I need more help than you think [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

UphillWillie

2018-04-19, 02:32 PM

Hello! I posted this in a different section of the forum and was told to bring it here:

I'm looking for help. I recently started playing d&d 3.5 with some folks and I have never played before, ever. The closest thing I have played to d&d is skyrim (I know not even close really). I've asked my one friend that I know who plays and she said she only knows how to play 2 characters and knows nothing else about the game. I asked the DM to explain a few things and he acts as if I should know everything already, which I tried to read the players handbook and, it helped a little but I personally learn better from watching or doing and some of the things I have no idea about, example: I asked the DM what Hit Dice meant. I thought it would have to do with attacking, you know you Hit with Dice, he looked at me and said its in the book look it up, well, I did. It took way longer for me to do that at the table then for him to just tell me, its how you figure out your health, and i don't even know if that's the full extent of Hit Dice because that's all I could understand from the book. I know I ask a lot of questions and its not because I'm not trying to remember, its the fact that I'm new to this and only playing 3 hours a week while working 2 jobs doesn't allow me to truly get into the game as much as I would like. I was wondering if there was someone I could message all my questions to or if I could leave them here in this thread for people to answer. You can go ahead and call me a noob or a lazy person but I don't care, I do enjoy the game and I want to enjoy it more so unless I have someone say I can flood their inbox with stupid questions that "the average player knows this" crap I'm just going to go ahead and ask all the questions here. Also if you say "its in the book" and I go look and it doesn't nake sense, I'm gonna keep asking until some nice person takes the time to help me understand it better so I can truly understand the game instead of walking face first into a rock elemental (that happened my first session, yes I was the one that smashed my face into "what appears to be a boulder").

I had asked some questions in the other post but I will definitely have more to come in the near future.

Quertus

2018-04-19, 02:37 PM

Hit dice determine HP, yes. But, in 3e, multiple things key off this:

Skills: you get skill points with each hit die, and your max ranks = HD+3

Feats: you get one every three HD.

Hit Die: certain effects - especially spells - key directly off the number of hit dice something has.

Venger

2018-04-19, 02:39 PM

my sympathies, your gm sounds like kind of a jerk.

if these are the levels of complexity your questions usually revolve around, then the simple RAW (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?527767-Simple-RAW-Thread-for-3-5-33-Doesn-t-everything-popular-die-when-33&p=23002835#post23002835) thread will be helpful for many of them (e.g. "what are hit dice? what do they do?")

please don't take this as a command to just go look stuff up yourself, but the srd (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm) has good resources on basic rules and terminology for when you do have time to research or when someone answers your question using terms you don't understand.

if you want to edit questions into this post (and maybe number them so people could respond in that fashion) then that would be fine. it's easier on us to respond if you chunk questions like this into one thread.

in the future, could you throw some line breaks into your posts? it makes them a lot easier to read.

UphillWillie

2018-04-19, 02:49 PM

UphillWillie

2018-04-19, 02:52 PM

Venger

2018-04-19, 02:55 PM

As soon as I submitted this post I had questions (face palm). So I know this is going to sound a little strange and I know I've only been playing D&D for... 3 months?? (3 hours a week keep in mind). I can already tell that I'm sitting in the wrong seat, I personally would rather be the DM than an adventurer, I like coming up with stories and plots and developing relationships that could either end up building the team closer and stronger or creating a character that would make the group want to rip each others eyes out. With that said I have started looking into it and I was wondering if anyone has successfully fought a kraken? I feel like this would be a fun feature to add to the late game that there is a chance you could come across it but I want my friends to have somewhat of a chance, so I was wondering if anyone here could give some advice as to what level the party should be at and if this is even a good idea (keep in mind if you say its a bad idea, I'm just going to want to do it more as a threat to the players as opposed to actually using it, so stories would be nice so "sailors" (you guys) can share the experiences of this dreaded beast.
If you're at the stage where you don't know what hit dice are, you don't have enough system mastery to be the dm. while storytelling is definitely a part of it, you need to have a grasp on at least the basic mechanics of the game before you can run an adventure.

sure, krakens are pretty easy for a halfway competent party on-cr. the row marked "challenge rating" (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/kraken.htm) tells you when the game thinks you should encounter this monster, assuming your party is relatively on target. in this case, around level 12, assuming a party of 4. Beware that sometimes crs are inappropriate, so if something seems too easy or too hard at a certain level, ask someone before throwing a lvl 9 party against the adamantine horror.

