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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next What makes this group so broken??!!



KittenMagician
2019-03-02, 11:44 PM
so as far as homebrew goes this group uses 2 races i made up.
1) Cursecaller Vixayne
Vixayne Traits
Vixayne have several things in common with each other.
**Ability Score Increase.** Your Intelligence score increases by 2.
**Age.** Vixayne start their quest when the reach adulthood at at the age of 200 years old. They commonly live to be 1000.
**Alignment.** In general Vixayne are good and more than likely will follow the local laws, but they will do just about anything in completing their duty for Vix.
**Size.** Vixayne range from about 5 feet tall to 6 and a half feet tall and anywhere from 110 pounds to 250 pounds. Your size is Medium.
**Speed.** Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
**Driven.** Your need to show Vix good results makes you restless. You gain all the benefits of a long rest after sleeping 4 hours.
**Treasure Hunters.** You have proficiency in the Investigation skill and have advantage on all Intelligence (Investigation) rolls when determining the value of an item.
**Amiable.** Whenever a party member other than you rolls at least one hitdice during a short rest they gain 2 additional hitpoints.
**Languages.** You speak read and write common and one other language of your choice. You also speak Va'Sae, the language of the Vixayne. Only Vixayne know this language and are not allowed to teach it to anyone.
**Subrace.** Vix created all Vixayne with a purpose. Your purpose dictates your subrace and abilities along with the last part of your name. Their are six main purposes for the Vixayne: Wayfinder, Giftseeker, Boonbestower, Grudgedealer, Truthprocurer, and Cursecaller.
Cursecaller
**Ability Score Increase.** Your Charisma score increases by 1.
**Call Curse.** You may cast the *hex* spell once with this trait. You regain the ability to cast it again after a short or long rest.
**Blood of the Master.** You may call upon Vix to empower you with a sacrifice. As a bonus action you may sacrifice half your hitpoint maximum to increase the level of the next spell you cast by one or gain a +3 to hit and to damage on your next attack. If this sacrifice of hitpoints would reduce you to 0 or less hit points you do not fall unconscious until the end of your turn.
**The Immortal Bond.** You only need to succeed two death saving throws to stabilize when unconscious.


2) Cane (based off of the Codex Alera book series by Jim Butcher)
Cane Traits
**Ability Score Increase.** Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score is increased by 1.
**Age.** Cane mature quicklyand are considered adult at 16. They rarely live into old age due to their warlike nature but those that do live long enough might live to be 1000.
**Alignment.** Cane are almost always lawful evil.
**Size.** Cane range from about 7 feet tall to 8.5 feet tall and anywhere from 250 pounds to 350 pounds. Your size is Medium.
**Speed.** Your base walking speed is 40 feet.
**Darkvision.** You have darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
**Keen Hearing and Smell.** Your animal like senses give you advatage on perception checks that rely on hearing or smell.
**Sharp Claws and Teeth.** Your natural weapons are savage. Your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 + your Strength modifier piercing damage.
**Dedicated Weapon Masters.** Choose one weapon your class gives you proficiency in and you gain double your proficiency when using that weapon. All other weapons you are proficient with only benefit from half your proficiency bonus rounded up.
**Vicious Attack** When you make a melee attack you may declare the attack to be a vicious attack before you roll. On a hit the attack deals +5 damage. You may use this trait once and regain the ability to do so after a short or long rest.
**Languages.** You speak read and write common and Canish.



the group consists of 4 characters @ 6th level. we gave them level 1 feats.
Kenku Fighter 6 (Arcane Archer) with shadow arrow and burst arrow. Feats: Observant (+1 Int) Sharpshooter and Linguist
Duergar Cleric 4/Monk 2 (Grave Domain) Feats: Warcaster, Observant (+1 Wis)
Vixayne Warlock 5/Rogue 1 (Hexblade) Eldritch invocations: Eldritch Smite, Thirsting blade, mask of many faces. Feats Silver-Tongued, Stealthy (both from UA-Feats for Skills)
Cane Barbarian 4/UA-Mystic2 (Path of the ancestral spirit, Order of the Immortal) Psychic disciplines: Psionic Weapon, Adaptive Body, Psionic Restoration. Feats: Great Weapon Master, Brawny (UA-Feats for Skills)

They were each given a +1 magic weapon, and each had an ok magical item besides (best one was the warlock with a +1 shield)

The warlock used rapier and shield, the Barbarian used a greataxe, the fighter used a longbow, and the cleric used a quarterstaff (never once made an attack.) the group as a whole easily cleared CR6, CR9, and CR16 without even a single character going unconscious. at one point the barbarian hit himself for almost 3/4 of his own health.

im trying to figure out why this small group of lower end level characters can so easily stand up to such way higher CR monsters. i know the CR system isnt great or exactly spot on but it should be roughly good enough.

I can provide the character stats and i need help understanding why they are so powerful. they were only tested in straight combat (no rp or out of combat situations.)

Feats for skills link https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UA-SkillFeats.pdf

UA-Mystic Class link https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UAMystic3.pdf

JNAProductions
2019-03-03, 12:04 AM
Vixayne look fine. A little overtuned, but nothing gamebreaking.

Cane, though... 40' is fast, and DOUBLE PROFICIENCY TO-HIT? That is bonkers. That's pretty much a +2 magic weapon right at level 1, and it just gets better as you level.

As for why they're steamrolling encounters, how many a day do they have?

KittenMagician
2019-03-03, 12:42 AM
Vixayne look fine. A little overtuned, but nothing gamebreaking.

