First 5e game - playing a Fighter

[Kiero]

There might be a slot available in an upcoming 5e game, set in a post-apocalypse where the adventurers go up to the blighted surface to get their hijinks in.

I haven't played 5e before, nor did I play 3.x, which I understand is the closest edition; but I have played lots of other editions, most recently 4e and ACKS. To use some 4e nomenclature, I only play Martial characters. Magical stuff doesn't appeal to me and I especially dislike having lists of spells to manage. There will be 4 other players, so I doubt there will be any issues with slotting a Fighter in (besides which other people usually go for much more esoteric options, having a solid part of the fighting line never goes amiss).

There are some fixed elements to what I'd like to play; Fighter and Human (Variant), Strength-primary and no dual-wielding (I've done that far too many times, so breaking from a bad habit), I don't do swords as main weapons. My group doesn't generally do randomness in chargen, so I'll assume the Standard Array. It'll be 1st level start.

So to the details:
Attributes: I'm looking at Str 15*, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 13*, Cha 8. Asterisks denote places for Human attribute boosts.
Skills: Is there any point having Acrobatics and Athletics? I could swap Acrobatics for Animal Handling if having both is redundant. Musing on Stealth (Human skill pick) and not wearing the heaviest armour, given the outdoor setting and the prevalence of patchwork armour. That would be a total set (including Background) of Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, Stealth, Survival.
Background: Outlander for Survival and the assorted mini-Ranger features, plus frees up a pick from the Fighter list.
Fighting Style: I'm thinking Duelling, to go with weapon-and-shield style.
Feat: Resilience, Alertness or Shield Master for my Human bonus Feat?
Archetypes: Not an immediate concern, but I'm torn between the simplicity of Champion and having a few more party-boosting options with Battle Master. Bear in mind I've played an Essentials Ranger before and had lots of fun with it, I don't need a big array of bells and whistles to enjoy the game. However, is a Battle Master simply going to be more useful to the group?
Equipment: Hide armour (to preserve Stealth) and shield, loadout comprises javelins, battle axe and shortsword.

Have I missed anything?

[WilliamHuggins]

I think you might be nerfing yourself too hard by not wearing heavy armor with a low Dex, Str build. You will have 15 AC with shield while you could have 18 AC with chainmail, if you really want to avoid stealth disadvantage I would go 15* 13* 14 10 12 8, start with leather armor which is going to give you the same 15 AC as above and try to buy a breastplate as soon as you can for 18 AC and no stealth disadvantage.

I think Acrobatics+Athletics is redundant, and Athletics is considered to be the better skill in general afaik, especially if you are going to pick Shield Master for those bonus action shove attacks.

[djreynolds]

So to the details:
Attributes: I'm looking at Str 15*, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 13*, Cha 8. Asterisks denote places for Human attribute boosts.
Skills: Is there any point having Acrobatics and Athletics? I could swap Acrobatics for Animal Handling if having both is redundant. Musing on Stealth (Human skill pick) and not wearing the heaviest armour, given the outdoor setting and the prevalence of patchwork armour. That would be a total set (including Background) of Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, Stealth, Survival.
Background: Outlander for Survival and the assorted mini-Ranger features, plus frees up a pick from the Fighter list.
Fighting Style: I'm thinking Duelling, to go with weapon-and-shield style.
Feat: Resilience, Alertness or Shield Master for my Human bonus Feat?
Archetypes: Not an immediate concern, but I'm torn between the simplicity of Champion and having a few more party-boosting options with Battle Master. Bear in mind I've played an Essentials Ranger before and had lots of fun with it, I don't need a big array of bells and whistles to enjoy the game. However, is a Battle Master simply going to be more useful to the group?
Equipment: Hide armour (to preserve Stealth) and shield, loadout comprises javelins, battle axe and shortsword.

Have I missed anything?

S&B, I would go champion.

But, IMO, don't pigeon-hole yourself to 1 fighting style. You can always take the defensive style for +1AC. You never know what weapons will drop your way.

If you are going champion, you will get a small boost to your initiative and stealth, and so no reasons to take alert or the stealth skill

Personally, I would go battlemaster with GWM and big weapon, and grab the precision maneuver and trip. Resilient wisdom is nice, but possibly too early to have a big influence.

I would take GWM, especially if you have a cleric in the group spamming the bless spell.

Or go champion shield master and grab human prodigy and get expertise in athletics, then anything large, medium, or small will be an easy proned opponents for buddies to get advantage with. Here I would grab the duelist style for the +2 damage


Champion S&B, or Battlemaster big weapon

[hymer]

Skills: Is there any point having Acrobatics and Athletics? I could swap Acrobatics for Animal Handling if having both is redundant.
There is some redundancy in having both Athletics and Acrobatics, given that they can both be used to defend against grappling. But besides that, they are different skills. Acrobatics is for maintaining your balance, and athletics is for climbing, swimming, and jumping. The latter sees more use at most tables. Maintaining your balance comes up as much as your DM wants it to.
Personally, I don't go for proficiency in both. But then again, I don't go for proficiency in Handle Animal. That one is for riding and dealing with animals. Exactly what it can do is (again) up to the DM.


