Barbarians are resistant to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, regardless of its magical or non-magical source. This is crucial for their staying power on the front line. A raging barbarian unconditionally resists all bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, regardless of its magical or non-magical source.
For example, a creature with resistance to bludgeoning damage can be hit by an attack that deals 25 bludgeoning damage and is within a magical aura that reduces all damage by 5. Barbarians also have resistance to BPS, no mention of magical or attacks. They have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, and their rage lasts for 1 minute.
The Barbarian’s resistance doesn’t depend on the attack being magical or not, but only the damage type. The Rage provides resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, regardless of their source (magic weapon or non-magical weapon). Magic weapons don’t bypass the resistance granted by Rage.
Barbarians can resist it anyway if it’s in their resistances. If they can cast spells, they can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging. Additionally, there are items that grant resistance, and there may be more Spells and class features from other books.
📹 Our Top Magic Items for Barbarians, Fighters, and Paladins in D&D 5e
MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to …
Can barbarians use spells while raging?
In response to the pervasive query regarding the inability of an individual to undertake tasks that necessitate a capacity for cerebral functioning that exceeds the norm, or even a diminished capacity, Jeremy Crawford offered a clarifying perspective.
Is bludgeoning damage from a spell magical?
The damage caused by spells is of a magical nature. JavaScript is either disabled or blocked by extensions such as ad blockers, and the browser in question does not support cookies.
What is the weakness of barbarians?
Barbarians are melee troops with moderate health and low damage, capable of swarming single target troops like the P. E. K. K. A. They are strong against these troops but weak against splash damage troops like the Valkyrie, which can kill multiple Barbarians in one hit. They are the first troop you unlock in the game and can be used for farming or lured to Clan Castle troops at higher levels. Barbarians are relatively cheap and quick to train, and can be spawned by the Barbarian King’s Iron Fist ability if the King is at least Level 5. They can survive shots from the Cannon or Archer Tower, swarm P. E. K. K. A or Ice Golem, and are cheap and quick to train. Barbarians only take one housing space, making them useful in attacks.
Are barbarians resistant to magical bludgeoning?
The Barbarian character has damage resistance against Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage, as well as three other damage types determined by their Barbarian Path. They gain a bonus to Rage Damage when making an attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike using Strength, which increases as they gain levels. They have an advantage on Strength checks and saving throws. They cannot maintain Concentration or cast spells.
The Rage lasts until the end of the next turn, and can be extended by making an attack roll, forcing an enemy to make a saving throw, or taking a bonus action. The Rage can last up to 10 minutes and can be entered the number of times shown for your Barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table.
Unarmoured Defence allows you to gain an Armor Class equal to 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier while not wearing any Armour. You can use a shield to gain this benefit.
Is tidal wave magical bludgeoning damage?
A wave of water strikes an area within range, necessitating that each creature make a Dexterity saving throw. In the event of a failed save, the creature in question will suffer 4d8 points of bludgeoning damage and will be rendered prone. It should be noted that the game may be disabled or blocked by extensions, and that your browser does not support cookies.
Do barbarians have resistance to fall damage?
It is still possible for them to sustain damage from the autumn season, which could ultimately prove fatal.
Can barbarians concentrate on spells?
The rules for raging and spell casting state that if a character can cast spells, they cannot concentrate on them while raging. This could create balancing issues for raging barbs, as they may not be able to concentrate on spells or cast them. The author is not asking about allowing this rule at their table, but rather to understand the concept better. The rule makes sense, but the author’s understanding of it is limited. A furious character going berserk with a large axe would not be able to retain their focus on magic.
Can Barbarians learn spells?
Barbarians are the only D and D class without a dedicated spellcasting subclass, but they can still use spells through multiclassing, acquiring the Magic Initiate feat, or playing as a race with spells inherently. Unarmored Defense is a fun ability for barbarians, but it only works if they have good enough Dexterity and Constitution. If not, they need armor to protect themselves. Multiclassing is the obvious choice, but acquiring the Magic Initiate feat or playing as a race with spells inherently is also a viable option.
Can Barbarians use spells while raging?
In response to the pervasive query regarding the inability of an individual to undertake tasks that necessitate a capacity for cerebral functioning that exceeds the norm, or even a diminished capacity, Jeremy Crawford offered a clarifying perspective.
