D&D 5E Questions about 5thEd from a Noob

Nagol · Sep 26, 2018

ElterAgo said:
Aha, I missed the Ritual Caster feat. So if my (for example) Eldritch Knight will be casting wizard spells with his spell slots. But he doesn't have a book and is stuck each day with the ones he knows. However, I can take the Ritual Caster feat and chose say cleric spells to write in his book. That would be assuming his wisdom was high enough to cast them. Correct?

You would need a 13 Wisdom for the feat, but there is no minimum ability requirement to cast a spell. An 8-Int Wizard is viable even if his saving throw DCs are particularly low.

TwoSix · Sep 26, 2018

ElterAgo said:
Aha, I missed the Ritual Caster feat. So if my (for example) Eldritch Knight will be casting wizard spells with his spell slots. But he doesn't have a book and is stuck each day with the ones he knows. However, I can take the Ritual Caster feat and chose say cleric spells to write in his book. That would be assuming his wisdom was high enough to cast them. Correct?

Sure, but note that there's no synergy whatsoever between your Eldritch Knight spells and the Ritual Caster (Cleric) spells. You can write cleric ritual spells in your ritual book, and cast them as rituals. It has absolutely no impact on what's available to cast with your EK slots.

Also note that the concept of "needing a high enough stat to cast a spell" does NOT exist in 5e. You can be a Int 6 wizard or a Wis 8 cleric if you want.

ElterAgo · Sep 26, 2018

Jester David said:
Correct. This is not codified. The PCs can’t just throw a dice and recognize a brand new monster from the latest book along with their weaknesses,

If the DM rules, a character can make an Intelligence (Arcana) check, or Religion to identify a monster. But the DM sets the DC and decides what’s revealed.
...

Hmm... I will say that I always thought PF made it too easy to know about monsters. But unless it is just the particular GM's I've seen, I think 5thEd is making it too tough.
So far I haven't seen anyone able to learn anything useful about any monster (even if it is common to the area) we've encountered so far. For example: how many stories, legends, books are there about ghosts in the real world. But no one in our party or even researching in a magic heavy bookstore has been able to learn anything at all. So we are currently just trying to ignore the ghost in our house.

ElterAgo · Sep 26, 2018

TwoSix said:
Sure, but note that there's no synergy whatsoever between your Eldritch Knight spells and the Ritual Caster (Cleric) spells. You can write cleric ritual spells in your ritual book, and cast them as rituals. It has absolutely no impact on what's available to cast with your EK slots....

Yeah, I was just thinking that if we had a group that was completely devoid of a whole classification of spells, that might be a way to get a few of them. At least outside of combat.

TwoSix said:
... Also note that the concept of "needing a high enough stat to cast a spell" does NOT exist in 5e. You can be a Int 6 wizard or a Wis 8 cleric if you want.

Whoops. Totally missed that. Thanks.

ad_hoc · Sep 26, 2018

ElterAgo said:
1) There are no 'monster knowledge' skills. So unless the players metagame from reading the monster manual or have already encountered a type of creature. There isn't anyway of knowing anything about them. How they act. What they can do. What they are resistant to. What they are vulnerable to. Etc... Is that right? That seems to be assuming the PC's are pretty damn stupid. So our group has just found there is a ghost in our house and are pretty much stuck just trying things at random to get rid of it. Because there is no way to know anything about them?!?

Either just ask the DM what your character knows about them, or if you like ask if you can remember about the article in the book you once read on the malevolent undead. The DM will then either tell you, say that not much is known, or have you make an ability check.

2) There doesn't seem to be much variation in some of the basic builds if you want to be effective. I've talked to a few people about their characters so far. All three of the archers I've seen are almost identical in what they have done so far and what they are planning to do with their build in the future. The few clerics, bards, and warlocks we've discussed are also pretty darn similar. Is this typical or just coincidence?

5e is built on story and narrative first and then mechanics not the other way around. Who is your character? Don't neglect backgrounds either, they are important. 2 traits, ideal, bond, and flaw is a lot of differentiation.

3) The only book caster is the wizard correct? So all these spellbooks we are finding are basically useless (no wizard in our group). True?

Warlock has an invocation. If you use feats, there is one of those too.

4) My wife is new to RPG's in general She loved the idea of the ranger's animal companion. But since it never advances in any respect, by the time you can get it or at least fairly soon thereafter is seems like it will be nearly unsurvivable and pretty ineffective. Then we read that having it do anything other than follow you around uses up the PC's action. Is that really correct? That seems way useless for a major feature of the class.

It does advance. It is very useful in the exploration pillar. It is useful in combat too. It can still take reactions for example so can OA. It can protect vulnerable party members or flank around to impose disadvantage on enemy ranged creatures. Etc.

5) If I am reading this correctly, your 2 good saves will go up both with your proficiency bonus and because you will probably increase those stats. But your other 4 saves never increase at all. Really? That seems like just random chance with higher level enemies (with higher save DC's) you should be failing 2 out of 3 saves. Against any intelligent enemy, you should be failing almost every single save. Any wizard is going to throw a spell at your fighter that doesn't target Str or Con, so you are just screwed. Am I missing something here?