Feat: Resilience, Alertness or Shield Master for my Human bonus Feat?
If you take Resilient, be sure to factor in the attribute increase in how you arrange your array. Maybe, with three separate +1s coming in, you'd want to look into Point Buy, which you can find in the PHB near the standard array. Resilient is a feat I'd be more likely to pick up later, given that +2 isn't a huge deal, and saves are rarer at low levels. But even so, you should still factor it into how you advance your attributes.
Shield Master is an excellent feat for a fighter. Be sure to ask the DM about whether you have to attack before you get the push with the shield. If you do, the usefulness goes down quite a bit on the early levels, and rather less after level 5.
Alert is good too, though for melee it's not as consequential as for certain others. Sometimes going after the baddies is even a good thing. Let them waste their action moving up to you rather than the other way around.


However, is a Battle Master simply going to be more useful to the group?
It depends. A Rogue can get a lot of use out of Commander's Strike from a Battlemaster ally, because it allows them a second sneak attack for the round. I'm sure there are other synergies, but they depend a lot of what the other PCs are.

Hide armour isn't any more or less stealthy than Breastplate, just so I'm sure you're aware. And the only skill affected by armour type is Stealth. Swimming and climbing for ome reason isn't.

I'm not sure I understood correctly about armour. Is metal armour rare in the campaign? Are you expecting not to get heavy armour at some point? That would be a pretty harsh reduction of your AC if you don't. Str fighters generally have to use big armour, while dex fighters can get away with using the lighter ones (though they still end up with slightly worse AC). You seem to have a hybrid solution, but you can switch to bigger armour when it becomes available, I suppose. Full plate is still two points better than the halfplate for you, not an insignificant difference.

[R.Shackleford]

The Battle Master might make you cry... It's a sad reimagining of the 4e Fighter. No growth of abilities, just growth of numbers (the DC, number of dice, dice size).

For your first game, I wouldn't go battle master. Learn the game first and then remake your character once you got things down.

Coming from 4e is actually better than coming from 3e as 5e has a lot in common with 4e (most of the simplified rules are the evolution of simplified rules in 4e). 5e may look like 3e, but it has a lot of design ideologies that 4e has.

For an easy build... I would grab Variant Human, grab Sentinel (the 4e fighter feat) or Shield Master, and go heavy armor Sword n Board. At 4th level you can grab Shield Master but I would def look into an out of combat feat as the fighter doesn't get a lot of those... Or even Prodigy for expertise in athletics.

Side note: Don't worry about optimizing, 5e really has a high floor just like 4e, optimizing can be nice but not needed (unlike a lot of 3e). Build for what you want to do rather than what you think you need to do to keep up with the game.

[ImproperJustice]

Well,

I am in the camp that a Shield Master sword and board champion makes a solid fighter.

Dueling will keep your damage relevant.
Shield master lets you bonus action shove, and put enemies prone which gives you double chances to land crits.
Seek out weapons that let your roll additional damage dice like a flame tongue or a Dwarven Thrower (if you suddenly decide to go Dwarf).
BTW: Dwarven Thrower Champion is pretty slick.

But I digress: Prone helps your casters as the enemy will fail dex checks, or push the enemy into a better AoE position.

If human, prodigy to grab expertise on athletics helps with this style. Resilient Dex is also nice as well for avoiding fireballs, Dragon breath, and other heavy damage nonsense.

Then yeah, Champions who make it to 11th level or higher start to take off and their late game abilities are pretty great.


Battlemaster is solid too, but there is a simplicity to Champion that lets you focus better on the battle at hand for your first time through which I think is helpful.

[Kiero]

I think you might be nerfing yourself too hard by not wearing heavy armor with a low Dex, Str build. You will have 15 AC with shield while you could have 18 AC with chainmail, if you really want to avoid stealth disadvantage I would go 15* 13* 14 10 12 8, start with leather armor which is going to give you the same 15 AC as above and try to buy a breastplate as soon as you can for 18 AC and no stealth disadvantage.

I think Acrobatics+Athletics is redundant, and Athletics is considered to be the better skill in general afaik, especially if you are going to pick Shield Master for those bonus action shove attacks.

Isn't the impact on Stealth of Hide the same as Leather? In which case, surely boosting Dex but retaining Hide would give a higher AC?

I'll have Athletics regardless, it was merely a question of whether there's much point also having Acrobatics.


S&B, I would go champion.

But, IMO, don't pigeon-hole yourself to 1 fighting style. You can always take the defensive style for +1AC. You never know what weapons will drop your way.