Another question I have is this, I'm playing a gnome bard in my campaign and I was told that it is a great support character (I figured I'd stand in the back and buff everyone and learn from their fighting styles how the game works). Funny story though is that one of the experienced players in the group is running a support paladin... So I have a bard that can't keep up with the paladin, What should I do to my character to help the group (druid, ranger, paladin) or help me so we don't almost die every session from a group of 4 children, yes that is what happened last session.
what level are you guys and what is your build?

Another question is if my character dies (the gnome bard) what should I be to better assist the group (paladin, druid, ranger)? I may ask the DM if I can have my character killed to switch characters to better help the group but I don't know what that would be. (remember I'm a total noob so please no multi-class, obnoxious characters).
crusader is a simple out of the box support option you can play straight through to 20 and is very friendly to new players

UphillWillie

2018-04-19, 03:01 PM

my sympathies, your gm sounds like kind of a jerk.

if these are the levels of complexity your questions usually revolve around, then the simple RAW thread will be helpful for many of them (e.g. "what are hit dice? what do they do?")

please don't take this as a command to just go look stuff up yourself, but srd has good resources on basic rules and terminology for when you do have time to research or when someone answers your question using terms you don't understand.

if you want to edit questions into this post (and maybe number them so people could respond in that fashion) then that would be fine. it's easier on us to respond if you chunk questions like this into one thread.

in the future, could you throw some line breaks into your posts? it makes them a lot easier to read.

Thank you Venger for the info, I will definitely look into the srd. I do try and look things up most of the time and I'm only here as a last resort. I know the answers are in the books but sometimes my "fourth grade" reading level can't quite make sense of it, hit my head a lot as a kid. Also I will keep in mind to space things out for easy reading and I will start numbering the questions. I hope my questions aren't too stupid and if I think the are, I will check the simple RAW first. Thanks again Venger!

UphillWillie

2018-04-19, 03:07 PM

If you're at the stage where you don't know what hit dice are, you don't have enough system mastery to be the dm. while storytelling is definitely a part of it, you need to have a grasp on at least the basic mechanics of the game before you can run an adventure.

sure, krakens are pretty easy for a halfway competent party on-cr. the row marked "challenge rating"[/url] tells you when the game thinks you should encounter this monster, assuming your party is relatively on target. in this case, around level 12, assuming a party of 4. Beware that sometimes crs are inappropriate, so if something seems too easy or too hard at a certain level, ask someone before throwing a lvl 9 party against the adamantine horror.

what level are you guys and what is your build?

crusader is a simple out of the box support option you can play straight through to 20 and is very friendly to new players

Oh, I would not even attempt to try and run a campaign before I know the rules, I wanted to start planning now and maybe ask some friends in a few months (December) if they would be interested.

I'm not sure if its the group I'm playing with or me, but being an adventurer just isn't appealing to me (it might be a mix of both).

As far as levels go we are all lvl3 and my build is a bunch of random things I thought were cool. I can take a picture of my character sheet when I get home and post it but I had no idea what I was doing, and just started selecting things that sounded like they would help ( I know now, that was a horrible idea).

Venger

2018-04-19, 03:13 PM

Thank you Venger for the info, I will definitely look into the srd. I do try and look things up most of the time and I'm only here as a last resort. I know the answers are in the books but sometimes my "fourth grade" reading level can't quite make sense of it, hit my head a lot as a kid. Also I will keep in mind to space things out for easy reading and I will start numbering the questions. I hope my questions aren't too stupid and if I think the are, I will check the simple RAW first. Thanks again Venger!
Happy to be of assistance. Even if you're familiar with the brand of not-English the rulebooks use, they're very poorly laid out, so it is sometimes hard to find stuff.

Oh, I would not even attempt to try and run a campaign before I know the rules, I wanted to start planning now and maybe ask some friends in a few months (december) if they would be interested. As far as levels go we are all lvl3 and my build is a bunch of random things I thought were cool. I can take a picture of my character sheet when I get home and post it but I had no idea what I was doing, and just started selecting things that sounded like they would help ( I know now, that was a horrible idea).
you don't need to take a picture. that'll probably be hard to read. generally speaking, when someone asks for your build, what we would like is a breakdown of your class levels, your race, and what feats you selected.

