can have class levels by RAW. I know they can if the DM is building a custom monster, but I don't think it is called out in the MM.

[druid91]

The real question is whether or not monsters can have class levels by RAW. I know they can if the DM is building a custom monster, but I don't think it is called out in the MM.

Yep. I fired the question over to the sage advice thing. Maybe we'll get an answer. Maybe not. Who knows?

Still, so far as I can tell, there's nothing to say they can't. And the idea that a DM can give one levels indicates that they're capable.

Because otherwise True Polymorph is actually worse than killing them. Kill them, and they can be raised. True Polymorph them into a frog or something and they're fucked. You can't even use it to turn them BACK because it would lock their CR at 0, meaning the only other things they could be turned into would be equally weak.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

hmm ... couple of things

DMG does have provisions for playing past level 20.  Feels kinda like E6 adapted.

Monsters can have class levels, but idk wtf those rules work.  (no MM yet)
iirc - that gets figured on the CR system, not something like an "ECL".
Also if True Poly had a function that did this, it'd be in the spell description.

But you've definitely found a gray zone in the rules.
If you True Poly into say a Level 1 Elf with stats like the PHB does it ...
you could assume/rule you really are starting again a level 1 (with lots more loot).

[druid91]

hmm ... couple of things

DMG does have provisions for playing past level 20.  Feels kinda like E6 adapted.

Monsters can have class levels, but idk wtf those rules work.  (no MM yet)
iirc - that gets figured on the CR system, not something like an "ECL".
Also if True Poly had a function that did this, it'd be in the spell description.

But you've definitely found a gray zone in the rules.
If you True Poly into say a Level 1 Elf with stats like the PHB does it ...
you could assume/rule you really are starting again a level 1 (with lots more loot).

Actually, I just decided to poke around and see if I could find anything on it in the DMG. Since the MM is litterally a MM, very little rules, quite a lot of stat-blocks for monsters. Even human-oid opponents are simple fiat blocks of stats. No commoner class in 5e, there's a commoner monster!

But anyway, DMG has rules for monsters with class levels. Only change is...

- The Monster doesn't gain the starting equipment of the class.
- For each class level it has, it gains one hitdie of it's normal type. (For ex, the Ancient brass would replace wizard hit die with the Dragon d20)
- It's proficiency Bonus would be based off it's CR.

Which makes this plot even more potent.

[SorO_Lost]

I feel out of the loop.

Has WotC printed Phaerimm or Sharn stat blocks yet?
Is Eberron still 1.0 alpha buried-on-the-site?
Is there an FR-equivalent alpha-test document yet?

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

Couple of fun things I worked out, that I forgot to put here.
But since I referenced them in the Monk thread, I should point them out.

Deep Gnome Wizard: Abjurer. Stats 15,14,13,12,10,8. Giving you 17 int, 14 dex and con, 12 wis and you pick whether to dump str or cha.
At level 4, take the feat Svirfneblin Magic. At level 8 take observant, and at level 12 take +2 int
So you have the guy with huge passive perception, and temporary HP.
This is a wizard with fighter level HP, who can use their at-will Nondetection to refill the Temp HP supply between every fight.
Additionally can use their reaction to have their ablative HP used as preventative damage reduction on allies.
Using average HP this guy, at level 14, has 86 HP and 33 ablative HP (so effectively 119HP with lots of bonus healing)
A fighter of the same level has 88hp + 14x con bonus. So at con 14 (human w/ 3 feats) you get 116 hp, at con 16, you get 130, and at con 18, you get 144.
This means that the gnome in question has comparable HP to the fighter.


Secondly, the strength dump Barbarian, or the "I am played by Orlando Bloom in the movie" build.
Variant human, 15 (becomes 16) in each of dex and con. 8 in str. other stats as you see fit (say wis and cha 12 and int 10)
Human feat. either 2 weapon fighting for a bit of extra damage, or sentinel for extra stickiness.
Totem Barbarian, either Bear/Eagle/Bear (if you expect lots of magic damage in the campaign) or Wolf/Eagle/Bear (if there are multiple other melee in the party)
Your weapon of choice is the Rapier, paired if you went TWF, or with a shield otherwise.
This starts you with an AC of 18 at level 1, and by using your levelling stats on dex and con, you can end up with an AC of 21 by level 14, more, with a magic shield. (1 les AC in the TWF build)
You also end up with 159 hp (if you maxed dex out first) or 173 HP (if you maxed out con first) and half damage from some things while raging.
You lose the bonus rage damage.... at first.
You see, part of this trick is triggering the DM's twitch reaction. Many DM's will see Barbarians as played by Arnold Schwartzenegger, not Orlando Bloom. So you are very likely going to see far more gauntlets of Ogre might, or belts of Strength in loot than pure random chance would indicate. Best of all, if such an item does drop, you get more benefit out of it than any other melee, so it is more likely to go to you.