If you are going champion, you will get a small boost to your initiative and stealth, and so no reasons to take alert or the stealth skill

Personally, I would go battlemaster with GWM and big weapon, and grab the precision maneuver and trip. Resilient wisdom is nice, but possibly too early to have a big influence.

I would take GWM, especially if you have a cleric in the group spamming the bless spell.

Or go champion shield master and grab human prodigy and get expertise in athletics, then anything large, medium, or small will be an easy proned opponents for buddies to get advantage with. Here I would grab the duelist style for the +2 damage

Champion S&B, or Battlemaster big weapon

Duelling synergises with weapon-and-shield since it allows you to make up some of lost damage from not using a two-hander. Defensive style would be better for a second style if I stuck with Champion. Indeed, it makes the great weapon somewhat moot at this early stage - I'd rather have 1d8+2 than 1d10.

I'm mostly set on the weapon-and-shield style since I almost never play that and I'm sure everyone else will go for more exotic options.

The Champion boost isn't til level 11, right? So it won't be very pertinent for a large chunk of the game. Stealth is potentially quite useful in an outdoor/urban environment, it allows my character to back up whatever scout we have, if he's not laden down with armour. Especially if I skew Dex a little higher over Wisdom.


There is some redundancy in having both Athletics and Acrobatics, given that they can both be used to defend against grappling. But besides that, they are different skills. Acrobatics is for maintaining your balance, and athletics is for climbing, swimming, and jumping. The latter sees more use at most tables. Maintaining your balance comes up as much as your DM wants it to.
Personally, I don't go for proficiency in both. But then again, I don't go for proficiency in Handle Animal. That one is for riding and dealing with animals. Exactly what it can do is (again) up to the DM.

It's an outdoor type of game, where all the action takes place in the ruined cities and spaces between them, so Acrobatics might play a role. As above, I consider Athletics a given, so it's just whether or not it's worth having Acrobatics too.

Same goes Handle Animal, I could easily see there being mounted elements, though it's not clear yet.


If you take Resilient, be sure to factor in the attribute increase in how you arrange your array. Maybe, with three separate +1s coming in, you'd want to look into Point Buy, which you can find in the PHB near the standard array. Resilient is a feat I'd be more likely to pick up later, given that +2 isn't a huge deal, and saves are rarer at low levels. But even so, you should still factor it into how you advance your attributes.
Shield Master is an excellent feat for a fighter. Be sure to ask the DM about whether you have to attack before you get the push with the shield. If you do, the usefulness goes down quite a bit on the early levels, and rather less after level 5.
Alert is good too, though for melee it's not as consequential as for certain others. Sometimes going after the baddies is even a good thing. Let them waste their action moving up to you rather than the other way around.

OK, I'll give those some thought. If Shield Master isn't necessarily the most effective choice for 1st level, I could always go with something else.


It depends. A Rogue can get a lot of use out of Commander's Strike from a Battlemaster ally, because it allows them a second sneak attack for the round. I'm sure there are other synergies, but they depend a lot of what the other PCs are.

I'll keep an open mind - I haven't seen any of the other PCs yet, so some of this is still fluid. Obviously there's a way to go til I have to pick one anyway. Does 5e allow retraining like 4e did?


Hide armour isn't any more or less stealthy than Breastplate, just so I'm sure you're aware. And the only skill affected by armour type is Stealth. Swimming and climbing for ome reason isn't.

I'm not sure I understood correctly about armour. Is metal armour rare in the campaign? Are you expecting not to get heavy armour at some point? That would be a pretty harsh reduction of your AC if you don't. Str fighters generally have to use big armour, while dex fighters can get away with using the lighter ones (though they still end up with slightly worse AC). You seem to have a hybrid solution, but you can switch to bigger armour when it becomes available, I suppose. Full plate is still two points better than the halfplate for you, not an insignificant difference.

It's a post-apocalyptic setting; I suspect most of that sort of thing will be relics from the age before, not available to buy in a shop. Indeed magi-tech stuff made out of enhanced materials as part of a patchwork panoply is more likely than finding a complete suit of mundane full plate.


The Battle Master might make you cry... It's a sad reimagining of the 4e Fighter. No growth of abilities, just growth of numbers (the DC, number of dice, dice size).

For your first game, I wouldn't go battle master. Learn the game first and then remake your character once you got things down.

Coming from 4e is actually better than coming from 3e as 5e has a lot in common with 4e (most of the simplified rules are the evolution of simplified rules in 4e). 5e may look like 3e, but it has a lot of design ideologies that 4e has.

For an easy build... I would grab Variant Human, grab Sentinel (the 4e fighter feat) or Shield Master, and go heavy armor Sword n Board. At 4th level you can grab Shield Master but I would def look into an out of combat feat as the fighter doesn't get a lot of those... Or even Prodigy for expertise in athletics.

