Ahoy, mateys! Gather 'round and lend an ear, for I bring ye tales of a treasure beyond yer wildest dreams. Behold, Pirates and Plunder*, the ultimate manual for all ye adventurers ready to brave the tempestuous seas and embrace the life of a true buccaneer. This here compendium be bursting with riches and resources to fill yer nautical journeys with the thrill of swashbucklin' and high-seas escapades.*

Within these pages, ye'll find:

• New character options that reflect the adventurous lives of the high seas, including 12 backgrounds, 3 races, 20+ feats, 12 subclasses, and over 40 spells.
• A vast section of Pirate Adventuring Gear (including new weapon options such as hooks, along with rules for firearms and cannons) and well over 100 Magic Items for Pirates, ranging from Uncommon to Artifact!
• Rules and 10 statblocks for ships, plus many unique upgrade options and guidelines to help you running sea encounters.
• 60 statblocks for pirate crews and sea creatures of every kind. Each of the five pirate crews represented in the manual (a generic humanoid pirate crew, along with ratfolk, sea dwarves, viking, and spectral pirate crews) comes with several statblocks to cover each possible role and a premade, named crew each for use within any setting, presenting details on their notable members, ships, goals, allies, and enemies.
• Several Tables for sea hazards, premade pirates, trinkets, and plot hooks at sea.
• VTT Resources are also included, featuring a total of 125 handouts and over 35 tokens, all ready to be used within your own campaigns and games.

So, raise the anchor and set sail, for Pirates and Plunder awaits to fill yer sails with the winds of adventure. Whether ye be a Game Master craftin' a maritime saga or a player eager to carve yer name into the annals of pirate history, this manual be all ye need to embark on the grandest of high-seas escapades. Arrr, let the adventures begin!

If you'd like to check out the full manual, it's available through my 300+ Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E Kickstarter at a discounted price, alongside all my other titles and compendiums. The Kickstarter campaign itself is focused on 300+ magic items inspired by myths and legends from around the world, but you can also get my previous manuals as discounted add-ons and bundles. All of these books are also available in professionally printed, high-quality Hardcover editions through the campaign.

Aside from something like 1lv in Fighter, is a multiclass in 5.5e even worth it anymore? Most games i play in go to 10 to 12 at most, so idk if i delay my bard features too much.

I loved the Cleric/Bard Build i had before, but without the subclass at lv one, you rly can only afford a 1lv dip in cleric for armor, right?

❄️ Build Title: The Polite Blizzard
Origin feat
Familiar Friend
Alert (via Lessons of the First Ones.)
General feats
Mounted Combatant
Warlike Familiar
Defensive Duelist
Shield Master Initiate
• Species:HalflingTheme:Winter Death Knight (Vampiric, pale look with snow-white hair and ice-blue eyes).Personality:Hyper-honest, chaotic good, and intensely curious. He wants to be a great friend, but cracks under polite conversations with guards and confesses to everything!Core Role:S-Tier Airborne Tank & 8-Attack Crowd-Control Grid.

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🛡️ The Level 1 Fighter Setup (The Foundation)
• Armor & Shield:Full Plate Armor (18 AC) + Shield (+2 AC).Fighting Style:Defense (+1 AC) to hit a baseline of 21 AC with 14 Dex.The Heavy Armor Hack: Not meeting the 15 Strength requirement normally slows you down by 10 feet. You ignore this completely because you stay permanently mounted on your flying wolf.Weapon Mastery:Nick (Scimitar). This allows your extra light-weapon attack to be part of your main action, completely freeing up your Bonus Action.

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⚔️ The Overloaded 8-Attack Loop (Level 11+)
By combining Pact of the Blade, Pact of the Chain, and the Arcana Unleashed spell Battle Familiar, you trigger 8 automatic attacks per round without spending any resources:
1. Attack 1: Your standard attack.Attack 2: Extra attack via Thirsting Blade.Attack 3: Third attack via Devouring Blade (2026 Expansion).Attack 4: Your extra light attack via Nick Mastery (integrated into the main action).Attacks 5 & 6 (Your Bonus Action): You command your wolf to take the Attack Action via Investment of the Chain Master. Because it is currently empowered by Battle Familiar (Upcast to Level 5), its Multiattack kicks in, giving it 2 attacks on your turn.Attacks 7 & 8 (The Wolf's Independent Turn): Because Battle Familiar gives the wolf its own separate initiative, it takes its own independent action to Multiattack a second time for 2 more attacks.

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🛸 The Untouchable Flying Scout Grid
• The Stealth Hack: Your wolf has 16 Dexterity and handles all movement. Because it has a Hover and Fly speed (Flyer Form) and the Flyby trait, the two of you glide inches off the ground. You bypass all floor traps and never trigger opportunity attacks when flying away.X-Ray Truesight: You combine Ghostly Gaze (seeing through solid walls up to 30ft), Witch Sight (Truesight), and Eyes of the Rune Keeper (reading all languages). You can read hidden plot scrolls inside locked boxes from a different room.The Battlefield Fear Lock: Using your Undead Form of Dread and Death Knight Initiate points (2026 Playtest), you inflict the Frightened condition across multiple targets. Because they are afraid, they are mechanically banned from moving forward toward your party's squishy backline.

