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

[ccs]

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.

That's a problem on your DMs end. Discuss it with them.
Also:
Try interacting with the ghost. See what you can learn that way.

 

[MNblockhead]

Personally I allow PCs to cast spells out of a book as if they were a scroll, but it's a house rule.

Interesting. Does that consume the spell? If so, I think I like it. Otherwise, I think it moves the Wizard's cheese too much. That's the Wizard's whole schtick: applying intense study to learn to capture magic in writing and in memory.

With scrolls, in my game, it is not that the, say, INT 8 fighter can "read" it, but rather that their focus on it and willing the scrolls into action, the spell is released. Writing a spell down is casting it but freezing it in place before it "goes off." A non-complete spell cast.

I could see that recording a spell in your spellbook is similar. That would up the stakes for a Wizard to spend the time and money on making copies and zealously preventing access to their spellbook. It could lead to some memorable and meaningful scenes. The wizard goes down. The entire party is in peril. So one of the party members casts a spell from the Wizards spellbook, which saves them, but now the wizard has lost that spell.

 

[ccs]

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?

I'd say it's fairly typical. But it's not at all a 5e problem. See, players (of whatever system), often tend to fall into the thought trap I highlighted in red above.
To avoid this? Stop looking at character creation/advancement & play as a math problem. You're character is not a "build". Instead, consider "What could I take that would best represent the character I'm playing?" Take that. Even if it doesn't add more +s to hit/dam.

For ex: In our Fri night game I'm playing a very effective lv.8 barbarian.
Ok, I bet I know what you're envisioning - a hulking brute (maybe 1/2orc) with maxed out str, swinging a big weapon, & lightly armored. Probably took the GWM feat. That'd certainly be effective.
Would it surprise you that my very effective barbarian is actually:
A LG 1/2ling with a good Cha wearing a breastplate typically fights with hand axe & shield (sometimes uses either a magic scimitar or spear) has a 14 str is proficient in arcana and has the healer & linguistic feats? Oh, and the path I've chosen is Ancestral Guardian.
To date I've had no trouble hitting or damaging foes. Nor have I had any trouble participating/being useful outside of combat.
Am I rolling to hit/dam with maxed out bonuses? Nope (nor do I need to be). But the choices I've made very accurately depict the character I'm envisioning. How I play makes me effective. And often enough more-so than other characters with higher modifiers....

 

[Li Shenron]

1) By design, because in editions where monsters knowledge skills were codified there was always a risk to have a PC maximise those skills and spoil the fun of monsters uncertainty. 5e leaves it up to the DM to decide if and how you can roll to know something about a newly encountered creature.

2) Depends what you mean by effective. If you mean you can contribute significantly to the game, every choice is effective. If you mean you can contribute significantly to combat, obviously only combat-oriented choices are effective. If you mean optimised or if you are concerned only with DPR, keep playing 3e/5e.

3) True as it has always been. If you have no use for a piece of loot, sell it or trade it.

4) The Beastmaster archetype is commonly thought to represent a Ranger with a pet. It doesn't. Either by design or mistake, it works better to represent a Ranger with a disposable cannon fodder at no cost (gp or roleplay). If your wife wants a Ranger (or whatever) with a pet, she'll have a much better time asking the DM for an animal NPC companion.

5) By design also. It can be tough at high levels although you can boost the low saves with feats, ASI and magic items. However the difference between in low and high saves in 5e is not that huge.

6) Yes, and also Paladins, just like older editions and I suppose PF too.

7) Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Rangers and subclasses. Generally speaking, those who know few spells have them all prepared. It's not really an advantage, because those who must prepare spells they normally prepare more than the spells known by the former.

8) A spell with the Ritual property can be cast without using a daily slot if you accept to take an extra 10 minutes to the casting time. You need to have this ability called Ritual Casting to do so, otherwise you can only cast them normally (which is always an option anyway). Wizards don't even need to have those spells prepared to cast them as Rituals.

