u/sad_lemon_lime

Unable to load extensionmusic-player-adrf.onrender.com

Just giving me this error. Worked fine before.

Been playing with this guy for a campaign. He started roleplaying bard, and really got into it.

Soo, he started to write poetry for when he performs. Not a single verse, but whole ballads for 2-3 minutes at a time. No one batted an eye at first, since we're pretty chill table and try not to mess when other people take time to roleplay in the way that does it for them.

And master made a big mistake there by giving inspiration for it. Since no one objected and master even encouraged the behaviour, the player took it as a greenlight and increased the amount of amateur poetry we took each session to about 3-4 original creations.

And that's the point where we as a group is in difficult situation - discussing it above the table would definitely result in admitting that we do not really care for his(honestly not that bad) poetry. And he is a bit touchy on the subject and no one really wants to be the guy to bring him down.

Last session though, we had to stop the session for 15 minutes, since he rolled for performance, didn't have anything on hand and was dead set on creating it on the fly.

Soo, while pausing the game can be corrected without touching the topic of his art and will be dealt with by 1on1 with DM, I'm still going to be sitting through poetry sessions for a campaign, since the guy is not that bad, and the game is fun.

Might not sound to horrendous, but the situation where it's just not that bad to actually stop it forcefully, while watching as the situation grows worse in the hope that campaign ends before real disaster occurs, makes me kinda frightened.

My player argues that since other fullcasters get subclasses with second attacks, it only fits for war domain to have one.
I looked at it and honestly war domain does seem a bit weak. Bonus spell list is unimpressive, no good features. Bonus Action melee attack is fine but long rest restricted. 17th level is neat but won't really make a decent meleer from cleric.

So, why clerics lack second attack by design, am I missing some imba-combo, or allowing it won't hurt much?

Gnome. Because Savethrows, with our high dex, proficiency in con we cover everything except strength.

Str 8 Dex 15(+1) Con 14 Int 10 Wis 8 Cha 15(+2)
Origin Feat: Musician, boosts everyone!

l1. Fighter. Con saves, medium armor, shield, defensive style
l2,3,4 Bard, Glamour, growing, casting a bit, fighting a bit
l5 Bard4, Inspiring Leader, boosts everyone even more! Our build is almost complete
l6,7 Bard6, from here on out we shine. BA Command to drop down enemy, Booming Blade with advantage and +1d6/+2d6 damage 15(med armor)+2Dex+2(Shield)+1(style)=20 Armor, with two items(so easy +1 on each) makes us untouchable and somewhat damagey even on turns when we don't use spells
l8 Fighter2 for sweet Tactical Mind making us godlike in skills and action surge to dodge/disengage in a pinch
l9+ bard only. Cause we're already two levels behind.

I'm thinking of building him for dual wielding with nick and vex, and using ba+attack to make beastie attack twice(GM ruling that it's allowed).

But I'm struggling as to how to make this effective mechanically.

Beastie is fragile and is doing maybe the same damage as a weapon without any magic effects. And as a ranger - same goes for me, since I won't be having a shield and is restricted to light/medium armors.

So the question is, what kinds of origin/general feats and specie mixes well with this kind of play and how to make it on par with say fighter with magic weapons.

A lot of discussion revolves around optimizing a char, but how would you optimize the whole party? And as a Master, what challenges you would use to counter such a party
I'll start!

Race: Gnomes only! Save or suck sucks. You get godly protection from those, nothing beats that.

1. Dance Bard: mainly because initiative matters and with it we often guarantee that whole team goes before monsters. Free unarmed pokes and repositioning is great as well.

Feats: Musician, Inspiring Leader = free HP and heroic inspirations on every short rest

2. Ranger Hunter 5/Grave Domain Cleric 15: we want to have hunter to scan our enemies for immunities and pass without trace, and we get it by lvl 5 with extra attack to boot. After that - no reason to stay martial, so we switch to cleric, which will provide great debuff to enemy savethrows and grant full caster progression.

Feats: Alert: we want to go first to scan with huntermark or debuff savethrows, so switching with best initiative throw guarantees it, Telepathic: spread the knowledge of enemy weaknesses instantly!

3. Genie Paladin: Savethrow bonus is too big to pass and we want a big emanation, so no multi, genie gives us resistance to elemental damage which is situational but great, improves smites and grants arguably the best ability in game: Minor WIsh
   Feats: dealer's pick but ASIs since we really want 20Cha 20St

4. 1Arti/19 wizard diviner - sorcerer would be better, but we want int character to round out our skills, having access to all the rituals is great and it's still a full caster. 1lvl of Arti for armor and con proficiency, since this one is squishiest of our team.

Feats: Skilled

So with this we have one melee specialist and two half-specialists. All the skills covered with proficiency+max ability and some with expertise, three full-casters, insane saves and great initiative. What could be done better? How to counter such a party(except with rock falls, everyone dies)

I'm generally playing fullcasters only - researched options when first started and picked what seemed best.

But we're starting new campaign(1-15 probably) soon, and other players all really want to be fullcasters, so I'm pondering if being only martial could be fun.

But reading different options I kinda fail to see the appeal.

Weapon mastery - one level dip solves that for magicers
Fighting styles - a 2-3 dmg per hit not really something to write home about
Double attack at 5 - casters get theirs just one level later
Tripple attack at 11 - well, kinda fun, but casters get their big spells at that time

Paladin seems great with his Auras and Smites, but he just begs to multiclass into bard or sorcerer after 6, but it's again the return to my spellcaster dependency.

So how to build a martial, so it's as fun and powerful as magic users? What I miss?

So my necro player is up to returning to his nurturing home. I decided to go with hidden village which is not really evil, just curious in raising the dead. So stuff like skeletons tending the fields, working in mines with pretty happy citizens working in management, maybe with some rings of spell storing, provided by the school.

What sources have something like this to draw inspiration from?

I think I missed a bit of important info

1. Where the emperor was, when Shi clan kerfuffle was happening? Seems like a big enough deal for emperor to be included

2. What was the point behind Jinshi eunuch cosplay? It doesn't seem to affect anything

I want to immerse myself in the life of pre-war empire, could you suggest good books to learn about:

- everyday life of different classes(working, higher, clergy. etc)

- politics(what were hot topics in parliament at the time, which important decisions were made), who were

- life of London, main districts, better yet with maps

- Sources like newspaper archive, if it is accessible online