Kelb_Panthera

2018-04-19, 03:21 PM

1. As soon as I submitted this post I had questions (face palm). So I know this is going to sound a little strange and I know I've only been playing D&D for... 3 months?? (3 hours a week keep in mind). I can already tell that I'm sitting in the wrong seat, I personally would rather be the DM than an adventurer, I like coming up with stories and plots and developing relationships that could either end up building the team closer and stronger or creating a character that would make the group want to rip each others eyes out.
With that said I have started looking into it and I was wondering if anyone has successfully fought a kraken? I feel like this would be a fun feature to add to the late game that there is a chance you could come across it but I want my friends to have somewhat of a chance, so I was wondering if anyone here could give some advice as to what level the party should be at and if this is even a good idea (keep in mind if you say its a bad idea, I'm just going to want to do it more as a threat to the players as opposed to actually using it, so stories would be nice so "sailors" (you guys) can share the experiences of this dreaded beast.

Every creature in the monster manual has a line in its stat block called "challenge rating." This is intended to be a gauge of how dangerous the creature is, relative to the expected 4-man party of a warrior, a skill-type, a dedicated divine caster, and a dedicated arcane caster. The expectation is that a creature of challenge rating (CR) X will require about 1/5 of the party's daily resources to overcome if they are level X.

A kraken is listed at CR 12. Therefore it should be considered an average fight at level 12.

Now, part of the paradigm of the game is that most encounters will be at an encounter level (a function of the CRs of the creatures involved, CR = encounter level for one creature) that is at the same level as the PCs, while encounters of one or two levels higher are considered a serious fight and encounters of a level three or four points higher are a major boss fight. An encounter level 5 or more points higher than the average level of the party is expected to be nigh-impossible to win and should be fled.

This being the case, a kraken should be considered a major boss fight for a party of level 8 or 9.

As mastery of the rules grows, the reliability of this metric shrinks but it's as good a place to start as any.

2. Another question I have is this, I'm playing a gnome bard in my campaign and I was told that it is a great support character (I figured I'd stand in the back and buff everyone and learn from their fighting styles how the game works). Funny story though is that one of the experienced players in the group is running a support paladin... So I have a bard that can't keep up with the paladin, What should I do to my character to help the group (druid, ranger, paladin) or help me so we don't almost die every session from a group of 4 children, yes that is what happened last session.

You've been using the bardic music option "inspire courage," I hope? That's the primary boost for the class. After that, it's all about spell choices and knowing when to use them. What spells known do you currently have?

3. Another question is if my character dies (the gnome bard) what should I be to better assist the group (paladin, druid, ranger)? I may ask the DM if I can have my character killed to switch characters to better help the group but I don't know what that would be. (remember I'm a total noob so please no multi-class, obnoxious characters).

That party has a distinct lack of serious arcana. I'd suggest a sorcerer. They're a bit less forgiving than a wizard when it comes to learning spells but much easier to use in a given encounter. The learned masters of the forum will be happy to help with spell selection if you'd like to ask.

EDIT: who knew Venger was a ninja? :smallamused:

TalonOfAnathrax

2018-04-19, 03:24 PM

Yeah, trying to keep up with an experienced player while you have little knowledge of the system would hard. Especially as a bard, who has a bunch of tactical options and builds. It's not like you were playing something terrible but simple, like a barbarian. "Charge and hit stuff with a greatsword" is a decent strategy (until about level 4) after all.
Crusader is a class from the Tome of Battle (another d&D book that you can buy or illegally download, depending on how legal you are. I suggest buying it). If you understand the mechanics for the class (detailed in the book's first few chapters and the class description) and your GM is okay with you taking it and having your bard die, it's a pretty simple class to play. You are a tough guy in armour, and you have manoeuvers that you can use once or twice per fight. Some heal your allies, some give them bonuses to attack or AC... And you get access to more powerful manoeuvers as you level. Then you get stances that give various bonuses: you can pick one and have it active, but you can only use one at a time.

If you want to stick with your bard, that's also very possible and maybe even very good. Bard is quite a solid class, after all. Would you please share your bard's character sheet so we can give some advice?
The feat Dragonfire Inspiration is pretty good for a bard, as are things like using Inspire Courage and the Use Magic Device skill. Google "3.5 bard handbook" for advice - I like the ones by JoshuaD or Dictum Mortuum, but there are many handbooks out there. Just check that they are for D&D 3.5 and not 4e or 5e!

A word of warning: while Google is often very useful to find answers to rules questions, be sure to always add "D&D 3.5" to your searches to avoid getting answers to identical questions but for different editions of the game. And while there are many good websites with rules, feats and spell descriptions (dndtools, moliveroo, the srd linked earlier in the thread...) don't trust D&DWiki. It's absolutely full of mistakes.