Are barbarians immune to fear while raging?
Starting at 6th level, you cannot be charmed or frightened while raging. The effect is suspended for the duration of the rage. Starting at 10th level, you can frighten someone with your menacing presence by choosing a creature within 30 feet of you. If the creature can see or hear you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened until the end of your next turn. This effect can be extended on subsequent turns, but ends if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight or is more than 60 feet away.
If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, it cannot be used again for 24 hours. Starting at 14th level, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against a creature within 5 feet of you.
How does Barbarian resistance work?
You can resist bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. However, spells cannot be cast or focused on while raging. Your rage lasts 1 minute and ends early if you’re unconscious or haven’t attacked or taken damage since your last turn. You can end your rage on your turn as a bonus action. After raged the maximum number of times for your barbarian level, you must finish a long rest before recharging.
📹 Do Barbarians Need to Deal Damage while Raging?
How to maintain Barbarian rage in DnD #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #barbarian #rage #criticalrole #dungeonmaster #rpg #ttrpg …
Uncommon Items 2:55 Boots of Striding & Springing 5:10 Adamantine Armour 7:55 Javelin of Lightning Rare Items 9:15 Flame Tongue 11:25 Sun Blade 12:05 Cape of the Mountebank 13:05 Mantle of Spell Resistance 13:45 Belt of Dawrvenkind Very Rare Items 14:55 Drawrven Plate 16:20 Helm of Brilliance Legendary Items 19:50 Armour of Invulnrability 21:05 Rod of Lordly Might Wildcards 24:10 Belt of Giant Strength 25:50 Ring of Spell Storing
I’m glad that you all addressed the Ring of Spell storing in this. My Paladin got one 3 sessions ago and it has completely changed how he functions, now he can be a stealth monster with pass without trace or invisibility even while in heavy armor, and if I am expecting fights, haste, heat metal, and counterspell are absolutely fantastic. Even spells like Jump to round out the 5th slot are useful as it means that he can bridge insane gaps with his high strength
I defently think that an amulet of health is great for these tank characters that get their constitution up to 19. This allows them to focus on other things when those ability scores come up and not have to worry about constitution. This will also help them not worry about them having to make death saves and instantly become stable.
my girlfriend and I are currently doing a campaign where she plays an entire party of 5 (thanks covid) and her cleric is proficient in heavy armor but went dex as her third stat. I was supposed to award the party adamantine plate armor for a side quest but I switched it to mithril plate armor to ignore the strength requirement. I felt like this followed your article that said to focus the campaign on the players
One of my favorite items I’ve made soecifically for a battlemaster is a sword that lets you jump really high, but it also gives flying enemies disasvantage on saves against trip attack, so you’re encouraged to spike things out of the sky. Unfortunately the character i made this for died, so it was never tested.
I think the armor of invulnerability doesn’t get enough love. I think it’s important to remember it makes you immune to fall damage (unless I’m misinterpreting). In a campaign I played a warforged paladin who wore the armor and would leap off of airships after activating it. Truly a terrifying sight: 500 pounds of steel, armed with 14 paladin levels worth of smites, traveling near terminal velocity out of the sky.
I think the Rod of Lordly Might is especially potent for an Eldritch Knight because you can throw your spear at a flying enemy and hopefully knock them down then call back to your hand. You’d probably mainly use the Flame Tongue but fighting an enemy that resists or immune to fire? use the axe. Fighting a skeleton vulnerable to bludgeoning? use the mace. Fighting a Rakshasa? Spear again.
Thanks for the Nod about the Flame Tongue reflavouring to lightening damage (My cattle prod on a polearm). I think I would personally reflavour the Rod of Lordly Might to allow the Spear button to also be a Pike. I just feel like if it can be a 50′ climbing pole (essentially a ladder) then it can be a 10′ pike with a 5′ reach. Although as I analyzed this to justify it… I can see that as being slightly OP… since it would allow GWM, PAM, Reach and Sentinel to all stack with a d10 hit die. It would be insane. The Flame Tongue great sword is crazy enough without the added benefit of reach.
