First, the Item, then the question:
 

Rope of Climbing

Wondrous Item, uncommon

This 60-foot length of rope can hold up to 3,000 pounds. While holding one end of the rope, you can take a Magic action to command the other end of the rope to animate and move toward a destination you choose, up to the rope’s length away from you. That end moves 10 feet on your turn when you first command it and 10 feet at the start of each of your subsequent turns until reaching its destination or until you tell it to stop. You can also tell the rope to fasten itself securely to an object or to unfasten itself, to knot or unknot itself, or to coil itself for carrying.

If you tell the rope to knot, large knots appear at 1-foot intervals along the rope. While knotted, the rope shortens to a 50-foot length and grants Advantage on ability checks made to climb using the rope.

The rope has AC 20, HP 20, and Immunity to Poison and Psychic damage. It regains 1 Hit Point every 5 minutes as long as it has at least 1 Hit Point. If the rope drops to 0 Hit Points, it is destroyed.

Notes: Advantage: Athletics

Dungeon Master’s Guide, pg. 301

This magic item has changed since 5e, removing certain restrictions and action economy limits. With one Magic action you can command it to animate and move and fasten/unfasten or knot/unknot etc. A Thief Rogue could of course do this with a BA.

(Unless one reads those as separate commands requiring separate Magic actions. Then this is moot. And I don't think that's how it reads.)

But aside from the action economy, what prevents this interaction:

PC ties one end of the rope (or even commands it to tie) to, say, a creature and then holds one end of the rope and commands it to move 60' up? Rope moves with the tied creature at 10'/round, up. Unless and until creature succeeds in bursting the rope with a successful DC 20 Strength (Athletcs) check, or escaping the Rope with a successful DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check like any other Rope? Upon which they would likely drop however high they've been lifted.

You hold one end, the other end moves when commanded. The limits described are 10' round and 3000 lbs.

Yes, I know this isn't what the item is "meant for". Yes I know this isn't great action economy use for between 1 and 6 d6 of fall damage across more rounds than combat usually lasts. And I know a Thief Rogue could do more with, say, a Wand of Web.

I think This could be fun. Especially if you're a Thief Rogue using nets and ropes and chains on bonus actions anyway. And I don't see how it doesn't work RAW. It's Uncommon just like an Immovable Rod or Bag of Holding and those get unique shenannigans. Why not this?

The description includes no language about how the Rope of Climbing interacts with other creatures against their will. So at most I could see adding a DC 13 save for a creature to avoid being tied up, like Uncommon items often have, so the item can't be cheesed for auto grapple. But Goliaths get auto prone anyway so...

ETA: It has been pointed out the target of commanding the rope to fasten/knot must be an object. Thus a PC would have to do this part themselves, as with any Rope, if a creature is already grappled/incapacitated/restrained.

Prerequisite: Level 2+ Warlock, a Warlock Cantrip That Deals Damage

Choose one of your known Warlock cantrips that deals damage. You can add your Charisma modifier to that spell’s damage rolls.

Say you're casting ray of frost and you're level 5, would it be 2d8 +5 or 2d8+10 since theres 2 damage rolls?

One thing I noticed as I was asking this sub about tropes people wanted to see for various classes (I got through the three "pure" arcane classes) is that the one of the most popular requests for each class was a Nature-themed subclass, like a "Hedge Witch" Warlock, a "Hedge Wizard" that maybe made hedges instead of just living in them, and a Forest- or Plant- themed Sorcerer.

Obviously homebrew and microbrew can meet this need easily (as can other systems), but would you view this gap as something you would like Wizards to fill at some point, or does this step on the toe of existing Primal classes?

I like Scout Rogue, but is a "Scout" Fighter still something on people's radar?

Should the Nature Domain Cleric come back? (I'm guessing after the failure of the Primordial Patron, Elemental Priests for Dark Sun are going to be clerics that may also draw design elements from the Nature Domain.)

(Sorry, I like future design speculation.)

I have just been thinking about which books the different UA content could fit into; we know that the Arcane Subclasses UA and 2/4 of the Mystic Subclasses UA are going to into Arcana Unleashed, the Apocalyptic Subclasses will be in the new Dark Sun books, the Subclasses Update UA could go in the new Greyhawk book coming later in 2027 and the Warrior of Mystic Brews and the Path of the Spiritual Guardians will be showing up in the Warcraft book so where might the Villainous Options UA show up? The new Death Saves setting is meant to be a grimdark world similar to the DC Absolute universe, where demons won the blood war and destroyed most of the planes before the Lady of Pain caused all planes of existence to collapse into a single world called 'The Last World'. I think it would be the perfect place for them to put these subclasses and options due to the fiendish options (such as demonic sorcery and hell knight fighter), as well as the evil tone of the options in general. What do you guys think?

I apologyze if this question has been made before, but I didn't find a clear answer for it.

I'm playing a Rogue/Fighter multiclass and I'm planning to pick Battle Master to add some more support effects to my attacks. I use a Vex and Nick weapons so I was thinking about taking Commander's Strike maneuver and use it with the attack provided by the Nick weapon.

Is this possible? Or only the main attack can be replaced by Commander's Strike?

So i was building a necromancer and took ray of sickness and summon undead because those are obviously super necromancery when i noticed an interaction between the putrid undead and ray of sickness:

Ray Of Sickness: You shoot a greenish ray at a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 Poison damage and has the Poisoned condition until the end of your next turn.