King of Nowhere

2018-04-19, 03:25 PM

As far as levels go we are all lvl3 and my build is a bunch of random things I thought were cool. I can take a picture of my character sheet when I get home and post it but I had no idea what I was doing, and just started selecting things that sounded like they would help ( I know now, that was a horrible idea).
don't worry, it's the norm when you start. Explore the game and get a good idea of what you want to do later.
As far as buffing go, anyway, you should still be able to do a lot of things the paladin can't. yoou have your bardic music that can give bonuses to your companiions. That +1 seems small, but it's on virtually every die roll, so it add up. And those buffs last 5 rounds after you stop playing; most combats last less than that, so you can just interrupt your music to do something else after you started the effect. Just make sure you are taking as many skill ranks in perform as you can (3+level)

BowStreetRunner

2018-04-19, 03:25 PM

You might benefit from watching some videos that cover the basics of the game/rpgs in general. This is a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWhySS2mJgk

Segev

2018-04-19, 03:55 PM

If one or more of the people in the group are closer friends to you than the DM, you might see if any of them are willing to sit down with you and run a couple of sample combats. Just pick something from the monster manual that is an appropriate CR, have your friend run the monster and tell you what the rules mean as you go, and set your character against the monster.

This will give you a chance to see how your own mechanics work, at least, so you can get the basics down.

Arbane

2018-04-19, 05:50 PM

Troacctid

2018-04-19, 05:58 PM

If you're interested in DMing, not all RPGs are as complex and hard to learn as D&D 3.5e! There are a lot of simpler systems out there that are still a ton of fun and can easily be learned in an afternoon. In particular, D&D 5e is the most recent edition of the game and it's waaay easier to learn. Dungeon World is another system with a similar feel that's even more streamlined. If you ask in the general RPG forum, you can get some more recommendations too.

Quertus

2018-04-19, 07:25 PM

Thank you for the knowledge! I find out about the HP but I had no idea about the others, thank you.

NP :smallwink:

crusader is a simple out of the box support option you can play straight through to 20 and is very friendly to new players

I second (third?) this. Crusader is a great, easy-to-play class - and I say this as someone whose tagline is "I play Wizards".

If one or more of the people in the group are closer friends to you than the DM, you might see if any of them are willing to sit down with you and run a couple of sample combats. Just pick something from the monster manual that is an appropriate CR, have your friend run the monster and tell you what the rules mean as you go, and set your character against the monster.

This will give you a chance to see how your own mechanics work, at least, so you can get the basics down.

Yeah, this is a great idea. I have taught multiple 7-year-olds to play 3e, and this one-on-one teaching time was integral to their success. If at all possible, do this.

Goaty14

2018-04-19, 09:17 PM

I second (third?) this. Crusader is a great, easy-to-play class - and I say this as someone whose tagline is "I play Wizards".

Guuuys.. You forgot to hand him the printable maneuver cards (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a)! I personally wouldn't recommend to play a crusader unless you had a decent way to recover your maneuvers.

Even then, despite the awesomeness that is ToB, I wouldn't recommend a new subsystem while he is still learning the basics to the game. I mean, more splats certainly contribute to a better balance structure, but might overwhelm him/her/it.

I say you play a cleric to tag buff spells onto your allies and debuffs onto your enemies. The best part is that if you chose a spell that outright sucks, then you switch it out for a better one the next (in game) morning.

Venger

2018-04-19, 10:05 PM

Guuuys.. You forgot to hand him the printable maneuver cards (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a)! I personally wouldn't recommend to play a crusader unless you had a decent way to recover your maneuvers.

Even then, despite the awesomeness that is ToB, I wouldn't recommend a new subsystem while he is still learning the basics to the game. I mean, more splats certainly contribute to a better balance structure, but might overwhelm him/her/it.

I say you play a cleric to tag buff spells onto your allies and debuffs onto your enemies. The best part is that if you chose a spell that outright sucks, then you switch it out for a better one the next (in game) morning.

if he doesn't know anything, then it doesn't really matter which system he learns first. and the crusader's list of maneuvers is a lot shorter than the cleric's spell list. while the cleric's ceiling is higher, its floor is much lower if you pick bad spells, which is very likely with a new player. with crusader, you can't screw up too badly re: maneuvers.

Goaty14

2018-04-19, 10:29 PM

if he doesn't know anything, then it doesn't really matter which system he learns first.

