Jack is intended for team support.  So I'm fine with taking whatever the team wants him to have that'll benefit them.  :3

Current confirmation that the "Thunderwave light crossbow" will be Uncommon.

Seth also suggested the "Arye Archlute", which would be rare.  Though I have no idea what that is, and attempts to search for it in the DMG get nothing (maybe it was another custom item?).

http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/

Saw this "map maker" linked.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.co...4/08/dota-2-cosplay/

Linking this because it personally amuses me that two out of three of the cosplay images in that "Dota cosplay event" link are from SMITE.

That and one of them is for SMITE's verison of Scylla.

Posting end results of Jack item shuffle for reminders and any "Oh that's wrong" corrections.

*Cloak Of Displacement + Cloak Of Protection (Combined. Rare).
*Ayre Archlute (Rare).
Thunder Bolt (Light Crossbow, Uncommon).
*Hat Of Disguise (Uncommon).
Lesser Quickdraw Belt (Uncommon).
Haversack (Uncommon).

Scroll of animal speech.
2 potions of health.

*Attune item.

Funding: I'm too tired to count Chris's magic money for him right now.

Seth feel free to correct my pricetags. This is from what I understand of the requirements:

Scroll/potion of 1st lvl spells: 50gp
Common: 100gp
Uncommon: 500gp
Rare: 2500

Cloak Of Displacement + Cloak Of Protection (Attune. Combined. Rare).
  Price: 2500(Displacement)+1500(Protection*3) = 4000
Ayre Archlute (Attune. Rare).
  Price: 2500
Thunder Bolt (Light Crossbow, Uncommon).
  Price: 500
Hat Of Disguise (Attune. Uncommon).
  Price: 500
Lesser Quickdraw Belt (Uncommon).
  Price: 500
Haversack (Uncommon).
  Price: 500

Scroll of Speak With Animal.
  Price: 50gp
2 potions of health.
  Price: 50gp * 2 = 100gp

Total funding spent: 8150

tim and i on roll20

Note to self:

scales
Timmy thread

City

Faction old
faction new (Blanking so hard)

mutations

star old

Option A… Modified from Wall of Thorns named:
Mass of Mappo no Ryujin (6th Level Conjuration)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S, M (a preserved tentacle or pseudopod from a creature and a sharp tooth)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
        You create a mass of squirming, slippery, flexible, tangled dark green-blue pseudopods bristling with razor-sharp white teeth. The mass appears within range on a solid surface and lasts for the duration. You choose to make the mass up to 60 feet long, 10 feet high, and 5 feet thick or a circle that has a 20-foot diameter and is up to 20 feet high and 5 feet thick. The mass blocks line of sight.
        When the mass appears, each creature within its area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 6d6 piercing and psychic damage and is frightened of the mass, and not the caster, or half as much damage and not frightened on a successful save. While any creature is within the mass, it hears frightening whispers in a multitude of voices.
        A creature can move through the mass, albeit slowly and painfully. For every 1 foot a creature moves through the mass, it must spend 4 feet of movement. Furthermore, the first time a creature enters the mass on a turn or ends its turn there, the creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. It takes 6d6 slashing and psychic damage and is frightened of the wall on a failed save, or half as much damage and not frightened on a successful one.
       A creature that starts its turn frightened of the mass will continue to be frightened until either the creature makes a Charisma save at the end of a turn or the mass vanishes when the spell ends.


Or Option B...Refluffed Wall of Thorns but identical in every way. Named: Wall of Teeth
Name to be decided depending on version used. (6th Level conjuration)
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S, M (a preserved tentacle or pseudopod from a creature)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
        You create a wall of tough, pliable, tangled pseudopods bristling with razor-sharp teeth. The wall appears within range on a solid surface and lasts for the duration. You choose to make the wall up to 60 feet long, 10 feet high, and 5 feet thick or a circle that has a 20-foot diameter and is up to 20 feet high and 5 feet thick. The wall blocks line o f sight.
        When the wall appears, each creature within its area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 7d8 piercing damage, or half as much damage on a successful save.
        A creature can move through the wall, albeit slowly and painfully. For every 1 foot a creature moves through the wall, it must spend 4 feet of movement. Furthermore, the first time a creature enters the wall on a turn or ends its turn there, the creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. It takes 7d8 slashing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Will use either A or B for the spell and discard non-used version when spell is finalized.
EDIT: redid version A to avoid the self-chaining damage due to restraining making it hard to escape so they would keep taking damage or they would stay still and let the group attack them. After working on the revised version of A with Joe, I'm leaning towards that version (Mass of Mappo no Ryujin) as it provides some soft control while being thematic and avoiding any self-arising damage loops as a frightened creature won't remain in the wall or re-enter it of its own free will.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:23, Wed 04 Jan 2017.

