Zardnaar
Legend
Today we played D&D (any edition) for the 1st time in 4 months due to sickness in the family/RL stuff going on. I got to run 2 PCs and I posted this party composition the other day.
Halfling Fighter
Vuman Gemini (think fighter/Rogue)
Vuman Arcane Cleric
Half Elf Bard
Level 1. All of them however were trained in stealth with 14-18 dexterity. The Vumans both took Arcane Initiate as their 1st level spell. I got to play 2 PCs.
Dwil "Rats" Tealeaf.
Rats had a harsh upbringing raised as an Urchin on the mean streets of Lyris. While he has a strong code of ethics his morality tends to be survival of the fittest. While he likes posing as a charitable being he is more concerned about appearances and honour. Dwill is known as Rats as he acquired a taste for them and considers himself as a pioneer of rata fondue his favourite dish. While Rats is LE in alignment but likes to present himself as LG hiding his more nefarious deeds. While loyal and honest to a fault with his deals Rats murdered a relatively innocent guard during a heist while posing as a human child. Rats tends to use twin short swords in battle and/or a combination of daggers while sneaking. Rats is a fighter who will likely become a champion next level (currently 2). Will probably try and form or take over a local crime syndicate.
Arturo D'Val
Arturo is a Gemini (fighter/Rogue type) who is an entertainer and considers himself as an "face" a person who is popular, charismatic and talented in regards to his arts. While he often plays second string in performances with Eliza (the bard), he is known to embellish the truth a bit claiming to be trained by the famous troubadour Curtis Cobainis a famous Thyatian performer whose life was tragically cut short due to an scene involving 3,4 or was it 6 Ogres (varies by time, place and location). While he is CN he has a soft spot for those weaker than him and has good tendencies despite his tendency towards being mercenary and his alternative lifestyle (basically booze and other intoxicants). Eliza can usually persuade him to do the right thing much to Rats disgust.
The guts of this party is that all of them are trained in stealth and wear no armour (Arturo), through to chain shirts at the heaviest. Our 1st task was to deal with some armed squatters that had taken over a house of a local mage. It turns out the squatters were members of the Black Rose a local thieves guild. Lyris has huge wealth disparity and the slave trade is legal and the members of the "Fragant flowers of Darkness" does not mind a more active version of trickle down economics. Lyris also have a church of Lathender that is active at night with a heretical holy symbol.
However the Mage was paying very well and we did not discover the goals and motivations of the Black Rose society until later. The basic idea of this group is to not fight fair since a lot of damage is d6 or 1d4 based. The mages house was occupied with some of the worlds worst squatters who were drunk and asleep sometimes. While striking for non lethal damage some of them were inadvertently killed by sacred flames. Still with several perception checks the level adventure was mostly skill checks and surprise rounds, round 1 was the middle of the fight while round 2 was usually the end of the fight. Encounters ranged from 1 bandit through to 4 bandits and a thug. Sleep under performed and only knocked out a single bandit. The "Thorny Plants of Shadow" ruffians were evicted with a couple of fatalities. The reward was a +1 raier, a common magic item each from Xanathars (Rats got excited with the hat of Vermin but you can't eat the rat).
We levelled up and of course the next job involved some investigation where we ended up taking a job from the "Umbra Flora" society. A local nobleman was throwing an birthday party for his 16 year old daughter and he was looking at hiring minstrels. Of course we had to audition which we nailed with a DC 28 perform check (bard dice+guidance+aid another performing as a duet). We won and it was off to the noblemans house in order to rob his safe. So basically Robin hood. Rats while he respects the law and social order was raised as a street urchin and doesn't like nobles much, and we were offered 40% of the cut. The noble was also racist only really like humans and Elves so Rats was disguised as a human child (entertainers with disguise kits).
AT the party we split up to pump the attendees for information. An attendee from the nation of Altmark was there (think Prussia), along with a Drow who was ruored to be an assassin for Lord Cygnus who was the ruler of Lyris. The Noblemens daughter Elara was enchanted with Arturo and he had to evade her advances throughout the night. We had to make two performances for the night while Eliza put in an average performance (DC 14) earlier in the evening Arturo nailed his lead role in the second half (DC 28 matching her performance earlier). While we were singing away for the crowd Rats and Eliza were off to the noblemans safe. Botching the job (rolling low0 in regards to knocking the guard out unseen the guard had a fatal accident hitting his temple on the floor while under Rats care as Eliza was looting the safe. The safe contained a bag of holding, 5000 gp (we get 40% so 500 each) and some potions. Eventually the robbery was discovered but we figured fleeing the scene would look suspicious so e stayed behind and had good alibis performing in front of us and the only missing person was a human child (Rats removed his disguise after leaving the scene). No real combats just a botched ambush on the safe guard.