Just play the game. It works out. It is not like 3e, you shouldn't compare it.

6) The wizard, cleric, and druid can change which spells they want to have ready each game day. The wizard is limited to what he has written in his spell book. The cleric and druid are not. Is this correct?

Yes. This is a D&Dism and it occurs in 3e too. Maybe not Pathfinder I guess?

7) All the other casters have the same spells every game day once they have been chosen. Correct?

I don't understand the question. Are you asking about spells known? Those classes can cast any of their spells known and may swap one out on each level up.

8) Ritual magic. Ok, each time I think I understand this, someone 'explains' it again and I am more confused than before. Can I get a clear explanation on what this is, how it is handled, and which characters can do it?

Characters who have a class feature to cast ritual spells. Spells with the ritual tag. Takes 10 minutes to cast. Doesn't use up a spell slot.

...
...

My #1 recommendation is to forget everything about 3e or Pathfiner or whatever.

5e is a different game. Even if it uses similar language they often mean different things.

Also, it really helps to play a 1st party adventure to start out.

ElterAgo · Sep 26, 2018

Jester David said:
...
5e is less based on “builds”.
Characters are differentiated by their personality, the random treasure they acquire, and how they are played. It’s much more like 1e D&D in that respect.
...

Ok, not totally against that. Mostly just making sure I understood correctly. I try to make sure all of my characters in any game system all have unique recognizable personalities. Also I do like needing to make use of the magic items found rather than the everything available magic item shops.

However, I will say that building wierd characters is one of the things I like about PathFinder. When I have a couple hours of travel dead time for work, I can think about combinations of abilities to see if they might give something useful. That doesn't seem to be much of a possibility with 5thEd. I'm going to play X for this campaign. Ok, here is the build.

ad_hoc · Sep 26, 2018

ElterAgo said:
Ok, not totally against that. Mostly just making sure I understood correctly. I try to make sure all of my characters in any game system all have unique recognizable personalities. Also I do like needing to make use of the magic items found rather than the everything available magic item shops.

However, I will say that building wierd characters is one of the things I like about PathFinder. When I have a couple hours of travel dead time for work, I can think about combinations of abilities to see if they might give something useful. That doesn't seem to be much of a possibility with 5thEd. I'm going to play X for this campaign. Ok, here is the build.

That's right.

5e is about play at the table.

There is also a lot more room to do things. You don't need a button on your sheet in order to do something. For example, you don't 'use skills' you just say what the character is doing. Then the DM tells you what happens.

ElterAgo · Sep 26, 2018

ad_hoc said:
...
5e is built on story and narrative first and then mechanics not the other way around. Who is your character? Don't neglect backgrounds either, they are important. 2 traits, ideal, bond, and flaw is a lot of differentiation. ...

It could make a lot of differentiation internally in how a player makes his decision process on what his/her character is going to do.
I am not seeing much significant differentiation in game play around the table. Some, but not a lot.

ad_hoc said:
...
Also, it really helps to play a 1st party adventure to start out.

Currently in a group playing Dragon Heist.

Jester David · Sep 26, 2018

ElterAgo said:
However, I will say that building wierd characters is one of the things I like about PathFinder. When I have a couple hours of travel dead time for work, I can think about combinations of abilities to see if they might give something useful. That doesn't seem to be much of a possibility with 5thEd. I'm going to play X for this campaign. Ok, here is the build.

The thoughts of the designers was to focus on play at the table rather than away from the table. Because there's lots of things people can do with dead time now everyone has the equivalent of Cray 2 Supercomputers in their pant pockets.

The thing is, designing funky characters is fun. But that degree of flexibility makes it harder to level up at the table. And levelling up can feel like homework. ("Okay, you're level 8. Go home and read through three dozen feats and a dozen rogue powers and pick your next options.") In my 5e game, I'll often let people level up in the middle of a session.

If I'm musing about a character that I'm likely not going to play (which is often as I don't make new characters that often), it's easy to just do so in Pathfinder. Sure it's a different system, but it's likely to see as much action in a game. Well... honestly, I also spend that time also thinking about new subclasses and designing new options. Because why build a weird character when I can design balanced mechanics for one?

77IM · Sep 26, 2018

ElterAgo said:
However, I will say that building wierd characters is one of the things I like about PathFinder. When I have a couple hours of travel dead time for work, I can think about combinations of abilities to see if they might give something useful. That doesn't seem to be much of a possibility with 5thEd. I'm going to play X for this campaign. Ok, here is the build.

If this is what you're into, there are abundant thirdparty products containing feats, subclasses, whole entire classes, etc. that you could piece together to make interesting characters.

Some of that material is broken as hell, but you could view that as just another layer of complexity (can you vet the thirdparty material for balance AND try to build broken characters with it at the same time? or is that like playing chess against yourself?).