I'm still of the view that there should be no chain damage for the restrain version, like we talked about before you posted up the edited version still including chain damage.

As that just puts targets into a catch 22 dice screw loop to try and leave.  And then even if they succeed, they still have to deal with the risk of just having the situation respammed upon them for more chain damage potential.  Even if they have a good chance to make it out, it's still basically a rigged slot machine setup by design.

"Oh sure, now that you've taken damage and have been restrained all you have to do is bet on succeeding! But if you don't you take more damage and have to do this all over again (while the enemy takes potshots at you).  But if you win, you're free*"
_{*Free to only go one direction in our favor, enjoy your "escape". Hope no warlocks who cast this spell happen to shoot you all of one time with their E blasts they can fire three times in a row at this level and toss you back into something you need save throws to escape!}

It's brings it from being a good spell, to one that looks like a rules lawyer wrote it, and reminds me of how "Restrained + X" was a popular turbo munchkin tactic way back in Champions MUSH.

Ignore any "but they are being chewed on, so it makes sense that-" and consider pure mechanical design on this front.

If you want damage for the restrain version instead of the "We just copy/paste wall of thorns", then it can only apply damage once on the way in.

Aside from that? 6d6 is hardly a drop compared to 7d8 in the long run to add on the incredibly strong effect of restrained.  Which makes chain damage on top all the more "Wait, what?".

6d6+restrain across a whole wall would at least be almost reasonable if it could only trigger once, however.  Which is still quite a lot considering restrained makes everyone an EZ target that can't really fight back (Advantage on every attack against them, Disadvantage on every attack they make).

EDIT: Oh that's right I forgot.  Restrained applies disadvantage to Dex saves.  So it was more rigged than I thought regardless of STR checks being a secondary option.

Though I guess most people who write official spells either don't realize how one sided broken that is... Or are perfectly aware of it when they write it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:02, Wed 04 Jan 2017.

i don't even understand the purpose of this exchange.  are we building a homebrew spell for wastelands?  6th level?  That's getting a tad ahead of ourselves.  or is this just a hypothetical "what if" idea for a game that will never happen?

The initial cause basically, was that the warlock spell list already being rather bare bones for assorted meta logic reasons, just goes into full bore "Meh, who cares?" territory past level 5.

With such wonders as "There are only four spells on their 7th level list". and "Half the spells at 6th level are just supplement spells, which in turn are just "We split an elemental buff spell, into four different spells for specific elements lol"

That won't be much of a problem for you personally in SiW if you follow the suggested path of the Munchkin "Treat Warlock as a two level cantrip and fuel source for sorcerer" though.  (Though it will eventually turn up for my straight warlock).

Seth also wanted a custom spell rather than just borrowing from the spell table to have something "More chtullu themed"... But you can guess how trying to meet "Great Old One" standards went from a balance perspective (Just ask Tim about the very first shot at the custom spell).

Combined with lots of hindsight about underlying mechanics, not helped by official spells being of questionable balance tuning often anyways.

But said custom spell's most recent revision is at a point of good cool thematic spell that's also reasonable.

Take Wall Of Thorns.  Add a "I don't want to go into the spooky murder wall, duh" fear effect on the wall.  Lower but meta buff the damage from 7d8 pierce, to 6d6 half pierce half psychic.  So it's lowered reasonably cap/averages wise for the control effect, but thematically better off against 'LOL I tank even magical weapon damage!' stuff.

So now the biggest question is as usual, "Was it worth opening the Pandora's box of 'Ask Will for balancing advice'?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:17, Thu 05 Jan 2017.

Yes it was worth it to ask for other people's opinions on the spell.

