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I was thinking about what could make a ranger feel unique mechanically. Being a generally tough, high-damage combatant is covered by fighters, and the current ranger Hunter mechanics don't feel (to me) like they create a distinctive role in combat. If a ranger's "thing" is deeply understanding...

Conjure Animals and Conjure Woodland Beings are quite overpowered for their levels if the caster gets to choose exactly which creatures show up. My initial assumption for those spells was that the caster could choose -- when in doubt, give players agency -- but it's not explicitly stated that...

I think you have both of them be strong as long as you play with the action economy. Essentially, you have a character who can act as either forest ninja (somewhat less of a ninja than a solo ranger) or wolf tank each round but it's not like you have both of them in the party taking full sets...

I think of the ranger's "thing" as knowing her enemies and environment and creating advantages out of that. The tough part is: how do you turn that into mechanical effects that feel flavorful? If you have bonuses against specific types of enemies, that feels flavorful but has the metagame...

Yes, if you take your bonus unarmed strike from Martial Arts, it can happen before your regular attacks (just like the Shield Master shove). But you can't take the Martial Arts attack and then decide to use your action for something else (e.g. Quivering Palm). You've already chosen that your...

Almost every bonus action with a trigger says "when you do X, you can take bonus action Y", so you can do them in any order. Flurry of Blows is explicit, though, that it happens after you take the triggering Attack action. I suspect the reason they made the order explicit for Flurry is so that...

If you're assuming a previous round of setup and a target that fails its saves like in this example, Quivering Palm can reduce any creature directly to 0, and a monk can do that all day. If someone casts haste on her, she can do it to a new target every round. Stunning Strike is also extremely...

It sounds like a very painful process for both parties :).

Sure, "made the game more abstract" is a good way of describing what those kinds of abilities did in 4E. 5E certainly still has a lot of abstraction, but I think it generally stays much more concrete in terms of what happens when you take an action, and that gives combat a different feel.

IMO, 4E (which I liked!) had much more than 5E does of powers or abilities that bend reality without being magical. Things like the fighter's "Come and Get it" were the most infamous, but a lot of the warlord's powers were along those lines as well. Many of them were also directly related to...

As others have mentioned, Battle Master and Valor bard are the two things that get you pretty close in the current rules. In particular, I think a Battle Master with the Healer and Inspiring Leader and using maneuvers for Commander's Strike and Rally is a good fit. I think it would be pretty...

The reason to have the short sword in the other hand is because of how Martial Arts is worded: "When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action." If you make both of your attacks with a rapier, then you haven't...

All of the examples were for a level 5+ monk with Extra Attack, and the only bonus action attack was for martial arts -- which is always an unarmed strike -- in the second example without shadow step. The advantage of the rapier is that once or twice per round (depending on the situation), you...

None of this is using two weapon fighting. It's just making attacks with one-handed weapons and then possibly getting an extra attack from martial arts -- there's never an extra attack from TWF. To clarify, comparing a monk with just a short sword (and one empty hand) to a monk with a rapier...

Sounds like your players are interested in a "player vs. game" style of play that's a bit more MMO-like. They want clear progression in character power levels that's under their control and not subject to DM whim. As others have said, it's fine if 5E just isn't the style of game they want to...

If you're starting at higher levels, then there are times when multiclassing in one order is clearly better than another (like your rogue/monk example). Usually the most important part of the order, though, is what your character is like while you're leveling. If you want to get to rogue 5 /...

Casting a spell at +1 level works well for many spells but not all. To make it more universal, you could say that the spell slot required is at -1 level (minimum 1). So it works out the same if you want to boost the level of your spells, but it also lets you get a benefit for spells that don't...

With standard initiative it's cyclical. You stabilize/die faster if your turn comes right after whatever knocked you down, not if you have a high absolute initiative. Same with status effects. It's a bit funky but never directly penalizes high initiative. It sounds like with your system...

For the Wolf Totem advantage? That's only on melee attack rolls, so it wouldn't work for a crossbow even if you're next to the target.

Barbarian/rogue is an interesting combo... using finesse weapons with strength for reckless sneak attack? Also, who was getting advantage from the Wolf Totem feature? Looks like no one else in the party was melee (maybe the cleric/bard). I was thinking a little more about sharpshooters with...