I first saw the idea on a different question. Can't remember where exactly it was. It may even have just been a joke but the idea seems interesting, although there's probably a very delicate border between this being tasteful vs annoying.  More specifically, would it be possible to to be a, for example, chaotic evil wizard but have the party convinced that you're a good-aligned bard or other?  Assume the DM knows what you're doing. It's the rest of the party you're trying to fool.  Also note: this idea is not meant for a long-run campaign. It's for a campaign meant to last two or three sessions max.  Another edit: Wizard/Bard is not set in stone. We currently aren't too sure what classes would make this easiest to pull off, but the short nature of the campaign makes us believe that lying about the character's class might be doable.
123130
Basically, my character would be evil in secret until she could do a huge emotional betrayal and try to kill everyone. I'd have to lie to my friends and make up two separate character sheets if I did this - after all, even the least metagame-y people would change their reactions slightly if they knew one of their fellow travelers was evil. But it would be for the sake of the most epic betrayal ever and I'm pretty sure they would appreciate the cunning of it once they found out.   Is secretly playing an evil character against D&amp;D etiquette?  Are there other ways to play an evil character in a good campaign, to avoid metagaming by the other players?
45143
I'm new to D&amp;D and am making my first character for a home game.  What should I discuss with my DM prior to my first game? And what do I need their permission for? Classes, races and sub-races I intend to choose? There is a lot of info in multiple sources; any word on what I have to to discuss with the DM?
46749
Recently, my players and I got kind of bored with the fact that Pathfinder relies heavily on magic items than martial prowess for fighting classes. I realize and accept the fact that spellcasters are more powerful than petty sword fighters in Pathfinder, but my players usually prefer fighters, rangers or rogues not spellcasting classes.  So, we came up with the idea of playing a low-magic campaign. Here are the terms;   No spellcasting classes for players. This includes paladins, rangers, bards etc. But archetypes that replace spells(such as skirmisher archetype for ranger) is ok. No magical items except for very rare and powerful artifacts that will serve a specific purpose. There will be spellcasters in the world, but, again very rare and they will probably be the villains of the story. Alchemy exists, as well as special materials such as cold iron, mithral etc. There will be magical creatures, such as undead, demons, devils.   The main purpose here is that, I want my players to feel competent when they kill a horrific creature, I want them to feel they killed it because of teamwork and tactics, not because they had the right magical item combinations.  Of course, with this comes several concerns on balance of the game.   How should I handle healing between encounters? Refilling 30 hp can last a long time, even with the help of Heal skill. How should I balance encounters? Challenge Ratings assume access to magical items and magical items improve at an exponantial rate so maybe treat the party level as -1 for every four levels they have(against the magical creatures or those rare spellcasters of course)? Example; Party level 1-4 = -1 Effective party level, Party level 4-8 -2 Effective party level etc when determining Challenge ratings for "magical encounters". Without magic, Armor Class does not scale, however attack rolls do. At some point, attack rolls will be automatic hits and I don't like that prospect without magic or healing to aid the players. This will make fighting defensively, or feats like Dodge or Combat Expertise more important but I feel, they won't be enough. How should this be handled? And finally, without magic, everyone will be a fighter of one kind or another.  What are your thoughts on replacing Fighter-level Requirements on feats like Weapon Specialization with Character level?   P.S; The question may be too broad and not have only one definitive answer from one person only, but every idea helps and I will combine those ideas while creating the campaign.  Thanks in advance.
95461
I want to play an RPG with my friends. However, they are a bit impatient, and I'd have to wait forever before they'd read the rule-book. I've read it all, because I found it interesting. They kind of like the idea, but just want to play. This brings two problems:   How much of the mechanics do I have to teach? Do I need to teach at all? I'm feeling insecure about them not knowing the mechanics, because later on they might have a problems because of that ("I thought that grenades work differently!", "I didn't know worshiping this god implies X", etc.). How much lore should I teach? The players inevitably live in the world, so - unless they lived under a rock - they must know something about the world. Their lack of knowledge about the lore results in their characters lacking common sense and basic knowledge. How should I help them create character, and do it quickly? They need to know the options they have, and creating a character can be lengthy process. Moreover, creation of warrior might be simple(he is just big, strong, and probably stupid); creating a mage or priest in a foreign world, where there are many different spells to be considered or gods to be worshiped might take some time before you know the options.   How should I deal with these issues? I thought that 2. could be introduced by making a scenarios that involve the lore, so they learn while they play, but what about other points?  The games I have in mind are mostly Neuroshima (primary target), Wolsung, D&amp;D, maybe World of Darkness.