Side note: Don't worry about optimizing, 5e really has a high floor just like 4e, optimizing can be nice but not needed (unlike a lot of 3e). Build for what you want to do rather than what you think you need to do to keep up with the game.

I've played lots of other editions and 4e not that long ago; if it isn't any more complex than 4e (and I don't see any suggestion that it is), then difficulty isn't an issue. It's a preference thing that I'd rather a simpler character, plus I don't go in for magical concepts.

Sentinel is an interesting suggestion - especially for a 1st level character. It would make my character properly sticky, or at least as sticky as you can be at that level. I really did enjoy marking in 4e and the tactics it could set up (and the free attacks).

On optimisation, I didn't tag this with the prefix because this isn't so much about squeezing every point I can as avoiding any traps. I don't know how optimised the rest are going to be, there's nothing worse than being a spotlight-stealer because your character is optimised, but no one else's is.


Well,

I am in the camp that a Shield Master sword and board champion makes a solid fighter.

Dueling will keep your damage relevant.
Shield master lets you bonus action shove, and put enemies prone which gives you double chances to land crits.
Seek out weapons that let your roll additional damage dice like a flame tongue or a Dwarven Thrower (if you suddenly decide to go Dwarf).
BTW: Dwarven Thrower Champion is pretty slick.

But I digress: Prone helps your casters as the enemy will fail dex checks, or push the enemy into a better AoE position.

If human, prodigy to grab expertise on athletics helps with this style. Resilient Dex is also nice as well for avoiding fireballs, Dragon breath, and other heavy damage nonsense.

Then yeah, Champions who make it to 11th level or higher start to take off and their late game abilities are pretty great.


Battlemaster is solid too, but there is a simplicity to Champion that lets you focus better on the battle at hand for your first time through which I think is helpful.

I only play humans, so there won't be any sudden switches to dwarves or anything else. :smallsmile: There aren't many dwarves or elves in this setting anyway, from how it's been described, and they're weird.

OK, so Shield Master or Sentinel are the strongest contenders now, depending on what others do. Also need to consider whether or not I need Dex 14 rather than Wis 14 (so I can keep with non-metallic armour).

[R.Shackleford]

Isn't the impact on Stealth of Hide the same as Leather? In which case, surely boosting Dex but retaining Hide would give a higher AC?

I'll have Athletics regardless, it was merely a question of whether there's much point also having Acrobatics.



Duelling synergises with weapon-and-shield since it allows you to make up some of lost damage from not using a two-hander. Defensive style would be better for a second style if I stuck with Champion. Indeed, it makes the great weapon somewhat moot at this early stage - I'd rather have 1d8+2 than 1d10.

I'm mostly set on the weapon-and-shield style since I almost never play that and I'm sure everyone else will go for more exotic options.

The Champion boost isn't til level 11, right? So it won't be very pertinent for a large chunk of the game. Stealth is potentially quite useful in an outdoor/urban environment, it allows my character to back up whatever scout we have, if he's not laden down with armour. Especially if I skew Dex a little higher over Wisdom.



It's an outdoor type of game, where all the action takes place in the ruined cities and spaces between them, so Acrobatics might play a role. As above, I consider Athletics a given, so it's just whether or not it's worth having Acrobatics too.

Same goes Handle Animal, I could easily see there being mounted elements, though it's not clear yet.



OK, I'll give those some thought. If Shield Master isn't necessarily the most effective choice for 1st level, I could always go with something else.



I'll keep an open mind - I haven't seen any of the other PCs yet, so some of this is still fluid. Obviously there's a way to go til I have to pick one anyway. Does 5e allow retraining like 4e did?



It's a post-apocalyptic setting; I suspect most of that sort of thing will be relics from the age before, not available to buy in a shop. Indeed magi-tech stuff made out of enhanced materials as part of a patchwork panoply is more likely than finding a complete suit of mundane full plate.



I've played lots of other editions and 4e not that long ago; if it isn't any more complex than 4e (and I don't see any suggestion that it is), then difficulty isn't an issue. It's a preference thing that I'd rather a simpler character, plus I don't go in for magical concepts.

Sentinel is an interesting suggestion - especially for a 1st level character. It would make my character properly sticky, or at least as sticky as you can be at that level. I really did enjoy marking in 4e and the tactics it could set up (and the free attacks).

On optimisation, I didn't tag this with the prefix because this isn't so much about squeezing every point I can as avoiding any traps. I don't know how optimised the rest are going to be, there's nothing worse than being a spotlight-stealer because your character is optimised, but no one else's is.



I only play humans, so there won't be any sudden switches to dwarves or anything else. :smallsmile: There aren't many dwarves or elves in this setting anyway, from how it's been described, and they're weird.