Is this to say that you should go and learn ToB, Complete Arcane, and etc before fully understanding the player's handbook? Heck, he *just* learned what your hit die is! Insofar, he's just been asking about the sort of thing that is covered in the PHB, so there is nothing pointing out that he has access to ToB to begin with.

and the crusader's list of maneuvers is a lot shorter than the cleric's spell list. while the cleric's ceiling is higher, its floor is much lower if you pick bad spells, which is very likely with a new player. with crusader, you can't screw up too badly re: maneuvers.

:smallconfused:
1) He's playing next to a paladin*. If he fills his slots with inflict X wounds, I don't think he'll look *that* bad by comparison.
2) As said before, even if the huge spell list is intimidating, he'll figure out good spells vs bad spells good enough.
3) Worst case scenario: he comes back to this thread asking what to prepare instead of CLW. I mean, braving preparing spells without an enclave of optimizers by your side would definitely drop his build to the floor, but he is actually preparing spells with an enclave of optimizers by his side.

I mean, even if crusader isn't outside his and his group's comfort zone with rulebooks, I wouldn't rate being a beatstick as supporting your team (when the paladin is probably already doing that). Sure, you're fulfilling a role, but not necessarily supporting.

*Assuming it is anything less than the more optimized paladins that exist.

Venger

2018-04-20, 12:01 AM

Is this to say that you should go and learn ToB, Complete Arcane, and etc before fully understanding the player's handbook? Heck, he *just* learned what your hit die is! Insofar, he's just been asking about the sort of thing that is covered in the PHB, so there is nothing pointing out that he has access to ToB to begin with.
Since that's not what I said, no, that's not what I meant.

What I said was crusaders' initiation is a much smaller learning curve to overcome than cleric's casting.

:smallconfused:
1) He's playing next to a paladin*. If he fills his slots with inflict X wounds, I don't think he'll look *that* bad by comparison.
2) As said before, even if the huge spell list is intimidating, he'll figure out good spells vs bad spells good enough.
3) Worst case scenario: he comes back to this thread asking what to prepare instead of CLW. I mean, braving preparing spells without an enclave of optimizers by your side would definitely drop his build to the floor, but he is actually preparing spells with an enclave of optimizers by his side.

I mean, even if crusader isn't outside his and his group's comfort zone with rulebooks, I wouldn't rate being a beatstick as supporting your team (when the paladin is probably already doing that). Sure, you're fulfilling a role, but not necessarily supporting.

*Assuming it is anything less than the more optimized paladins that exist.

The point isn't outdoing his teammates, it's about a class that's so simple it's impossible to screw up because it's well designed. A crusader heals his pals, doles out extra actions with white raven, provides bfc, etc all pretty much passively by killing enemies with a sword. there is not as much book diving involved as when playing a competent cleric.

he will absolutely not just figure out good vs bad spells soon enough on his own, especially since he says he has little time to do independent research like reading the cleric handbook. bearing this in mind, since crusader involves a lot less work for a new player, suggesting that struck me as more productive

I feel like you've never had an ineptly run cleric in your party before. it's not fun for everyone waiting around while he combs through the book because he doesn't know his spells and it's not fun for him being incompetent.

Goaty14

2018-04-20, 10:47 AM

he will absolutely not just figure out good vs bad spells soon enough on his own, especially since he says he has little time to do independent research like reading the cleric handbook.

Good point, he probably won't have the time to figure out the good spells on his *own*. It's not like he has a whole thread dedicated to asking questions about stuff that he has in game or anything. *He* won't really need help when "he" becomes "we".

Jay R

2018-04-20, 10:51 AM

Read the Player's Handbook -- all the way through. Nothing will replace having the background knowledge the rest of the players have.

You cna't play football while trying to learn the football rules, and for the same reason, you are at a sever handicap trying to play D&D while trying to learn the rules.

ComaVision

2018-04-20, 10:57 AM

You cna't play football while trying to learn the football rules, and for the same reason, you are at a sever handicap trying to play D&D while trying to learn the rules.

I disagree with this entirely. I don't give new players homework before they can play. I help them make their first character and explain the basics of how the game works. Then we play, and I can direct them to rules materials if they're interested. Probably about half of the people I play or have played with have not read the PHB.

Also, I don't know many rules of football and I've played it several times.

EDIT: I should add that, unlike OP's DM, I answer players questions fully without being condescending. At worst, I might give them the "quick" version of the answer and direct them to the specific rules source for them to refer to.