Cane, though... 40' is fast, and DOUBLE PROFICIENCY TO-HIT? That is bonkers. That's pretty much a +2 magic weapon right at level 1, and it just gets better as you level.

As for why they're steamrolling encounters, how many a day do they have?

to be honest even with a crazy high to hit the barabarian didnt actually do nearly as much damage as the warlock. even on a 2 encounter a day with or without a short rest in between they weren't taking enough damage they couldnt cover and werent using a lot of spells either. the cleric barely had to heal and mostly just used toll the dead with a spiritual weapon on the battlefield. im definitely gonna tone down the Cane stuff but even so they were steamrolling a little too hard.

the CR16 fight was against a Marileth in pretty close confines (no running away) the barbarian only ever landed one hit for a total of about 14-16 damage. the marileths parry ability pretty much prevented him from doing anything else. most of the damage against her was done by the warlock. she had hex and hexblades curse (a nice little +3 damage)

JNAProductions
2019-03-03, 12:43 AM
There you go. The math of 5E assumes around 6 encounters a day, with two short rests in there.

Not one or two.

KittenMagician
2019-03-03, 12:47 AM
There you go. The math of 5E assumes around 6 encounters a day, with two short rests in there.

Not one or two.

thats 2 really high CR (compared to their level) fights even back to back without a rest crushed fine.

Zhorn
2019-03-03, 02:21 PM
How many rounds did they go for, and how many attacks was the enemy getting per round?
Building off what JNAProductions is saying; even with a large gap in expected CR for the group's capability, action economy still plays a huge part in the bounded accuracy model.
More attacks = more chances for damage to get through
More targets = more actions needed to 'eliminate' threats
Multiple targets = harder for the party to 'control' the battle field to keep combat on their own terms

KittenMagician
2019-03-04, 07:05 PM
How many rounds did they go for, and how many attacks was the enemy getting per round?
Building off what JNAProductions is saying; even with a large gap in expected CR for the group's capability, action economy still plays a huge part in the bounded accuracy model.
More attacks = more chances for damage to get through
More targets = more actions needed to 'eliminate' threats
Multiple targets = harder for the party to 'control' the battle field to keep combat on their own terms

it was a 30ft radius arena with marileth on on side and my team on the other. only the warlock, and fighter had 2 attacks a turn. the cleric had spiritual weapon for bonus action but it didnt hit very often. i only had one target but there was no running away. no matter where i went it could catch me. it went for a total of 3 or 4 rounds (that would be 3 or 4 turns for the marileth)

Beastlands
2019-03-05, 12:36 AM
This does sound like a case of too few encounters. Try adding some smaller encounters that expend some resources, then send something a bit harder... after they have expended resources it will be harder for them to burst the creatures down.

Lord Maze
2019-03-05, 01:07 AM
it was a 30ft radius arena with marileth on on side and my team on the other. only the warlock, and fighter had 2 attacks a turn. the cleric had spiritual weapon for bonus action but it didnt hit very often. i only had one target but there was no running away. no matter where i went it could catch me. it went for a total of 3 or 4 rounds (that would be 3 or 4 turns for the marileth)

In my experience, straight damage and HP isn't enough to tackle a full party. Players are clever (in combat... let's not talk about burning taverns), and just dishing out a huge amount of damage is predictable AND preventable (Especially with Barbarian + Cleric combo, without taking in consideration the mystic class which is very powerful). Also, Less creatures = less problems to deal with, they can just use all ressources to CC and damage the one boss.

Legendary actions and Lair actions are mandatory for solo boss encounters. Players will be punished more easily and it will be more interactive.

It is also important to use all ressources you have at hands, your players are pretty powerful (Special races + lvl 1 feat and good combos). So if Marilith summons demons, it should be important to read all these demons abilities and use them to give Marilith the edge in battle or make things more interesting.

Personally, i do not like preparing 3+ encounters per day (except for dungeons) so i tend to complicate things a little with special objectives, environmental effects, interesting map, more than one priority target (Ok this mage is a pain in the ass, but there is also dangerous archers AND a brute currently takling our leader, what should i do ?)


In brief, solo big bosses should be buffed, but not damage/HP : you should use or add flavourful / powerful abilities that might disorient the group. An adventuring group should have more than one problem to deal with at the same time (if full on ressources).

KittenMagician
2019-03-05, 07:30 PM
In my experience, straight damage and HP isn't enough to tackle a full party. Players are clever (in combat... let's not talk about burning taverns), and just dishing out a huge amount of damage is predictable AND preventable (Especially with Barbarian + Cleric combo, without taking in consideration the mystic class which is very powerful). Also, Less creatures = less problems to deal with, they can just use all ressources to CC and damage the one boss.

Legendary actions and Lair actions are mandatory for solo boss encounters. Players will be punished more easily and it will be more interactive.

It is also important to use all ressources you have at hands, your players are pretty powerful (Special races + lvl 1 feat and good combos). So if Marilith summons demons, it should be important to read all these demons abilities and use them to give Marilith the edge in battle or make things more interesting.

Personally, i do not like preparing 3+ encounters per day (except for dungeons) so i tend to complicate things a little with special objectives, environmental effects, interesting map, more than one priority target (Ok this mage is a pain in the ass, but there is also dangerous archers AND a brute currently takling our leader, what should i do ?)


In brief, solo big bosses should be buffed, but not damage/HP : you should use or add flavourful / powerful abilities that might disorient the group. An adventuring group should have more than one problem to deal with at the same time (if full on ressources).

actually this is extraordinarily helpful. i was just running this with my girlfriend to test some things out mechanically but i had me worried about the campaign i dm as i dont want fights to be too easy.