OK, so Shield Master or Sentinel are the strongest contenders now, depending on what others do. Also need to consider whether or not I need Dex 14 rather than Wis 14 (so I can keep with non-metallic armour).

It's less about knowing the rules and more about not using rules from other games :P. I still get people doing 3e and 4e rules in 5e. So for the first one or two characters I always suggest a simpler character so that you can just play around with and figure out some things.

Do note that if you play with the RAI, and technically RAW, the Shield Master feat only allows you to take the Bonus Action Shove after making the attack (Jeremy Crawford's twitter answer).

It really doesn't matter how optimized the rest of the party will be. You will do enough damage as a fighter to keep up with the game. Other characters may do more or less damage, but as long as you keep up with the expected numbers (high con, moderate to high attack stat), you will contribute to the group. Classes aren't as balanced as they could be, but the game is balanced around the classes for the most part.

[BoxANT]

Human (v)
Fighter (Champion)
Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8
Feat: Shield Master
Fighting style: Dueling (at 10 take Defensive)

The reason for 14 Dex instead of Wis is for ranged attacks, 1d8+2 with fighter's extra attacks is not bad at all (not to mention champion's crits), and it will help with those Dex saves.

Take Athletics, very useful, especially when combined with Shield Master (shove).

Feat Progression: 4) Sentinel 6) +2 Str 8) +2 Str



and for the love of Tyr, wear full plate! switch out to breast plate if you (for some reason) really need to be sneaky

[Merudo]

Personally I'm fond of 16/14/16/8/10/8 for Variant Human strength characters with medium armor.

I believe the extra CON is worth the slightly lower WIS & INT, but your millage might vary.

[Contrast]

If you're dead set on wearing lighter armour there is an argument for going for a dex focus rather than strength. Does have the disadvantage of locking you into needing to use rapiers or short swords (or a whip if you're feeling really fancy :smallbiggrin:) in terms of magic weapons (well I say needing to - if you don't totally dump strength it can still work if you're just looking to overcome damage resistance) and meaning you would probably need Prodigy at some point if you want to take full advantage of the shield master shove. The weapon issue may be different in your game given you're apparently using a very atypical setting which may have some quite different weapon options...

Bonus is that your dex saves will be very good (comboing nicely with the other shieldmaster abilities) which I'd argue is a much more common save, you'll be just at good at range and it'll help your stealth which you seem invested in.

[Kiero]

It's less about knowing the rules and more about not using rules from other games :P. I still get people doing 3e and 4e rules in 5e. So for the first one or two characters I always suggest a simpler character so that you can just play around with and figure out some things.

Do note that if you play with the RAI, and technically RAW, the Shield Master feat only allows you to take the Bonus Action Shove after making the attack (Jeremy Crawford's twitter answer).

It really doesn't matter how optimized the rest of the party will be. You will do enough damage as a fighter to keep up with the game. Other characters may do more or less damage, but as long as you keep up with the expected numbers (high con, moderate to high attack stat), you will contribute to the group. Classes aren't as balanced as they could be, but the game is balanced around the classes for the most part.

I played 13th Age recently as well - I don't have much trouble keeping them separate in my head. :smallsmile:

Not sure what the situation regarding Shield Master is - though I'm also musing on Sentinel for that classic 4e fun of whacking people whenever they try to disengage. That could be especially amusing in the early game.


Human (v)
Fighter (Champion)
Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8
Feat: Shield Master
Fighting style: Dueling (at 10 take Defensive)

The reason for 14 Dex instead of Wis is for ranged attacks, 1d8+2 with fighter's extra attacks is not bad at all (not to mention champion's crits), and it will help with those Dex saves.

Take Athletics, very useful, especially when combined with Shield Master (shove).

Feat Progression: 4) Sentinel 6) +2 Str 8) +2 Str



and for the love of Tyr, wear full plate! switch out to breast plate if you (for some reason) really need to be sneaky

As before, Athletics is a given. The only question was whether to take Acrobatics as well, not instead. I'll have to give some thought to Dex 14 over Wis 14, especially in lighter armour.

I can't start with full plate, and as discussed, there's no guarantee it even exists in this setting. Weird magical material composites are more likely.

I'm planning on thrown weapons (javelins) for my ranged element. I'll leave the long-range stuff to any Rogues or Rangers we might get.


Personally I'm fond of 16/14/16/8/10/8 for Variant Human strength characters with medium armor.

I believe the extra CON is worth the slightly lower WIS & INT, but your millage might vary.

I'm not going to dump Intelligence as well as Charisma. I don't want to have to play a character who is both socially maladroit and dumber than average.

As before, this isn't marked Optimisation for good reason. I don't need to squeeze every possible benefit out. I just wanted to check on the options and make sure I hadn't made any actively bad choices.