Turned out the money belonged to the Altmark envoy oops.
So 1 small combat adventure of aorund 6 encounters that got us to level 2 and a social encounter type scenario where we had to rob a racist nobleman that basically hangs around with polite society decadents. Lyris is not a very nice city it seems. The women want to make the world a better place, Arturo will likely go along with it, while Rats wants to elevate himself to a better social position (Guildmaster, Lord of Lyris, Grand High poobah etc).
We all went dex based and most encounters were 1-2 rounds after a surprise round. Dual wielding is very competitive early on PHB and we will be using some 3pp feats (weapon specialisation and small arms master), top make dex based melee a bit more viable in a world of sharpshooter, pole arm master, crossbow expert, shield master etc. The reason most of those feats exist IMHO is because of how good dex is (sharpshooter being an exception of course).
Level 1 can be a bit rough (any edition) but in 5E its short and why play fair? Sometimes we do kick in the door, go social, sometimes we go sneaky, or go and pitch a tent in the wilderness to get xp to get past level 1. With racial the sneaky types managed to get an 18 dex so at level 4 the 1st ASI will be used on feats, Rats the champion fighter will take 2 +1 feats achieving a 20 dex and 16 strength by level 6 while Arturo will have the sentinel feat and 20 dex at level 8.
Having a hwole party that can sneak in a system with bounded accuracy and passive perception socres of 11 or so makes it very easy to ninja your way around.
So moving away from the usual suspects for the powerful feats and using a 3pp class from EN5ider and some 3pp feats. Its a dollar and most of the feats here are actually useful without being as abusable as the -5/+10 feats.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185763/10-New-Feats-for-5th-Edition-DD
Also arcane cleric shillelagh beat down with GFB seems to work. Key your melee attacks off your wisdom in medium armor and add your wisdom modifier to splash damage using a staff because 5E.
Halfling Fighter
Vuman Gemini (think fighter/Rogue)
Vuman Arcane Cleric
Half Elf Bard
Level 1. All of them however were trained in stealth with 14-18 dexterity. The Vumans both took Arcane Initiate as their 1st level spell. I got to play 2 PCs.
Dwil "Rats" Tealeaf.
Rats had a harsh upbringing raised as an Urchin on the mean streets of Lyris. While he has a strong code of ethics his morality tends to be survival of the fittest. While he likes posing as a charitable being he is more concerned about appearances and honour. Dwill is known as Rats as he acquired a taste for them and considers himself as a pioneer of rata fondue his favourite dish. While Rats is LE in alignment but likes to present himself as LG hiding his more nefarious deeds. While loyal and honest to a fault with his deals Rats murdered a relatively innocent guard during a heist while posing as a human child. Rats tends to use twin short swords in battle and/or a combination of daggers while sneaking. Rats is a fighter who will likely become a champion next level (currently 2). Will probably try and form or take over a local crime syndicate.
Arturo D'Val
Arturo is a Gemini (fighter/Rogue type) who is an entertainer and considers himself as an "face" a person who is popular, charismatic and talented in regards to his arts. While he often plays second string in performances with Eliza (the bard), he is known to embellish the truth a bit claiming to be trained by the famous troubadour Curtis Cobainis a famous Thyatian performer whose life was tragically cut short due to an scene involving 3,4 or was it 6 Ogres (varies by time, place and location). While he is CN he has a soft spot for those weaker than him and has good tendencies despite his tendency towards being mercenary and his alternative lifestyle (basically booze and other intoxicants). Eliza can usually persuade him to do the right thing much to Rats disgust.
The guts of this party is that all of them are trained in stealth and wear no armour (Arturo), through to chain shirts at the heaviest. Our 1st task was to deal with some armed squatters that had taken over a house of a local mage. It turns out the squatters were members of the Black Rose a local thieves guild. Lyris has huge wealth disparity and the slave trade is legal and the members of the "Fragant flowers of Darkness" does not mind a more active version of trickle down economics. Lyris also have a church of Lathender that is active at night with a heretical holy symbol.