Hopefully you're not too distracted, busy, or forgot, but like I passed along for Seth the other night-

""oh btw when you next see Tim online let him know that I'll be able to hold the wastelands session saturday night I expect we'll be starting at 10:30 Eastern (9:30 central)""

so in Margreve we have

warforged druid
elf alchemist

drow sorc
goblin ranger (melee)

human fighter (built to be mix of ranged and melee will probably end up being 99% ranged in actual combat.)

and that leaves me.  one thought i had was nathan (using aricocra or some other wings race) and make him a tree sniper.  but that leaves us with 1.01 frontline melee persons.  was also considering playing a rogue.  not sure how well stabby rogue would work out with only 1.01 melee persons.  definitely not playing a caster in "casters take penalties" setting no matter how soon that gets erased.  learned the hard way 5e casters aren't worth the effort.  unless maybe warlock?  since hypothetical salt in wounds warlock won't ever see light of day...  too indecisive.  any votes for what would be fun for you guys to add to the team?

We've got good house rules so Warlocks do not suffer The World's Smallest Spell List, so as long as you remember those it could work out in a Seth campaign better than the norm. (You'd still be dealing with 'So you have TWO spells per short rest, until level 11 though, so get used to 90% cantrips even then)

That said?  Maybe a Paladin could work out for what you want.  5th ed Lay on hands has "Cures any disease, full stop" so only the power of railroading would stop that.

The usual Smite stuff isn't impacted by a floating -1 hit/DC effect of the forest.  And specific type wise, the paladins with charm immunity auras would probably be real useful in self important magic forest land.

There is also the SPITE factor, as Margreve has like, zero stuff for paladins.  The list of "who uses what new spells" omits the paladin entirely, Like, wowie zowie.

(and the cleric only gets one token hunt worshiper path mostly to show off margreve spells anyways)
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:06, Tue 21 May 2019.

Paladin it is!  Thanks for the help deciding.  I'll be aiming for the dex build described here:  https://www.gametruth.com/guid...-to-build-a-paladin/ 'cause i'm expecting that to be the most compatible with a flying race.  i'm assuming we're all taking the standard 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 ability scores?

Regular point buy as per usual.  The array you listed adds up to the legal point buy totals, but as long as it's point buy legal pick your stats.  (of particular note, it's impossible to pay for more than a 15 before modifiers).

Most "guides" are kind of horrible and only think of sterile lab conditions at high levels,  and that guide in particular just really highlights that with "Tough will let you survive better!" *picks tough before sentinel when it gives you next to no hitpoints*

Throw this in the garbaaaaaage. "Give your paladin studded leather!" It's like this guide is trying to make Paladins die faster! (You'll start with worse AC than other options, gain AC slower, and then end only 'as good' as half-plate anyways, or worse if you take +AC feat for medium armors).
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:01, Tue 21 May 2019.

doh.  here i'd hoped searching for "simple 5e paladin build" would get me something halfway decent.  just about every search i do for "5e paladin build" ends with short discussions on options or massive guides with a zillion options, but no actual paladin builds.  don't suppose any of the modules have a cookie-cutter paladin in the back like many of the Pathfinder modules do?

Half-Elf: +2 CHA. Picks +1/+1 STR/CON.

Str; 14+1r+1f = 16 (yes. Feat reasons)
Dex; 10
Con; 15+1r = 16
Int; 8
Wis; 10
Cha; 15+2r =16

Campaign freebie feat: Heavy armor mastery (which also grants +1 STR). Heavy armor gives flat -3 damage taken from mundane damage.

The most He-Man possible starting position for a Paladin without cheating by trotting out busted homebrew or "semi-official" stuff. works for any paladin path.

(It can't be overstated how absurdly "Practically a demi-god" three 16 stats at level 1 is)
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:16, Tue 21 May 2019.

Awesome!  Thanks!  Now to decide on a look.  Prolly goin with a gal since tim's drow is the only other gal in the team i know of.

 Hmm my notes had Mittens going with 'Nathan  - Variant Winged Aasimar - Oath of Vengence Paladin (To get wings gives up subrace 3rd level trait, light bringer, and the healing hands traits to gain a flight speed of 30 when not wearing heavy armor.) - starting feat was polearm mastery.' But a female Half-elf paladin works better (since Nathan couldn't get Str 16 at lvl 1 with polearm mastery and would have a lower AC due to medium armor. And I have no clue what Nathan's stats would have been I'm guessing STR 15, Dex 14, Con 14 (with Racial boost), Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 15 (with racial boost) at lvl 4 could go +1 Str/+1Cha to get both to 16, but still behind the Female Half-elf Paladin's Str by 2pts at that level (assuming +2str for the half-elf at lvl 4), would have fewer hit points, and lower AC and no damage reduction but gains flight when in medium armor or lighter.