If you're dead set on wearing lighter armour there is an argument for going for a dex focus rather than strength. Does have the disadvantage of locking you into needing to use rapiers or short swords (or a whip if you're feeling really fancy :smallbiggrin:) in terms of magic weapons (well I say needing to - if you don't totally dump strength it can still work if you're just looking to overcome damage resistance) and meaning you would probably need Prodigy at some point if you want to take full advantage of the shield master shove. The weapon issue may be different in your game given you're apparently using a very atypical setting which may have some quite different weapon options...

Bonus is that your dex saves will be very good (comboing nicely with the other shieldmaster abilities) which I'd argue is a much more common save, you'll be just at good at range and it'll help your stealth which you seem invested in.

If I go with Dex 14, we're talking about a 1-point difference between a Strength or Dex focus. Stylistically, it's Str weapons, I can't see rapiers even being a thing in the setting.

Early on at least, Dex does look better for overall utility than Wis, given it boosts AC and Dex saves, along with working with medium armour.

[WilliamHuggins]

Isn't the impact on Stealth of Hide the same as Leather? In which case, surely boosting Dex but retaining Hide would give a higher AC?

I'll have Athletics regardless, it was merely a question of whether there's much point also having Acrobatics.

I mentioned leather because you can get leather with the starting equipment options of the fighter, and as far as I remember picking the starting equipment options is more cost effective compared to "buying" your own starting items, I assumed you would start with b,a,b and a from the fighter starting equipment and sell the longbow after using it for a few levels to get the gold for the breastplate, of course hide armor is kind of cheap so you can buy it for that extra 1 AC until you got your breastplate I suppose.

Edit: Buying everthing from fighter+outlander (except the animal trophy, I dont know for how much you could sell it) costs 113 gold, fighters start with an average of 125 gold, it looks like fighter has cheap pack options and high starting wealth so you might be better off buying stuff yourself.

[Ganymede]

I mean, it sounds like you know how 5e's rules work.

To be honest, I am having a lot of trouble understanding what kind of advice you're asking for here.

[Kiero]

I mentioned leather because you can get leather with the starting equipment options of the fighter, and as far as I remember picking the starting equipment options is more cost effective compared to "buying" your own starting items, I assumed you would start with b,a,b and a from the fighter starting equipment and sell the longbow after using it for a few levels to get the gold for the breastplate, of course hide armor is kind of cheap so you can buy it for that extra 1 AC until you got your breastplate I suppose.

Edit: Buying everthing from fighter+outlander (except the animal trophy, I dont know for how much you could sell it) costs 113 gold, fighters start with an average of 125 gold, it looks like fighter has cheap pack options and high starting wealth so you might be better off buying stuff yourself.

I don't know what the equipment situation is yet - this isn't a standard setting so it isn't safe to assume anything in that regard.


I mean, it sounds like you know how 5e's rules work.

To be honest, I am having a lot of trouble understanding what kind of advice you're asking for here.

I don't know how 5e works specifically, but I have been playing various editions of D&D for years and have done some reading on what is possible (guides, online generators, etc).

I was making sure I hadn't done anything really silly, and so far it's produced some useful points of distinction. Whether I should go with a higher Dex, rather than Wis; and if I should consider Sentinel over Shield Master.

Sentinel actually looks the more disruptive option at 1st level, especially since only Variant Human characters start with a Feat. I could see it being quite useful for crowd control against opponents without much tactical nous, or if I place my character in the right position that they have to try to pass him to get at the squishies.

Are there limits to how many OAs and reactions you can make in a round? Is it just one? Someone mentioned crowd control for a Martial character was much diminished in 5e compared to 4e.

[opaopajr]

Depends on ehat you care about, and the limits at chargen, as usual.

In a post-apocalyptic world, I'd probably choose Healer. But Shield Master as a sword and board is solid, as you can definitely use that extra Bonus Action to Shove prone/5' away. Just br sure to have that Athletics feat to help you do that.

Duelist is fine. Besides, even if you don't want to TWF Style, nothing stops you from whipping out two light melee handaxes and getting your job done faster. A fighting style doesn't prevent you from mixing it up a little.

Armor can be an issue, but I'm cool with your DEX 12 and Hide armor. I would *prefer* Chain Shirt (AC 13+DEX, max +2 DEX, also no stealth penalty,). But post-apoc you get what you get? Dunno your table's chargen enough. AC 16 with stealth is often great, and Rogues love having an ally to bounce Sneak Attacks off -- great teamwork thinking there.

As long as you learn how to Dodge, you'll be fine.

The way Backgrounds overlapping with Class skills/tools is that you then get an open selection of that type (skill or tool). That means if your Outlander skill overlaps a Fighter skill pick, you then can pick anything -- including skills outside the Fighter's starting skills. So if you want to parley that into Performance or Stealth, feel free. In post-apoc, with assumed mutations and roving bands, Stealth is always a solid choice.