These two builds are each fun on their own, but get nice synergy if played together.
You have a sticky as hell, rapier and shield rager. Then you got the arcane caster adding even more HP to the rager, saving healing hit dice and ensuring a much longer survival time.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I like Dex Barbs.
They are a little tough to multiclass 'cause you still need the Str 13 to get out.
The DM is being mean ...    ... if they don't allow crafting.

... This is a wizard with fighter level HP, who can use their at-will Nondetection to refill the Temp HP supply between every fight.
Additionally can use their reaction to have their ablative HP used as preventative damage reduction on allies ...

Oh niice.
Strictly superior to using Warlock 2 for the same spam.
Non Deep Gnome Wiz is still stuck with Alarm ritual.

[sambojin]

Happy 5000th post awakened. 

Mariner: The climbing man's fighting style. It actually opens up all kinds of weird when combined with wildshape.
"How the hell did a warhorse get up into the crow's nest?"
"Neigh."
"Sir! We have a giant eagle porpoising off the port bow!"
"Goddamned mariner druids!"


Being physically able to do something is a fairly broad definition. I mean, it's possible, right? If the horse was good at climbing. And eagles can probably swim to a certain degree anyway....

This will make being a rhinoceros or elephant so much more fun. As a draw card, if your DM complains about all the silly stuff, it's honestly hard to determine what dinosaurs could and couldn't do physically. Records from the time are sketchy at best. Thanks Wizards!

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

Saw something in Evokers
The 14th level ability lets you max damage on a spell of 5th level or lower. First time a day is free, after that you take unresistable damage.
Damage amount you take is multiplied by spell level.
Cantrips are level 0
0 is less than 5
anything multiplied by 0 is 0.
After your big AOE maxxed spell of the day, get maxxed cantrips for the rest of the day, which synergizes with your "my cantrips save for half" and "I add Int to my spell's damage."
at 17th level, with int 20 (easily doable) your best scorers are poison spray for 53 damage to a single target, or Acid splash for 29 damage each to 2 targets. Save Fire Bolt and Chill touch for those vulnerable to fire, or necrotic, respectively.

Edit: And then I topped it
Evoker 16, warlock 2. (EV 15, lock 2 if you are using rolled stats and got 2 stats higher that 15 (that sum to 32 or better))  Variant Human, spell sniper
Invocations, agonizing blast, eldritch spear.
Now you throw 4 spell attacks a round that do 20 points of damage each (10 for maxxed d10, +5 cha bonus + 5 int bonus.) 80 DPR in cantrip mode.

[NumberKruncher]

You also end up with 159 hp (if you maxed dex out first) or 173 HP (if you maxed out con first)

I thought you calculated CON into HP as if you always had the same CON.

For instance, a fighter increasing his CON from 10 to 12 at level 4 gains 4 bonus HP.

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

You do, but at level 14, you will either end up with 20 con and 18 dex, or 20 dex and 18 con depending n which one you max to 20 first

[adamnsm1]

Edit: And then I topped it
Evoker 16, warlock 2. (EV 15, lock 2 if you are using rolled stats and got 2 stats higher that 15 (that sum to 32 or better))  Variant Human, spell sniper
Invocations, agonizing blast, eldritch spear.
Now you throw 4 spell attacks a round that do 20 points of damage each (10 for maxxed d10, +5 cha bonus + 5 int bonus.) 80 DPR in cantrip mode.

My understanding is that all of those evoker bonuses apply specifically to WIZARD spells, and therefore would not work with eldritch blast, as it is a warlock spell. They still combo together pretty neatly in the previous part of the post.

EDIT:
It does however stack with the sorcerer's Elemental Affinity, as that applies to all spells with a given damage type, not just a specific spell. With a fire type draconic origin (6 levels in sorc) and 14 levels in evoker you can cast a 5th level Scorching Rays for a total of 132 damage. Overchannell the spell so all bolts do the max of 2d6 (12), and each bolt gets your cha and int modifiers bonus. As a bonus you also get access to metamagic options such as quicken and twin.