After my party killed a dragon (black, ancient), the loot wasn’t exceptional for the whole party, most just rares and uncommons. But because the other strength-based fighter wasn’t paying attention, my lvl 8 dwarven fighter walked away with a belt of Hill Giant strength and a Dwarven Thrower. So now my little guy hits on +11, and deals +8 damage. I think the DM intended the other strength player to get the belt, cuz…it’s the gf. XD
PHB 168, Medium Armor Master: “Wearing medium armor doesn’t impose disadvantage on your Dexterity(Stealth) checks. When you wear medium armor, you can add 3, rather than 2, to your AC if you have a Dexterity of 16 or higher.” 🙂 Give the Belt of Giant Strength to the rogue! A cleric would make good use of it too.
Horn of Valhalla should have been on this list. Yeah it’s once a week but to get an army of beserkers is game changing. Had an encounter where a building was on fire and was being destroyed by goblins, bugbears and drakes. Summoned like 13-14 beserkers and used them to help people escape and also to kill the enemies. Shit was amazing.
The Legendary Blood Fury Tattoo from Tasha’s Guide to Everything 10 charges. With 1 charge, you can either: a) Deal an extra 4d6 necrotic damage when you hit with an attack and regain HP equal to half of the damage dealt. or b) Use your reaction to make a melee attack with advantage against a creature that hit you.. The charges regenerate DAILY. This thing is overpowered.
One item that I think gets overlooked a lot is the Horn of Valhalla. With a barbarian, fighter or paladin with martial weapons proficiency, they can get up to 5d4+5 berserkers friendly to them to help on the battle field depending on rarity. They aren’t all that powerful, but adding 15+ 70 HP NPC meat shields can be absolutely insane.
I often times make magic items for my players pcs that they have retired or have died or they finished the campaign and don’t use them anymore due to that and one of them used great swords more and i made them for the final boss fight a sword that has the wish spell for 2 charges out of 3 and they can use 1 charge to draw a 10’x60′ line on the ground by slashing at the ground
Hi, i just want to say that you guys are my favorite dungeons and dragons website So much of this information i have used to better my stuff for DnD sessions, despite the only ones i’ve been in ending abruptly or cause of work schedules I haven’t been able to do one since, cause of my inconsistent work schedule, but the time i’m free for a campaign i very much look forward to doing so! i’ve been binge perusal your monster articles for the past 2 days, cause i’ve been working for nearly a year and a half on refining and making my own entirely homebrewed, custom monsters to use. It’s really helped me flesh them out, fix inconsistencies with their stats and health, and the way i want them to work, super huge help with those monsters. Thank you for all that you do, and thank you for being so helpful!
Something interesting about adamantine armor is that it effectively increases your AC by about 1 because a crit kind of counts as 2 hits (twice the dice). It gets even better on barbs because crits happen more often with the advantage granted against them when they recklessly attack. Given that it is uncommon, whereas a suit of +1 is rare, adamantine armor is kinda broken.
In the Frozen Castle Supplement, my TINY Wood Elf Rogue agreed to wrestle a Frost Giant. I borrowed my Bards Immovable Rod & Ring of Spell Storing which he put Big B’s hand in. Casting BB’s Hand allowed me to grasp the frost giants leg, trip him, & so he fell to the ground. Afterward, I placed the Immovable Rod on his chest & activated it pinning him to the ground & I won the match. It was pretty EPIC!
As a DM running an all martials party at higher level, signature magic items are a must to give the class more identity and progression in the way that getting higher level slots can do. Our Barbarian went from a Vicious Pike to a Vorpal Greataxe, our paladin acquired a Flametongue longsword she switches between using 2h and with a shield, our swashbuckler’s gotten homebrew paired rapiers, and our Gloomstalker has a Dragonslayer longsword, which I plan on upgrading from +1 to +2 and giving an additional 1d4 lightning damage if she takes out the blue dragon in our campaign to keep it competitive with the greataxe and flametongue.
Adamantine armor is sooo good! My Eldritch knight has an AC of 26 after Shield, but I rolled terribly for my hit points so I am extremely vulnerable to crits. (60 hp at level 10. 🙁 ) because of this armor, I took 6 crits and a cone of cold last fight but I was still alive to deliver the finishing blow to the enemy mage. Great item, 10/10 recommend.