However the Mage was paying very well and we did not discover the goals and motivations of the Black Rose society until later. The basic idea of this group is to not fight fair since a lot of damage is d6 or 1d4 based. The mages house was occupied with some of the worlds worst squatters who were drunk and asleep sometimes. While striking for non lethal damage some of them were inadvertently killed by sacred flames. Still with several perception checks the level adventure was mostly skill checks and surprise rounds, round 1 was the middle of the fight while round 2 was usually the end of the fight. Encounters ranged from 1 bandit through to 4 bandits and a thug. Sleep under performed and only knocked out a single bandit. The "Thorny Plants of Shadow" ruffians were evicted with a couple of fatalities. The reward was a +1 raier, a common magic item each from Xanathars (Rats got excited with the hat of Vermin but you can't eat the rat).
We levelled up and of course the next job involved some investigation where we ended up taking a job from the "Umbra Flora" society. A local nobleman was throwing an birthday party for his 16 year old daughter and he was looking at hiring minstrels. Of course we had to audition which we nailed with a DC 28 perform check (bard dice+guidance+aid another performing as a duet). We won and it was off to the noblemans house in order to rob his safe. So basically Robin hood. Rats while he respects the law and social order was raised as a street urchin and doesn't like nobles much, and we were offered 40% of the cut. The noble was also racist only really like humans and Elves so Rats was disguised as a human child (entertainers with disguise kits).
AT the party we split up to pump the attendees for information. An attendee from the nation of Altmark was there (think Prussia), along with a Drow who was ruored to be an assassin for Lord Cygnus who was the ruler of Lyris. The Noblemens daughter Elara was enchanted with Arturo and he had to evade her advances throughout the night. We had to make two performances for the night while Eliza put in an average performance (DC 14) earlier in the evening Arturo nailed his lead role in the second half (DC 28 matching her performance earlier). While we were singing away for the crowd Rats and Eliza were off to the noblemans safe. Botching the job (rolling low0 in regards to knocking the guard out unseen the guard had a fatal accident hitting his temple on the floor while under Rats care as Eliza was looting the safe. The safe contained a bag of holding, 5000 gp (we get 40% so 500 each) and some potions. Eventually the robbery was discovered but we figured fleeing the scene would look suspicious so e stayed behind and had good alibis performing in front of us and the only missing person was a human child (Rats removed his disguise after leaving the scene). No real combats just a botched ambush on the safe guard.
Turned out the money belonged to the Altmark envoy oops.
So 1 small combat adventure of aorund 6 encounters that got us to level 2 and a social encounter type scenario where we had to rob a racist nobleman that basically hangs around with polite society decadents. Lyris is not a very nice city it seems. The women want to make the world a better place, Arturo will likely go along with it, while Rats wants to elevate himself to a better social position (Guildmaster, Lord of Lyris, Grand High poobah etc).
We all went dex based and most encounters were 1-2 rounds after a surprise round. Dual wielding is very competitive early on PHB and we will be using some 3pp feats (weapon specialisation and small arms master), top make dex based melee a bit more viable in a world of sharpshooter, pole arm master, crossbow expert, shield master etc. The reason most of those feats exist IMHO is because of how good dex is (sharpshooter being an exception of course).
Level 1 can be a bit rough (any edition) but in 5E its short and why play fair? Sometimes we do kick in the door, go social, sometimes we go sneaky, or go and pitch a tent in the wilderness to get xp to get past level 1. With racial the sneaky types managed to get an 18 dex so at level 4 the 1st ASI will be used on feats, Rats the champion fighter will take 2 +1 feats achieving a 20 dex and 16 strength by level 6 while Arturo will have the sentinel feat and 20 dex at level 8.
Having a hwole party that can sneak in a system with bounded accuracy and passive perception socres of 11 or so makes it very easy to ninja your way around.
So moving away from the usual suspects for the powerful feats and using a 3pp class from EN5ider and some 3pp feats. Its a dollar and most of the feats here are actually useful without being as abusable as the -5/+10 feats.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185763/10-New-Feats-for-5th-Edition-DD
Also arcane cleric shillelagh beat down with GFB seems to work. Key your melee attacks off your wisdom in medium armor and add your wisdom modifier to splash damage using a staff because 5E.
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