 

[Oofta]

Interesting. Does that consume the spell?

Yes,we treat it just like a scroll.

 

[jasper]

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.

No. Most monsters take half damage from off the rack weapons, so hit them twice.
I have also seen Adventure League Adventures of using history, religion, arcana checks to help out the pcs.

 

[toucanbuzz]

This'll duplicate some above material, but going with how my group adjudicates and/or the logic behind it all:

1) There are no 'monster knowledge' skills...

Sorta. Rather than a fixed table like 3rd/Pathfinder, it's organic, letting each group tailor it to their own playstyles. But there is monster knowledge: the Ranger has "advantage" on Intelligence checks to recall information about "favored enemies;" the Battlemaster can study an enemy and learn details about a foe. It's up to the DM how much or little is given in a knowledge check about a monster. Rather than pausing combat to reference a table, the DM has a lot of leeway to adjudicate this. D&D is big on not turning the game into Law and Order by searching for a Rule every five minutes.

1. DM could say you only get lore, like whether they travel in packs or what languages they speak. You don't get combat mechanics.
2. The DM could assign the basic DC checks (10/15/20) and on the fly give out something. DC 10 (easy) is common knowledge, like everyone knows a werewolf can only be hurt by silver, or DC 15 (moderate), a werewolf can transmit its disease through its bite only, not its claws, or DC 20 (difficult), a werewolf's disease is a special curse.
3. What we do:Personally, I don't ever want to slow the game down. I might ask the player if there's any good reason they'd know about ghosts. If all the player says is "I attended my great-aunt's funeral," that's not enough, but if they say "I can cast a necromantic spell and as part of my studies they made me spend time on chapters involving undead. Maybe I picked up something there." Roll it, 10/15/20 Intel check and we'll see. I also follow the optional +5 rule that says if your ability score is 5 or better than the check, you auto succeed. Genius characters will know a lot and it saves time, so long as the player reminds me.

2) There doesn't seem to be much variation in some of the basic builds if you want to be effective...

D&D 5th isn't supposed to be about the "build." I believe there's a Mike Mearls design interview that recently popped up about this. Make an interesting character and it won't matter if you have 3 archers with the same stats. And, after several years of play, there isn't a "right" or "wrong" cleric or wizard. Seriously, people are going to be fine playing anything they want. Coming from Pathfinder to D&D as well, that's been an adjustment for my players, but we all specifically wanted that.

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?

Others answered part #1, but spellbooks are never useless. This should be an opportunity for some roleplay. Maybe the kobold shaman would be willing to grant safe passage if you bribe him with a spellbook. Maybe some apprentice would be willing to steal from his master's potion closet to swap you for that book. Use it as a chance for more roleplay, a side adventure. Don't perceive everything as loot to be equipped or put in the trash pile and hopefully the DM will feed off this creativity.

4) My wife is new to RPG's in general She loved the idea of the ranger's animal companion...

Yeah, it's Rules Action Economy, but disagree the pet sucks. The pet is pretty strong at lower levels, probably stronger in its attack than the character. Let's use the Wolf at Ranger 3rd level. Our Buffed Wolf has +6 attack, does 2d4+4 damage, has 18 hit points (max), can knock enemies prone, and gets Advantage next to allies. That's a killer superior to your ranger, who likely with a 16 attribute has a +5 attack, does 1d8+3 damage, and maybe has 21 hit points with no special attacks like our wolf. So, your character gets to choose: do I attack or does my Pet attack? (At 3rd level, the Wolf attack rocks). It wouldn't be balanced Action Economy if you found a way to get 2 strong attacks and everyone else has 1 Action. I know it sounds silly, you order your Pet to attack and then it won't keep attacking (unless it's an AoO, which makes even less sense, right?). But the Rules were written for a reason to keep an Action imbalance from happening. Not saying its perfect or that someone couldn't house rule pets that scale better into high levels. Also, note, your Pet will defend you if you go to 0 hit points, and you're the only class that can say that you can still get attacks when incapacitated. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

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?...