Sorry if i am posting without seeing, but have you done or thought about doing how to do a “twist” or a “misdirect” for your players? I am doing a campaign where a proclaimed goblin attack (with a boulder in the center of camp indicating a larger creature threw it) took out a camp. But in reality one or more of the campers were murdered by a few soldiers who then paid the goblins to dispose of the bodies and toss a rock in the center. How do you give enough information without giving the whole thing away? I don’t want to take away their opportunity to find the real culprits but i don’t wanna make it blindingly obvious either. Since the game is 90% in our minds i’d also try to avoid a point and click adventure with/on a game map. I don’t want to blindside them with a twist either but i would like to give ample opportunity.
MY favourite of your picks is the javellin of lightning. As a melee character you want a back up solution in case you can’t get into melee range and that’S exactly what that javellin provides. Because it can only be used once per day it also stays a backup solution and won’t change the players playstyle by turning him into a ranged damage dealer instead of a tank.
I had a question that this brought to mind. Say your barbarian puts up mirror image with a ring of spell storing, and uses reckless strike. Do any attackers have advantage like I would assume, or would you determine whether or not they’re swinging at an image before determining if the attack had advantage?
One thing to keep in mind when handing out magic items is just because you meant for a particular character to have a magic item doesn’t mean they’ll end up with it. There’s nothing stopping the party from deciding a different character should get that item on the grounds that character can make better use of it.
Love the discussion,but is anyone else hearing alot of audio crackling and popping? I’ve never noticed that before with your articles. Also,thought id comment that I’m not a huge fan of the new backgrounds. I much prefer the more personal feel of your rooms in the background. Look forward to the next article!!
My buddy thinks sun blade is OP for a rare, but drools over flame tongue. I get the whole “rare damage type” thing, but the flame tongue adds damage against everything, whereas the sun blade only actually gives extra damage against undead. He ended up letting me have a devotee’s censer, though, so…I don’t get it.
Curious question on changing Flame Tongue to other damage types. Could it be psychic damage if you the extra damage was dropped to 2d4 ? Would it still be balanced for 5E? I like the idea of redone weapons. Especially someone from older editions where they cut the higher bonuses out of the game or got rid of the other enhancements like bleed, keen, defending, etc.
Wow, interesting how Pluto had most of these things. lol. Sorry Monty, not critical hits for you. lol. I remember seeing the disappointment whenever Joe reminded you that Pluto doesn’t take crits. My poor Tempest Cleric got a Javelin of Lightning (it flew right to her) but Strength was her dump score (she uses finesse weapons usually) and she fails every attack she’s made with it. 😥 Starting a new campaign with some of the same characters… so I’ll have to see if someone else could use it better. She does better with her +1 rapier, even thought it’s not as interesting.
I got a Belt of Dwarvenkind on a Dragonborn Warlock and we flavored the beard as a chinese/gold dragon style beard and I was really happy with the image in my head, where I normally would not want my aesthetic to change from what I initially chose for my character. Also, it was great for my character. Those non-dwarf benefits were super useful.
7:35 hey guys Stats teacher here. I’m using this in my class room when we talk about common misconceptions about independent events. I used another example from another article. If you have advantage its only 9.75% chance to Crit; not 10% chance. Reason being is the 2 dice are ‘independent’ of each other. So there is that 1/400 chance (or 0.25%) BOTH dice get a nat 20. Notice that 5% + 5% – 0.25% = 9.75% But yeah 9.75% is basically twice as often (but not quite) 10:45 isn’t Drizzt’s Icing Death Scimitar basically a Cold version of flame tongue. I guess it was more just constant 1d6 cold though?
It was interesting to see the Mantle of Spell Resistance and Belt of Dwarvenkind on here – those are two items I have on my Changeling Bard of Swords. The belt is fun to drag out in drinking contests against intox saves, and when Defensive Flourish and the Shield spell can easily give me a minimum AC of 28, saving throws are the weakness. (Hence why I’m looking to upgrade the Mantle of Spell Resistance to the Spellguard Shield)
I still love playing sorcerer but have added a bard level (level 10 sorcerer/level 1 bardic) and love that my dragonborn sorcerer was able to nonchalantly sit on her horse, filing her nails and casually cast dissonant whispers (badly sung sea shanties) and vicious mockery (make rude remarks about their mums) on enemies in my last game. Being a sorcerer also means I can twin them. Makes her a fairly useful supportive player.