BowStreetRunner

2018-04-20, 11:09 AM

Read the Player's Handbook -- all the way through. Nothing will replace having the background knowledge the rest of the players have.
The OP has already mentioned that he tried reading the PHB and that learning that way isn't his strong suit. I still think that videos like the one I linked earlier would be a more ideal option in this particular instance.

Here are a couple of others:

How to create a D&D 3.5 character in under an hour! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pzwcHBQjTg)
Let's Play Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFmJ2fgQ_VM)
How to roll up a 3.5 character (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_odbOzDEK9g)
Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5 Combat tutorial and guide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu7Bdu1BgyA)
How Spells Work for Beginners (D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9kLL6JKoZc)

UphillWillie

2018-04-25, 08:58 AM

So I want to start by saying thank you for all that wanted to help me with my bard character, I did try to upload the character sheet but every time I did, the image would not be attached. Anyway, as of last night my bard no longer exists, I was ambushed by an owlbear and was killed instantly (hp:20 Damage received:31).

With this now, our party is not very strong still, so I asked my DM about choosing a crusader and he said nope. So I asked about being a barbarian and he said yes. So I know its nothing fancy but I chose a Dwarven Barbarian. I need a little help with this now...

I was looking at prestige classes and suggestions and I saw a lot of people talking about the frenzied berserker, but I'm not a huge fan of the idea that I could potentially kill my allies (we already have a ranger that has it out for our cleric). I also heard about Bear Warrior but we also have shaman bear people in our world and knowing the DM he would some how have the bear people be offended by my bear form ruthlessly attacking people and send them after me to be killed.

Also that ranger I mentioned hates dwarves (backstory: her kids were killed by dwarves). Now the person playing the ranger thinks it would be hilarious if I wrote into my back story that I was one of the ones that slaughtered her family (I know that sounds demented but I have to admit that it would make things interesting).

Also since I am a dwarf, I have to come up with a reason that my character would leave the "only" dwarven city (the DM hints that their might be more and I'm meeting with him later to discuss what I actually know to better understand the hidden city of the dwarves). So if anyone knows of a reason of why a dwarf would leave his home and not be killed upon returning that would be great because the best I came up with is that he is not very smart and got lost... (Int: 10).

I was looking at prestige classes to get a better idea of why he might leave but I have not come up with any yet. Since I still don't know how to upload pictures, I will put up his stats hopefully this afternoon when I get home from work.

Segev

2018-04-25, 09:38 AM

There is a lot of interesting potential to the party dynamic of a dwarf-hating ranger having one of the dwarves specifically responsible for his racial hatred in the party. However...you and the ranger and the DM really, really need to be absolutely certain not just that you think you can be mature about it, but that you know the rough plan for how this dynamic will play out. Right now, with the ranger "having it out for the cleric," if you add another PC he hates, that starts to raise questions why the ranger is in the party. It also can lead to risks of PVP, which...for a group as new to gaming as yours sounds, can get very ... bad.

Not that you can't handle it. It can be done. I just want to make sure you and your group are very conscious of what you're doing, going in.

That out of the way, the most common recommendation you'll see on these boards for barbarians is probably the Lion Totem. It trades out Fast Movement for Pounce, which is absolutely amazingly powerful for a melee fighter-type. It allows you to full attack on a charge. This isn't all that great before level 6, unless you're two-weapon fighting, but as soon as you have more than one attack per round, it is a game-changer.

There also isn't a lot of benefit to going two-weapon as a Barbarian, rather than going for a two-handed weapon. A greataxe would be somewhat iconic for a dwarf, too.

I am not highly familiar with it, but if you google for (or ask someone else here to repost or post a link to) what's called an "ubercharger" build, I think that might work well for a barbarian. It basically lets you charge in for massive damage on a single hit. I think, combined with Pounce, it makes for many massive-damage hits on a charge.

In a low-optimization party like the one you describe, the ubercharger may well be overkill. You may well be best served by a pretty straightforward power attack/cleave/great cleave path on a standard barbarian.

If you're willing to push the optimization envelope, we're always glad to help! But be aware that pushing it too hard can make the GM start to glare at you. Your goal, in general, should be to be at least within one standard deviation of the average damage per round of the rest of the party. It's okay to be the highest damage-dealer, but if you're swinging in at triple digit damage while they're rolling in the 20s... it gets people annoyed. (It makes it hard for the DM to plan encounters if he's not got exactly the right mindset. Which is generally an alien mindset to how D&D tries to train them to plan said encounters.)