Yep, by design they don't need to. With Bounded Accuracy, the numbers stay within reason. Coming from Pathfinder, this was a jolt, but it works. And, it ensures you're always vulnerable to something. Remember, this works for monsters too. Most don't get any save bonuses at all except their ability scores.

6), 7), 8) nothing to add.

 

[ElterAgo]

No. Most monsters take half damage from off the rack weapons, so hit them twice.
...

So far bolts, blades, and burning torches go through the ghost with no observable effect.

 

[ElterAgo]

...
1. DM could say you only get lore, like whether they travel in packs or what languages they speak. You don't get combat mechanics.
2. The DM could assign the basic DC checks (10/15/20) and on the fly give out something. DC 10 (easy) is common knowledge, like everyone knows a werewolf can only be hurt by silver, or DC 15 (moderate), a werewolf can transmit its disease through its bite only, not its claws, or DC 20 (difficult), a werewolf's disease is a special curse.
...

Maybe I need to have a discussion with our DM. So far it has been essentially no information regardless of reasoning, skill, or roll.

...
D&D 5th isn't supposed to be about the "build." I believe there's a Mike Mearls design interview that recently popped up about this. Make an interesting character and it won't matter if you have 3 archers with the same stats. And, after several years of play, there isn't a "right" or "wrong" cleric or wizard. Seriously, people are going to be fine playing anything they want. Coming from Pathfinder to D&D as well, that's been an adjustment for my players, but we all specifically wanted that....

I'm not totally against that. Though I like the intricacies of build mechanics (engineer, go figure), I understand that many do not. I think that is one of the specific things that attracted my friend that is trying 5thEd with me.

...Others answered part #1, but spellbooks are never useless. This should be an opportunity for some roleplay. Maybe the kobold shaman would be willing to grant safe passage if you bribe him with a spellbook. Maybe some apprentice would be willing to steal from his master's potion closet to swap you for that book. Use it as a chance for more roleplay, a side adventure. Don't perceive everything as loot to be equipped or put in the trash pile and hopefully the DM will feed off this creativity....

Except that right now, I am playing in Adventurer's League and apparently you don't get to keep anything you find. I could copy the spells from the found spellbook into my spellbook (if I had one), but otherwise it just goes away.

...Yeah, it's Rules Action Economy, but disagree the pet sucks. The pet is pretty strong at lower levels, probably stronger in its attack than the character. Let's use the Wolf at Ranger 3rd level. Our Buffed Wolf has +6 attack, does 2d4+4 damage, has 18 hit points (max), can knock enemies prone, and gets Advantage next to allies. That's a killer superior to your ranger, who likely with a 16 attribute has a +5 attack, does 1d8+3 damage, and maybe has 21 hit points with no special attacks like our wolf. So, your character gets to choose: do I attack or does my Pet attack? (At 3rd level, the Wolf attack rocks). It wouldn't be balanced Action Economy if you found a way to get 2 strong attacks and everyone else has 1 Action. I know it sounds silly, you order your Pet to attack and then it won't keep attacking (unless it's an AoO, which makes even less sense, right?). But the Rules were written for a reason to keep an Action imbalance from happening. Not saying its perfect or that someone couldn't house rule pets that scale better into high levels. Also, note, your Pet will defend you if you go to 0 hit points, and you're the only class that can say that you can still get attacks when incapacitated. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle. ...

Ok, I am missing something here.
I'm looking at the wolf.
+4 to hit for 2d4+2
AC is only 13
Hitpoints are only 13
The Str DC to not be knocked prone is only an 11.
That's quite a bit worse than my archer ranger.

Where are you getting the higher numbers and the 'advantage' on attacks?

 

[ElterAgo]

...
Also:
Try interacting with the ghost. See what you can learn that way.

So far, all it does is serve us rancid poisonous ale when we try to interact.