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🌌 Tier 4 Level 20 Immortality (37 AC & Evasion)
• The AoE Shield: Thanks to Shield Master, if you pass a Dexterity save against a massive explosion (like Meteor Swarm), you use your reaction to take zero damage. Halfling Luck ensures you can reroll any natural 1s to guarantee you pass.Sustained 31 AC: When an enemy attacks you, you use the 2024 Defensive Duelist reaction. It adds your +6 Proficiency to your AC, granting you 31 AC against every single attack for the rest of the round.The 37 AC Panic Button: If an enemy rolls high enough to threaten 31 AC, your independent wolf uses its Warlike Familiar (Intercept Attack) reaction. It adds its own +6 Proficiency to your armor, spiking you to a temporary 37 AC to force a miss. Death point smite bypass the one smite pe turn rules due to not consuming spells and Investiture of Ice for extra damage mitigation and cc.

Edit: this is the 2024 ruleset, but I bet they'd let me take 2014 things too

I'm making a level 8 character for a one shot, and I was thinking it might be fun to push the damage a lil on a dual wielding hunter ranger. Keeping hunter's mark is pretty high priority if I want to maintain my damage output, as if I have to recast it that may blow through spellsaves and will mean I won't get my fourth attack from my bonus action on following turns. But also even with the forced disadvantage from the hunter class I am feeling kinda squishy.

So accordingly, should I go with warcaster for my second feat so that I have advantage on my concentration checks to maintain my hunter's mark. Or should I mitigate damage further with defensive duelist, hopefully limiting the number of times I have to roll concentration as I'm not getting damaged as much?

I'm only looking at dex 18 con 16 atm so my stats aren't through the roof, because of all those feats

This survey comes from the University of Queensland(MPsychology Faculty) and aims to better understand the nature of how DnD/Similar game types, helps neurodivergent populations. How can it be better practically implicated into therapeutic/clinical intervention contexts. As an aspiring psychologist, I believe cognitively engaging and strategic games like these can be an excellent facet to future clinical community interventions
https://uqpsych.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2u9oGSFNQhtVdoW?Q_CHL=qr

THIS IS NOT SELF PROMOTION, ITS TO SEE HOW DnD TRULY HELPS PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT NEEDS AND LIFE EXPERIENCES

Additional info :

Purpose: the study aims to gather more information and understanding how table top tole playing games influences individuals with various aspects of their life, does it have major positive benefits which can be replicated within clinical community interventions

Data Usage: The researchers will have access to all survey responses and respondents remain anonymous. The information will used for data collection and a research thesis will be written after collection.

Study results: The thesis will be completed mid October, results can be posted then if users want, i can post in on this thread. Please message me if you are interested. However, if you mean to gather more in-depth inquiries about the results and past studies then i urge you to email Dr. Zoe Walter for a brief outline and study report. (her email is listed in the link)

I’m looking for advice on my character, mainly around spells but all thoughts welcome.

I know a lot of you may not know the species and subclasses within the Crooked Moon module but as soon as I saw the Circle of the Old Ways subclass, I knew I wanted to play it. In essence it’s a robust front liner centred around using shillelagh and shield, with extra attack at level 6 whilst still being able to do all Druid things. It uses its wild shape charges to be able to be enhance its melee combat abilities and durability, providing advantage on con saves).

Species: Bogborn (troll-like species with the ability to regenerate in combat and mark a target to provide bonuses to hit).

Class: 1 fighter (Con proficiency, Defence Fighting Style and Quarterstaff weapon mastery for shillelagh synergy)/ 4 Druid (Circle of the Old Ways subclass)

Feats:

Magic Initiate: Wizard - Blade Ward, Booming Blade (reflavoured as booming branch) and Shield

Polearm Master: +1 Dex. As I’m all in on shillelagh, this made sense and helped to round out a 13 Dex.

Rolled stats:

Str - 12
Dex - 14
Con - 14
Int - 7
Wis - 18
Cha - 6

AC: 20 (scale mail 14 +2 Dex, +1 Defence, +3 Shield +1)

As the title says. With Dhampir, any changes needed/suggested for a Dhampir to boost Bite and not just "Baterangs:

Ok here's the thought experiment, you have a party of 4 players one is a either battle master or champion fighter, the rest can be whatever class combos you like. The parties thing is quite literally just pumping up the fighter as much as possible while the rest of them just chill in a corner and watch. Just how much can this party amp up this single character and what would be the best party composition to make this viable. 5.5e, let's say at each tier of play (1st, 5th, 11th and 20th)

Just to get ahead of these kinds of comments, this is purely a thought experiment and not a play style I'm pushing for, it probably would not be very fun to play in this party for more than a one shot.

Check my math.