If we could see the builds of your whole party, it would help us make sure we give advice that's in the right "range." You'll also - not because I'm offering it, but because I know this board - see people offering suggested improvements to the other builds, too, which may be useful if this board's advice for your build makes an "overpowered" character. The improvements to the others' builds would help them catch up if it became an issue.

SirNibbles

2018-04-25, 11:26 AM

So I want to start by saying thank you for all that wanted to help me with my bard character, I did try to upload the character sheet but every time I did, the image would not be attached

Use Imgur.

https://i.imgur.com/GLr8w6w.png

Arbane

2018-04-25, 01:25 PM

Sounds to me like it's going to be a race whether the enemies or the other PCs kill the party first....

UphillWillie

2018-04-26, 01:45 PM

Wow there's a lot. I first want to say thank you to SirNibbles for helping me understand how to upload folders and because of that I was able to attach the picture below.

As for Segev and Arbane:

I should explain further.. (I have a bad habit of forgetting where I am while typing and my mind works faster than my fingers type).

So we are a party of 4. Myself and our druid are brand new to the game. Our Ranger has been playing for a few years and understands the characters she plays through and through. Our cleric is the standard bookworm/meta gamer, but he doesn't talk to us much (Just his personality) which doesn't really bother the rest of us.

As for the whole attacking each other, we had a quest towards the beginning where we were asked to go into a crypt and retrieve an item but don't touch it. Well I was the one that received the quest for the group and was supposed to relay the info (but being new I totally forgot).

So the DM continues on and we get into the room where the artifact is and because I screwed up by not telling everyone everything (not touching it) the ranger runs up and takes it (DM told her to). It turned out to be a cursed bow or something ( I don't really know the background to it) and it talks to her telling her to kill.

So fast forward to the most recent session (where I died from an Owlbear haha). As soon as I was attacked and killed the Cleric said "every man for themselves" and the ranger looked at the cleric and said "If you run I will shoot you" (The cleric did not hear this IRL) so when it comes time for the cleric he does run but what he didn't say, was it was to do some type of spell or something and would return.

So when the ranger shot the cleric we all looked at him as he was in shock and said "she said she would." Only now does he say that he wasn't running away just getting distance. So that was a miscommunication all around.

As for my new character the dwarf, I probably will not say that I was a part of the group that attacked the rangers family (backstory). I have not come up with a backstory yet but I know I don't want to upset the group anymore. As for a prestige class I was leaning towards Bear Warrior out of the Complete Warrior book. I was wondering if anyone knew of any feats that would go well with this class to make it better. I've been reading the feats section in the players handbook but I can't memorize them all and I don't know of any others that would work well too.

So I don't plan on making a character to have our party go PvP but if it does I will make sure to share the hilarious way that it happens (Because it will most likely be hilarious).

https://imgur.com/a/ete6Rke

Goaty14

2018-04-26, 02:23 PM

I recommend the Deepwarden from Races of Stone. It gives you your constitution modifier to AC in place of your dexterity modifier at its second level. Good stuff.

UphillWillie

2018-04-27, 03:00 PM

UphillWillie

2018-04-27, 03:03 PM

ComaVision

2018-04-27, 03:12 PM

Kelb_Panthera

2018-04-27, 03:37 PM

4. Another question I was thinking of is if I'm walking down the street and turn to a random NPC next to me and stab them, whats their HP most likely going to be. Would it be 1 or would it most likely be based off of a race/creature? I know this is up to the DM ultimately but for you DM's out there what would you do?

Running off the default demographics; that rando is most likely a level 1 commoner of a humanoid race. He'd likely have between 1 and 7 hp depending on the roll of a d4, which of the standard array of ability scores is slotted to con, and any racial modifier. Might hit as high as 10 if he's got the toughness feat.

If you're less lucky, you might hit an off-duty guard (usually a level 1 warrior) and swing as high as 14 at most.

If you've annoyed the DM, it could be a guard captain in his civilian clothes. That's a -whole- lot more variable though; anywhere between a level 2 warrior and a mid-level, PC classed character.

Of course, the standard demographics figures come from a section of the DMG that quite a -lot- of DMs dispense with so take it with a grain of salt.

noce

2018-04-27, 05:02 PM

So since I am a Dwarf Barbanian, I don't have knowledge dungeoneering and heal and both need to be at rank 5.

I do like the sound of this class but which would be better, Deepwarden or bear warrior? I have more of the skills for bear warrior but the Deepwarden would work with my character better.