@4 minute: You can jump up to your Strength attribute IF you first run 10 feet to gain.. traction? speed? my English is failing me. Point is, in order to jump 60 feet you’d need a movement speed of at least 35, in order to (with dash) move 70 feet (10 running + 60 in the air). . Rogues can double-dash with cunning action and dash action, thus they’d have no problem jumping 60 feet with these boots (if 20 strength), even if they were halfling or dwarf. Would this item be good for a strength rogue? (Can wear heavy armor despite lacking proficiency in it).
I got to say, I LOVE the new Tattoos that were added in Tasha’s and as I subbed my Rogue to shift classes, not having to bother the party with the down time or side quest, I made a temporary Barbarian with the Eldritch Claw tattoo, adding in some extra Force damage and extending her range of combat. Also, where else in DnD can you say you played a bipedal elephant disguised as a human priest, breaking down prison bars with bare hands, glowing with arcane runes as she steams with rage, vines and flowers moving around with her feet, and tendrils flowing from her hand to hold a two-handed axe?
Maybe more Paladin specific as (without Hexblade) you need 3 stats I like the amulet of health. Especially as you will have invested in strength with your ASI which won’t go to waste when you get the belts. Ring of spell storing also means Greater Steeds for the whole party if you share it around lol.
On the subject of flame tongue, i have to call back to the 3.5e flame tongue, because as well as doing the extra damage on a hit, it could shoot rays of fire once per rest as well, which was great as a backup ranged weapon since you didn’t need to equip another weapon for ranged combat. Also it had AWESOME art for it in the books too.
As a player, I was playing a DEX based Ranger. I was more or less the spell support and scout of the party. I later on tried on the (yet to be identified) Belt of Storm Giant Strength. Because I took the pre-identify risk, it was mine. I then became the party’s primary damage-dealing melee guy, especially since my main weapons were a Flametongue and a Sunblade. I also had a Mace of Disruption paired with the Sunblade for undead encounters. The item did help with my Strong-Pull Longbow, that item allowed the better of STR and DEX modifiers to be used… it was home-brewed from the PC game Pool of Radiance.
I disagree that STR-based classes feel rewarded by a giant strength belt. They feel shat on. Once they get their two or three feats that make their playstyle work (sentinel, X-master, etc), and sink their points into Strength, getting it to 20… they are rewarded by an item that tells them “you could have sunk your points into constitution, lol, your strength is already 21/23/25/27/29”.
I played a Druid barbarian in my last campaign. My favorite three items were Saddle of the Cavalier, Bracers of Defense, and Insignia of Claws. They were all very useful for making my wildshapes more combat efficient. Saddle imposed disadvantage on attacks against me, bracers buffed my AC, and the insignia turned my natural weapon attacks magical. I made for a truly excellent warmount.
7:46 crits still hurt, my barbarian suffered a treble 20 roll on for 70 hit points of damage, biggest we’ve ever had, cool tho I suck it up, then next round two separate crits, both for 49 dmg, err I wasn’t expecting that tho, the DM dished out 168 dmg to me,. BUT, half that for my rage is 84 dmg ! I challenged a one on one with a fire giant leader, went reckless and killed ‘Duke Zalto’…… he had me down to ten hit points tho… Damn, I almost got to Valhalla, bitter but sweet
Uncommon – Eldritch Claw Combine this with sentinel and you will terrorize your enemies from 15 ft. away with additional 1d6 per hit whenever they get out of line. Rare – Butcher’s Bib Want the champion subclass built into one of your attunement slots? Crit on 19 and go to town on all the fresh meat. Legendary – Blood Fury Tattoo Want to be a god amongst mortals? Regenerates tons of hp per hit while dealing devastating blows with added 4d6 per hit. Jealous that level 14 berserker barbarians have retaliate? Not anymore you’re not, now you can hit an enemy that attacks you as a reaction. Lay waste to the monster peasant scum, you untouchable tyrant.
We discussed whether the Dwarvenkind Belt grew hair to strand length (each strand 2 ft, etc), or by total volume. And Elves, they can’t grow facial hair. The corrupt Elven Lord who had dastardly plans for the Princess he was trying to woo didn’t really enjoy waking up next to her with 20ft-long ropes of eyebrow, nose, and ear hair in the morning. =D
its abit of a homebrew situation, but i’ve seen it where a DM allows the barbarian to have a ring (or bracer ?) of spell-storing, and the spells concentration factor is kinda tucked away, and the magic spell becomes a kind of fire-and-forget sort of a thing. This was used to great effect where the barb of my group (dragonborn barb with a dip or two into fighter) magick’ed himself up, rage-moded, and then just went fullspeed-ham-and-cheeze into combat with multiple attacks and such.