39859
I am currently running Lost Mines of Phandelver for a fluid group of about 10 people. We play once a week and on a given night 4-6 people will show up. We've been doing this for 4 months now. I have very limited experience as a DM so for all intents and purposes, I am new. At this point most of the players have a working understanding of how their classes work and what their various class and race specific quirks and abilities are.  Whenever someone forgets something relating to their class, I'll pass them the PHB or basic rules and let them look it up on their own. If there are questions regarding the rules, I look up the answer myself. I've never explicitly stated this but it's the precedent. It is very important that players are expected to be as self sufficient as possible because we have a large group and I'm stretched thin.  I have a problem player (PP) who wanted to be a sorcerer. I told him that he'd have to keep track of his spells and more stats than everyone else and that he'd probably have more fun playing a non-magic class but he insisted. I handed him the PHB to choose his spells and he chose all of them at random.  Below are the primary issues, most of which come up during combat, and what I've done to remedy them:   PP does not know what any of his spells do but tries to cast them anyway. Whenever he casts a spell I'll ask him what it does or if he has the requisite materials and he'll say he doesn't know. This turns into me pausing the flow of the game to look up the spell, explain it to him, and then continue. I have tried asking him to write his spells down but that results in the next problem. PP takes horrible notes. He'll write out a couple words on a spell that he can't decipher later or straight up write the wrong spell down. He does the same with his ability scores and stats. We've had to reroll his health before because he was not tracking max health. He is so inconsistent and disorganized that we have to recalculate his stats for every relevant action he takes. This also annoys the other players because he is constantly losing items. I give him unlimited crossbow ammo as a courtesy and match his xp to the average of the other players. I've asked PP repeatedly to print out all his spells from the wiki or something but he forgets every time. I would do this for him but then I'd have to do it for everyone (I have far too many players) and I don't want to set a precedent of being a nanny. Also I'm afraid that if I give him any more help he'll expect me to track everything for him. So, I keep holding up the game to look up spells and ask him to do something about this. He understands the problem but does not deal with it. PP does not understand the larger meaning behind any of the numbers. All of the other players understand that difficult actions require higher rolls and they have a feel for when their health is low. PP doesn't get this and won't do anything (including self preservation) but fire his crossbow unless the other players ask him to. I encourage him to read the PHB. I've sent him links, I've put the book in front of him, he'll open to a page to humor me but won't actually read. I don't want to lend him my PHB to read on his own because he has a history of forgetting things at home.   I don't want to kick him out. He really shines during the RP segments (he even uses spells outside of combat very effectively) and he's a fun player but he is such an impediment during combat that I need help dealing with him. Other players will occasionally memorize spells for him or look things up while I'm doing other things but we're all new and the table gets easily frustrated.  What should I do?
57951
Specifically I am asking as a level 1 Half-elf Bard. As far as I know he doesn't have any dual wielding capabilities yet, or anything that states he has a bonus action to attack.  So I'm wondering if I can either cast my spells as bonus actions and use my action to attack, or if I can cast the same spell as an action and use my bonus action to attack?
73315
If a bard is Performing and he's playing, say, the flute, can he attack during the Performance?  At first, I'd say "no"; how do you swing a sword while playing? But then in  I read:     Maintaining a bardic performance is a free action, and does not interfere with other activities (such as spell casting, moving, attacking, etc.).   How is that?
122591
Alignments of Good, Evil, Lawful &amp; Chaotic seem to be hindrances. They affect your spell choice slightly, restrict certain equipment and worst of all, they make you weak to certain forms of weapons &amp; magic. True Neutral alignments have none of these weaknesses, and can still seem use almost all spells/equipment with alignment restrictions. What am I missing?
99065
With Forgotten Realms being the default setting for 5e, I am curious if there is the possibility for a necromancer, specifically a wizard, to be considered not evil:   In terms of alignment In terms of how they are viewed by the general populace.   I haven't seen any rules specifically pointing out necromancers as evil, but going over the  the closest thing to non-evil is someone who was impersonating a neutral character before they revealed themselves as evil.  So, would it be thematically reasonable to have a neutral or even good necromancer, interested in manipulating life forces without explicit malicious intent? Would it be possible to do the same, while summoning undead?