Personally, I think the half-elf will be more effective, as flight is limited in the Margreve woods due to thick branches all over the place.
Out of curiosity what type of paladin will you be going? Oath of the Ancients has a lean towards Nature which would be rather appropriate in the Margreve. Vengeance is also good for damage. Devotion would play sort of like Zerry. Conquest is a bit of a fearmonger (trying to make foes afraid of him to exploit an offensive aura to reduce their speed to 0). Redemption is a pacifist.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:49, Wed 22 May 2019.

While it may seem to lack "I push the button that makes the attacks gooder" features.  Redemption path amuses me because it gets "Damage reflection still counts as being morally superior!" as it's second channel option. (Also a nice solid spell list. Super OP hypnotic pattern and super valuable counterspell, and both hold spells.).  +5 to persuasion checks for 10 minutes also makes it one of the most "I have noncombat uses!" paladin that isn't "Devotion gets zone of truth".

Of course the radiant damage reflect it only works if the badguy is within 30 feet of the paladin when they hit someone else, so MMO kite boulder throwers wouldn't get effected.  It would still count for if a dragon blasted the party.

People gush about Vengeance path a lot, but it's basically "I want to duel the boss" path so can falter outside of lab conditions.

"I cast haste! Then use my channel divinity to give myself advantage on attack rolls vs my Oath target! And use my reaction as an extra swing vs oath target!"
"Cool, what do you do about the other enemies?"
"...What?"

Very good at what it does, but what it does is put one guy through a blender and say "But look at my Boss DPS chart!" when it's not doing that.

Devotion is the most straightforward one in "Want to be a Paladin", as usual.  It's got the most straightforward combat buff channel (+1 long term instead of "This ONE guy/ONE swing!"), anti undead/demon turn,

Ancients is very Meh. Even in a setting chock full of Fey stuff.

Conquest is highly gimmicky, and that temptation of "Paladin that learns dominate person" is still all the way at lv 17. It involves the most thinking about niche modifiers and that's even with a generous assumption nothing will ever be immune to fear. It can work great! But it's probably the paladin with the most hoops to jump through for it's gimmicks to work.

TL;DR: Overall for Chris's needs, I'd suggest either Devotion (PHB), or Redemption (Xanathar's guide).  They are the most broad strokes paladins rather than "But if you do X and Y when Z happens *points at chart*"
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:23, Wed 22 May 2019.

In reply to Joe Darkthorne (msg # 412):

Oath of the Ancients has a few things your possibly underselling. It is the best at anti-horde for a paladin as it gets a few more AoE spells and it has the ability to restrain targets with channel divinity. That is basically a paralysis ability. Plus they have the aura that gives resistance to all spell damage which makes them excel vs enemy casters.
Ancient is like 4e warden, Vengeance is like 4e avenger and devotion is like the 4e paladin. I'm not sure which one Mittens would prefer. We both agree that Devotion is a good choice but I'm not all that fond of as martial archetype that discourages martial action which is why I dislike Redemption as I think that approach is better for a full caster than a half caster. Ancient is defensive which is probably why you think it is meh for Mittens...and it may be for him unless he likes the playstyle of the 4e Warden.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:53, Wed 22 May 2019.

Thanks for the input!  I'm looking for "easy to build and play" without winding up a 1-trick pony.  (Which is what I'm told rogue would be like.  Yay massive single-target damage!  Aaand that's all I do.)

I noticed a lack of meat-shield in the team, so a paladin who's more focused on shrugging off half a dozen treants rolling higher initiative and throwing boulders at her would probably be great.  Damage dealing and AoE spells, while something I tend to enjoy muchly, may not be what the team needs.  (And certainly not worth the hassle of playing a 5e wizard.)  The team's Alchemist, Druid, and Sorcerer probably have the magical battlefield control covered.  But I wouldn't complain at all if my paladin wound up with a holy hand grenade or two.
This message was last updated by the player at 23:19, Thu 23 May 2019.