Flametongue and the Javelin of lightning both make me wonder at their ranking system. Both just feel so much more powerful than the other uncommon or rare items. Flametongue especially if you have a fighter, let alone a champion fighter who will crit more often, at 11th level they’ll be dealing 42 additional damage in just one round, assuming they hit of course but that’s not counting potential crits which with 6 crits is decently likely especially if they’re a champion! So much fire! Great item though just very powerful.
I wouldnt want those boots with my Barbarian. Well maybe for selling it of course. And then try to buy something decent. Walking speed becomes 30ft if not already. Im no Dwarf with a short leg issue so that aint helping. Speed isnt redeuced if you are encumbered or wearing armor I cant wear. Dont dont take and carry so much shit or buy a bag of holding. What are you, a hoarder? Jump 3x the normal distance. But cant jump farther than your remaining movement would allow. Well this maybe could come in handy in one or two occasions. Totally worthless for a Barbarian unless you got small legs imho. I rather would have boots which make my movementspeed exceed my basic movement speed so I can charge in and get in the enemies face asap. My Barbarian would sell these Boots of Strinding & Springing or give them to a party member. Adamantine Armor, for a barbarian? Half plate? My barbarian would look at you if you are crazy expecting him to wear something that would restrain his free movement. No sorry wont happen. Aint there anything that suits a Barbarian at all. If I wanted to play a class covered in plate and armour I would have chosen a Paladin. Its ugly a Barbarian in half plate. What are you a fighter or paladin wannabe? So far 0 out of 2 And an other half plate set? My barbarian wouldnt want to be found death in it. Arent there any nice items that increase AC while staying true to my barbarian. There are berserkers that fought naked. I rather have a ring or something that would increase my AC and make me fight naked!
Reference donning a helmet check a short film called Honor and Glory. It’s for a article game called Overwatch (blasphemy for a D&D website I know;) . The moment comes at five minutes ten seconds but you should watch from the start to get the full backstory for the moment. youtube.com/watch?v=sQfk5HykiEk
Let’s say you would play a game with a character with two vlasses side by side and it works like normal, only he gets a level up in both for every level up. Or even all of your group are that way, and the DM throws even bigger monsters and later even gods at you. What would be the best class/subclass combinations, and what the worst?
Ring Of Spell Storing – Best low lvl item ever! One correction though. (27:50 Mark) You guys suggest dumping shield spells inside the ring. That would be almost entirely useless. In order to activate a magic item a character needs to burn an action (or a bonus action if you are a Thief Rogue), so it would only work to sort of run in and hunker down till the next round to hold a tactically important spot. You cannot reaction activate the shield spell stored in the ring. Same goes for a counter spell. Thanks for all the awesome content dudes!
Adamantine chain mail has absolutely saved my Eldritch knight on multiple occasions. A few weeks back my party was clearing out a cave of Orc raiders following a sort of shaman, and they had a Claw of Luthic with two bears in one chamber. Our barbarian had to miss the session so I was the only one who could really tank damage, but not nearly as well. I took three hits that would have been crits in that fight, and survived the encounter on 1hp. Now that set of mail has green dragonhide trim to look like the boss ass set of armor it is.
I have a flame tongue that activates by screaming “Flame on!” I also have a homebrew helm fashioned out of the skull of an undead dragon that we killed. When I witness a death the helm’s power can be activated as a bonus action. A black heat-less fire springs to life, and whenever I deal damage, I deal an extra D6 of necrotic damage. The effect lasts 3 turns and if I kill something while it’s active, the duration resets. It’s pretty cool.
Hey, I really would like your opinion about the fighter subclass rune knight, the one who was one of the later playtests and uses the power of giant runes. I am an quite unexperienced player and I just rolled a fighter with that sub class for the current game I am in. In my opinion the class is really versatile in combat and has nice RP potential with an extra language and the bonus you gain for tool work with your fire rune, also the charm can be fun.