84044
Never had an issue with spellcaster scaling until today. A player in the group claims he can cast Eldrich Blast twice on his turn. Once as an action, and a second time as a bonus action since it is a cantrip. Allowing him to shoot 4 beams for a d10 each (he's 5th level so 2 beams per cast). This seems vastly stronger than anyone else's max 2 attacks. After the session which ended early with many players angry this player ruined all encounters, there was much talk of re-rolling into all caster party. One wanting to do the same with a wizards Firebolt spell as a bonus every turn, others still browsing.  So, is it possible for a caster to cast multiple spells in 1 turn? From what I was quoted from the PHB, it's possible to cast any spell as an action, then cast a second spell; as long as the bonus action spell was a cantrip with a cast time of 1 action? So 99% of all cantrips? Please tell me this is wrong, because I feel that if anyone else does this our melee characters will never see a fight again before the casters nuke them down.
18429
I am the DM for a group of players, 4 of which are very new to the game, and one of which is a very experienced player.   I have run into a problem now where the experienced player is effectively trying to play everyone else's characters (telling them what they should be doing, getting frustrated when they don't do what he says, etc..). This player is also a massive rules lawyer, making it rather frustrating for me. He argues against rules he dislikes, and tries to get me to change rules unfavorable to him. Example: He got into a 10 minute argument trying to get me to change the damage vulnerabilities of animated rugs to include fire because he thought they should, and he was a fire elemental at the time.   Additionally, he continues to play optimized characters that make it difficult to form encounters of any kind, because if an encounter works against him, he complains about how I am "specifically trying to nerf his character because he knows how to play." Specifically, the optimized character issue is an Aarakokra druid. Flies above you, turns into an elephant. He complains when I put anything that can hit him when he's in air.   I have tried to talk to him about it, but he won't back down from his position, and I'm not sure what to do. I would respectfully ask him to leave, but I DM at an after-school intramural (high school) and I am unable to make him leave, because of the nature of school clubs. We are both students. We have a faculty advisor, but they don't understand the issue.  And everyone agreed to let me DM at the beginning because I was the only one with DM experience. We have run and enjoyed one campaign together already.  Anyone dealt with a similar situation and had a solution work for them?
26500
I'm working on creating a half-elf paladin character for a Pathfinder game.  Full disclosure: this is the first time I've tried creating a character; I've used ones other people created before.  In the text, it mentions something about "favored classes" I believe.  What is this?
101773
I'm confused about Rogues and Use Magic Device. I've searched the core book and the Internet for the past 4 hours and can't find the answer to my simple question.   Since a Rogue doesn't have any spells, a spell list or caster level, do you have to emulate a class feature in addition to all other necessary checks to use items like scrolls and wands?
26094
This is a bit difficult of an idea for me to articulate, so I'll try and do my best: If a character was to attempt and cast a spell with a casting time of 1 minute, while in combat, would they have to simply consume their action for 10 turns, but still move and take bonus actions? Would they be unable to do anything except cast that spell? Would they also be required to maintain concentration?
29855
I'm currently playing an IRL game with two of my friends. As you might imagine, I was worried that they weren't powerful enough to take on the higher level encounters so I made a character to help them out. They were both new to D&amp;D so I didn't want to overload them with a gestalt character. However, now I'm worried that I might use my DM powers to make my character more powerful than the other two.  I just want to know something to help prevent myself from using my magic DM powers for evil.  Right now, we have a sorcerer and monk so I was considering making a tank-ish cleric.
102779
I understand that RAW, features/spells/etc. that require a bonus action (e.g. Bardic Inspiration or Healing Word) cannot be used with a regular action instead (see ).  However, what would be the long-term ramifications and effects on game balance if I were to instead allow PCs to use a regular action for bonus-action features/spells/etc.?  For the sake of narrowing this down a bit; I'm only asking about ramifications when allowing player characters to do this, no need to take NPCs or Monsters into account. I don't use the variant rule of feats either, so no need to consider those as well.
10536
Our group had some confusion about preparing spells for a Wizard and Cleric. The rules say that you prepare a number of spells from your list and that you tick off spell slots when you cast a spell. In D&amp;D 3.x, if you wanted to cast a spell multiple times you had to prepare it multiple times, but we couldn't figure out from the rules whether or not this was the case in D&amp;D 5e.   So can a spell be prepared once and then cast multiple times?