Your PC seems otherwise fine to me. Could use more direction and flavor over general utility, but whatever. Just stock up on equipment, because as a martial that's how you "get 'magical things done' without magic." You'll be surprised how many people forget how gear can support spellcasters by duplicating effects.

As for 5e basics, I think you mostly got it. Here's just a refresher to internalize:

All involved "combatants" have a Turn. All involved "combatants'" Turns combined form a Round.

All involved "combatants" have:
---Inside "Their Turn"---
An Action.
A Move.
One Free Interact w/ the Environment (knock over chairs, grab stuff, etc.). <everyone forgets this :smallmad: ...>
Free Actions as sensible/desired (e.g. drop held items).
A Bonus Action Slot (often conditional for availability).
---Inside or Outside "Their Turn"---
A Reaction (often conditional. Ready Action lets you program the condition as you desire.)

The above refreshes upon start of a new Round.

You'll do fine. :smallcool:

[R.Shackleford]

I don't know what the equipment situation is yet - this isn't a standard setting so it isn't safe to assume anything in that regard.



I don't know how 5e works specifically, but I have been playing various editions of D&D for years and have done some reading on what is possible (guides, online generators, etc).

I was making sure I hadn't done anything really silly, and so far it's produced some useful points of distinction. Whether I should go with a higher Dex, rather than Wis; and if I should consider Sentinel over Shield Master.

Sentinel actually looks the more disruptive option at 1st level, especially since only Variant Human characters start with a Feat. I could see it being quite useful for crowd control against opponents without much tactical nous, or if I place my character in the right position that they have to try to pass him to get at the squishies.

Are there limits to how many OAs and reactions you can make in a round? Is it just one? Someone mentioned crowd control for a Martial character was much diminished in 5e compared to 4e.


OA is once per round as you only get 1 reaction per round.

Though, using the marking rules is nice, they're in the DMG. As your DM, it helps get that 4e feel back.

Sadly, 5e decided to allow casters to keep all their cool options but martials need to bite and claw to get cool non-magical options.

[Kiero]

I've had the briefing note from the GM, equipment is not standard at all.

General Rules & Setting Bits & Pieces
Encumbrance will be important for scavengers. Total encumbrance you can carry is 2 x Strength in units. I'll have a shortlist of updated, simplified weights for gear. Filling your packs with good stuff (or just useful stuff) on a scavenging run will mean that gear balance is a straightforward but meaningful consideration for the team.

Most gear options remain the same, with a few tweaks. There's additional tools, including engineers, geomantic, etc. that you can have proficiencies with. I'm considering adding some new weapons in. Firearms, flamethrowers, and other weird gear exist, but are specialist and require lots of maintenance - ie they're the class abilities for Artificers.

Armour is the big difference. Armor types can be mixed; you have four locations. So you could go with a heavy chestpiece but keep lighter arms and legs to keep the overall weight down, etc etc. Again, I'll have a shortlist.

Rather than lots of standard magic items, options will open up during play to get gear modified - some mundane, some magical, some a mixture. Some mods or gear will require recharging to use, primarily using glimmers (see below).

Exposure to the surface eats one of your Hit Dice (the dice you use for healing) every hour if you're in protective gear, or every fifteen minutes if you're not. Filters count as a Hit Die for this purpose, one per cartridge.

Long-term or long-range magical stuff tends to get borked by the sheer level of magical static, flux, and radiation. What this means is that spells which might magically solve the scarcity problems in the Undervault tend not to work - transmuted materials shift back, teleportation or scrying across significant distances goes wildly off-course, and mass food production simply goes awry past a certain scale. 'Permanent' light spells just gutter and die over time. Basically, if you think a spell or magical effect would break the setting, it probably doesn't, and this is probably the handwave as to why it doesn't. There are some ways around this - certain magical engines, which need a lot of mana to run and are prone to breakdown, and silver, which has the innate property of being particularly magically stable and therefore useful for transmutations and the like. There's lots of short-term, jury-rigged magical gear, that needs recharging. People don't really see a difference between magic and science, though - wizards learned how to split the atom via magic, electricity is key to stuff, and some machines require oil to run rather than mana. Think a Final Fantasy-esque mixture of medieval anachronisms, magitech, and modern Russian dystopian misery.

People don't really use currency from the old world. It's not very useful for anything. Barter, both on an individual basis and as bulk between stations and merchants, is normal. However, there are several currency equivalents in place, though they vary between regions and factions as to how valued they are. The most common is the glimmer - a small amount of accumulated mana that glows dimly. A glimmer is basically a magical battery, used to power most things. Proper crystals or actual gemstones store mana far more efficiently than this raw coagulated form, though. Other currencies include silver, valued because of its magical properties, and boltheads, literally the mass-produced, stamped, high-quality crossbow bolt heads that were stockpiled in some of the vaults; boltheads are enchanted weaponry, and specific sources have variations, like Great House Kikimora boltheads being designed to convey poison efficiently into the target, etc.