You can take skills not on your skill list, not only skills from the barbarian list. Not-class skills are called cross-class.
The difference is that you pay double the cost for them, so with a point you buy only half a rank, and the maximum you can have in a cross-class skill is half the maximum of class skills.
In order to have 5 ranks, you have to put a total of 10 points in a cross class skill. Also, you cannot have 5 before reaching level 7.

ericgrau

2018-04-27, 08:50 PM

Your DM seems rude which will limit your fun no matter what you do. But OTOH DMs are hard to find, so see if he is at least fun to play with.

I think it would be best if you tell us exactly what you want to do, what level you are, and what your DM does for equipment on new characters, how hard it is to get more magic items, and we can tell you exactly how to do everything.

Barbarian is a lot better than bard for starting out, so you may want to stick with him for a bit. Other easy choices if you change your mind later: cleric, fighter, sorcerer. Maybe paladin, ranger and rogue too. That's just from the Player's Handbook. The other suggestions are probably great too. All this is assuming forum help on creating the character. All of them need help, except maybe barbarian.

As a barbarian IMO pick up a guisarme, breastplate and start hitting everything until it dies. But also learn about reach and trip as side options if you do pick guisarme. More reach than trip because damage is your main thing for now. But you can expand what you can do as you improve your character. Reach helps you protect your allies and block passageways.

SirNibbles

2018-04-28, 09:10 AM

Hello! I posted this in a different section of the forum and was told to bring it here:

I'm looking for help. I recently started playing D&D 3.5 with some folks and I have never played before, ever. The closest thing I have played to D&D is Skyrim; I know, it's not even close really.

I've asked my one friend that I know who plays and she said she only knows how to play 2 characters and knows nothing else about the game. I asked the DM to explain a few things and he acts as if I should know everything already, which I tried to read the players handbook and, it helped a little but I personally learn better from watching or doing and some of the things I have no idea about, example: I asked the DM what Hit Dice meant. I thought it would have to do with attacking, you know you Hit with Dice, he looked at me and said its in the book look it up, well, I did. It took way longer for me to do that at the table then for him to just tell me, "It's how you figure out your health", and I don't even know if that's the full extent of Hit Dice because that's all I could understand from the book.

I know I ask a lot of questions and its not because I'm not trying to remember, its the fact that I'm new to this and only playing 3 hours a week while working 2 jobs doesn't allow me to truly get into the game as much as I would like. I was wondering if there was someone I could message all my questions to or if I could leave them here in this thread for people to answer. You can go ahead and call me a noob or a lazy person but I don't care, I do enjoy the game and I want to enjoy it more so unless I have someone say I can flood their inbox with stupid questions that "the average player knows this" crap I'm just going to go ahead and ask all the questions here. Also if you say "its in the book" and I go look and it doesn't make sense, I'm gonna keep asking until some nice person takes the time to help me understand it better so I can truly understand the game instead of walking face first into a rock elemental (that happened my first session, yes I was the one that smashed my face into "what appears to be a boulder").

I had asked some questions in the other post but I will definitely have more to come in the near future.

You can get HD (Hit Dice) from two sources: Racial HD or Class Levels. Your HD + your LA (Level Adjustment) determines your ECL (Effective Character Level). When you gain a Hit Die, you roll based on what type of HD it is to determine the increase in your Hit Points. For example, if you take a level in Fighter, which has a d10 Hit Die, you gain 1d10 HP. Your total HD is 1, and, assuming no LA, your ECL is 1.

___

So since I am a Dwarf Barbanian, I don't have knowledge dungeoneering and heal and both need to be at rank 5.

I do like the sound of this class but which would be better, Deepwarden or bear warrior? I have more of the skills for bear warrior but the Deepwarden would work with my character better.

Whichever you want. Bear Warrior is probably a bit stronger and you get to be a bear, but it's not that big a difference. You could even be both.

If you go Deepwarden, I'd suggest qualifying with Pugilist Fighter 1 (Dragon Magazine #310, page 37), which gives you the requisite Endurance for Deepwarden. It also gives you a free Fighter Bonus feat and Improved Unarmed Strike. 3 useful feats and a BAB for a single level.

Barbarian 4/Fighter 1/Deepwarden 2/Bear Warrior 5

After that, Forest Reeve (Complete Champion, page 82) is an option (since you already have all the feat prereqs), if you think the flavour fits for an adventurous Dwarf. Full BAB, d10 HD, 6 + Int skills, and it gives you a few minor goodies.