Late to the party, but I just wanted to point out in regard to barbarian adamantine armor, that Barbarians have moved away from just hitting things and have a lot of resources other than rage for managing their hp. So the critical hits still make us fall into the same issue as other classes, that the sudden unexpected jump in damage causes plans to change. It the adamantine armor in a couple of cases would have changed the outcomes of key battles where I was tanking on a knifes edge and that sudden drop made me think that I might be miscalculating this.
I was hopping you guys were doing to put weapons and armor into the mix lol but now i see you ment only +1. but great article anyhow. I will note that i dislike the belt of giant str, because its a better version of barbarian capstone. so getting 20 as a barb isnt as cool anymore. Also barbarians cant use the ring of spell storing while raging at all. they can use it before though.
Had a funny situation, with one of my one-shot characters She was legit build to be “one-shot” 10levels in Forge Cleric 3Level into Conquest Paladin We struggeled into that Cursed Mansion we were suposed to clear out and ive got a Flame-tongue Greatsword for Her from the DM The endboss fight starts. I cant reach him in one round and barely in 2, so i stay ignite my sword and Cast Searing smite. he closes most(!) of the distance and almost one shots our Monk who rushed in. my next turn i close the gap everyone is screaming at me “Heal the monk” and im like “ill Nat20 this Atk”. And i did so my last spellslots for the day in anticipation of this fight were one 6. and two 5. level slots the 6. went onto Searing smite. I declare my attack and roll. NAT 20. ive now got an incoming 4d6+3(weapon)+6d6(Searing Smite)+5d8(Paladin Smite)+1d8(undead bonus) ALL but 3 dmg doubled. the Dm is smugly like but he has fire resistence and im over here “But i ignore resistance to fire resistance because of Elemental Adept” The realisation xD i think i rolled something like 112 Damage with the opening damage of our group that was the last hit The Boss was (un)able to take. Afterwards the DM started to call me in before bossfights to check my builds because im either focusing on Power of super funny and whacky RP. My characters are either totaly useless or the glue of the group. All in good fun tho goal of the one-shot (for our DM) was to test some enemys mechanics and upscaling low CR monsters, he got all he wanted and we all had fun
A friend of mine has a different effects he applies to the belt of giant strength. The item doesn’t have different variants so there is only a single type, “generic” belt of giant strength. It also is given by giants so it’s not something you’ll encounter normally and only as a reward or if you’re strongly affiliated with giants. My favourite part though is that it doesn’t necessarily buff strength but all physical attributes are augmented +1 creature size. In this regard if your a human (medium) then you count as (large) or if you’re a goliath or half giant (large) you count as (huge). Essentially your carry capacity is double and items that would be heavy count as regular or oversized become heavy so you can rock guts size weapons more.
This was a great idea for a article, it is always helpful for new players to get excited over potential gear they may get! It’s also a great update for us older players who have been out of the scene a bit and can get updated on how some of our old favorites now work ( for instance the javelin of lightning is way different than the olden days! Can it still become an ordinary javelin on crit fail?). My pick for for a fighter will always be the vorpal sword/ sword of sharpness I have some amazing memories with that guy ( though mine was a bastard sword). The ring of the ram was always a favorite for me as well as the cloak of the bat! Of course the ultimate item for a paly will always be the holy avenger
If your worried about the long game of your players’ characters having Belts of Giant Strength, they also come in potions that only last an hour. You had also mentioned Barbarians and not giving them a Ring of Spell Storing filled with the Haste spell, because they can’t concentrate while raging. They make a potion for that as well! The potion of Haste lasts for 1 minute, no concentration necessary. Why do I suddenly feel like the “But wait, there’s more!” snake oil salesman?!?
Absolutely not rules-as-written, but my favorite moment so far in dwarven plate was when my paladin was holding a door to defend townspeople against attackers, and my DM allowed me to plant my feet and be harder to push back. (Mechanically I think it was a bonus to my athletics check.) So satisfying.
Periapt of Wound Closure. Don’t need to make any Death Saves. Then, when the cleric casts Healing Word, one just jumps to their feet, looks at that Succubus and goes “Yo, She-B! Let’s dance!” Actually happened to my Yuan-Ti Paladin – got knocked out thrice, got back up thrice. That succubus hated me.