The surface is a half-frozen, magically-blasted wasteland, filled with mutated abominations and other scavengers.

[GlenSmash!]

I've had the briefing note from the GM, equipment is not standard at all.

General Rules & Setting Bits & Pieces
Encumbrance will be important for scavengers. Total encumbrance you can carry is 2 x Strength in units. I'll have a shortlist of updated, simplified weights for gear. Filling your packs with good stuff (or just useful stuff) on a scavenging run will mean that gear balance is a straightforward but meaningful consideration for the team.

Most gear options remain the same, with a few tweaks. There's additional tools, including engineers, geomantic, etc. that you can have proficiencies with. I'm considering adding some new weapons in. Firearms, flamethrowers, and other weird gear exist, but are specialist and require lots of maintenance - ie they're the class abilities for Artificers.

Armour is the big difference. Armor types can be mixed; you have four locations. So you could go with a heavy chestpiece but keep lighter arms and legs to keep the overall weight down, etc etc. Again, I'll have a shortlist.

Rather than lots of standard magic items, options will open up during play to get gear modified - some mundane, some magical, some a mixture. Some mods or gear will require recharging to use, primarily using glimmers (see below).

Exposure to the surface eats one of your Hit Dice (the dice you use for healing) every hour if you're in protective gear, or every fifteen minutes if you're not. Filters count as a Hit Die for this purpose, one per cartridge.

Long-term or long-range magical stuff tends to get borked by the sheer level of magical static, flux, and radiation. What this means is that spells which might magically solve the scarcity problems in the Undervault tend not to work - transmuted materials shift back, teleportation or scrying across significant distances goes wildly off-course, and mass food production simply goes awry past a certain scale. 'Permanent' light spells just gutter and die over time. Basically, if you think a spell or magical effect would break the setting, it probably doesn't, and this is probably the handwave as to why it doesn't. There are some ways around this - certain magical engines, which need a lot of mana to run and are prone to breakdown, and silver, which has the innate property of being particularly magically stable and therefore useful for transmutations and the like. There's lots of short-term, jury-rigged magical gear, that needs recharging. People don't really see a difference between magic and science, though - wizards learned how to split the atom via magic, electricity is key to stuff, and some machines require oil to run rather than mana. Think a Final Fantasy-esque mixture of medieval anachronisms, magitech, and modern Russian dystopian misery.

People don't really use currency from the old world. It's not very useful for anything. Barter, both on an individual basis and as bulk between stations and merchants, is normal. However, there are several currency equivalents in place, though they vary between regions and factions as to how valued they are. The most common is the glimmer - a small amount of accumulated mana that glows dimly. A glimmer is basically a magical battery, used to power most things. Proper crystals or actual gemstones store mana far more efficiently than this raw coagulated form, though. Other currencies include silver, valued because of its magical properties, and boltheads, literally the mass-produced, stamped, high-quality crossbow bolt heads that were stockpiled in some of the vaults; boltheads are enchanted weaponry, and specific sources have variations, like Great House Kikimora boltheads being designed to convey poison efficiently into the target, etc.

The surface is a half-frozen, magically-blasted wasteland, filled with mutated abominations and other scavengers.

It looks interesting, but so specific I'm not sure what advice I can give you that will be helpful.

[ImproperJustice]

If it comes up, Champion’s natural athlete bonus applies to things like exhaustion checks, holding breath, etc.....

May be worth asking how it might interact with your GM’s version of Lost Planet....

[sambojin]

You'll know by the time you hit 3rd level, but I really would recommend battlemaster. Having a bit of versatility on what you do will give you far more long-term fun than "I attack again", over and over.

And while lots of big magic is out from the briefing above, I'd really recommend Magic Initiate at 1st level. With Find Familiar (an owl, mostly for help advantage but also for scouting) and two cantrips, you'll find your time in a wasteland far more enjoyable. Honestly, two cantrips aren't too hard to remember to use. Considering you'll also have a few manoeuvres to remember as a BM eventually, this will get you used to it. And it really does make fighters plenty of fun to play as.

You could also go bless/guidance/whatever, or even high Wis goodberry/shillelagh/guidance, but your DM might frown on that, no matter how simple it is magically.


Anyway, I like MI at lvl1 (or lvl4/6) on a fighter. It gives them plenty of fun stuff to do and doesn't lock them out of non-combat scenarios as badly. It's probably not optimal, but it isnt that bad either (regular advantage on one attack for you or your party members is as good as any combat feat in most cases). Sentinel is nice, even GWM or PAM is nice. But MI is fun and versatile, especially with a familiar. Choosing it as your variant Human option also locks a bit of magic in with your character. It's kind of a part of you, no massive explanations needed.