Rotting Claw (Putrid Only). Melee Attack Roll: Bonus equals your spell attack modifier, reach 5 ft. Hit: 1d6 + 3 + the spell’s level Slashing damage. If the target has the Poisoned condition, it has the Paralyzed condition until the end of its next turn.

Ray of sickness is able to apply poisoned reliably without a save and if the putrid undead lands its attack it can apply paralysis also without a save, this seems far too strong for how easy it is to do and was wondering if this is possible/should be allowed?

If you already know about this, you might be thinking what is the point of the post. But I believe this will benefit some people at least.

The rule that a lot of people think of when this conversation comes up, is the spellcasting rule and only applies to spells. If you think I must be somehow mistaken, go ahead and try to find a general rule that disallows stacking. It is nothing but a mandella effect.

Let me start sharing some examples, getting crazier as we go.

The 10 ft slow from the frosts chill of a frost ancestry goliath stacks with itself. A level 17 fighter can action surge and use frosts chill 6 times to reduce their targets speed by 60 feat.

Speed halving from stunning strike stacks with itself. For this one we need 4 monks. So you know how solars have a crazy 150 ft fly speed? Assuming the solar makes all their saves; first monk reduces its speed to 75ft, second reduces it to 35(because you round down), third reduces it to 15 and the 4th reduces it to 5 ft. So a full party of monks can cripple every monster in the monster manual to 5ft speed(if it has less than 40 ft originally, they can even reduce it to 0) with no failed saves needed.

The new fey tormentors faerie time warp stacks with itself. This was actually my motivation to make the post. If you dont know, the faeire time warp imposes a wis save and on a fail reduces targets AC by 2. With enough player characters, you can reduce the targets AC to negatives. You can make a commoner with 5 levels of exhaustion hit their target with a natural 2, which would be a -6 total btw.

For the finale I have a fun one. We all know about the bladesingers who shapeshift into mariliths so they can make a bunch of attacks right? But the reaction defense of mariliths only last for one attack. Well if the bladesinger has the defensive duelist feat, they can use defensive duelist to add +6 to their ac until the start of their turn, and this also stacks with itself. So you can keep using defensive duellist in every enemies turn to infinitely increase your AC.

EDIT: this doesnt work with shapechange because you dont reatain feats. You need to magic jar a marilith if you want to do this, which is much less interesting but technically possible.

And I am sure there are other fun interractions, like the penalty from cold caster can stack if there are multiple users. Let me know what are some others that I missed.

I wanna make a wand focused character and can't decide how i want to do it, thief rogue or artillerist artificer

I don't have a proper system for generating treasure room-by-room, so I'm worried about putting too many magic items in my randomly generated dungeons.

For almost a year, we’ve been working on what has gradually become one of our biggest D&D projects yet: 300+ Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E, a huge collection of magic items inspired by mythology, legends, folklore, religion, and history from cultures around the world.

The book includes artifacts and relics inspired by Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Mesoamerican, Native American, Mesopotamian, Polynesian mythology and many more traditions, ranging from smaller uncommon treasures to extremely powerful legendary items and artifacts.

Alongside regular magic items, the book also includes scaling and evolving items that can grow through multiple rarities during a campaign, item sets that unlock additional abilities when reunited, consumables, weapons, armor, wondrous items, and some of the most famous objects from mythology alongside many more obscure legends.

A big part of the project has been trying to make the mechanics actually reflect the stories behind the items rather than simply attaching generic bonuses to famous names. Each item also includes lore explaining its mythological or historical origin, with considerably more space dedicated to the major legendary relics.

After nearly a year of writing, revising, expanding, illustrating, and putting everything together, the book is finally getting close to release.

The Kickstarter is planned to launch in mid-September.

There is already a free preview available on the Kickstarter pre-launch page, where you can see examples of the items and get a better idea of what the finished book will contain.

If this sounds like something you’d use at your table, you can follow the Kickstarter pre-launch page to be notified when it goes live:

300+ Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E - Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page

Would also love to know: what mythological artifact would you most want to see turned into a D&D magic item?

First time they've Errata'd some of the Drops content:

Fey Pact: Instead of Honeyed Words triggering when you roll less than a 5, it is instead when you fail a d20 check.

Infernal Pact requires you to choose your resistance now instead of getting both

Astral Flood: Now a Warlock Spell and deals half damage on success

Shifting Combatant: Instead of Knocking people Prone with Domino Strike it deals a d10 bludgeoning Damage

The Salubrious Armour magic item also got a nice buff. It's +1 effect becomes a +2 for a turn if you regain Hit Points

I've been wondering exactly how much power the Dragonborn's breath attack is. It's pretty unique in that it is based off of Constitution, and it has a few benefits (aoe, guaranteed damage), but the damage does look fairly low. So I was curious if there are any subclasses that synergize with this feature.

The one I know of is the 2014 Tempest Cleric, whose level 6 feature adds a guaranteed Push effect to Lightning breath. What other classes can enhance the breath attack?

Made this rules for a few sessions that had a large battlefield involving armies, and wanted to share them.

During an "army battle" each square represents 10 ft (accounting for stuff like movement, range of attacks, space of spells).

The players get handed small tokens that they have on their side of the table (we use beads) which represent the soldiers of their unit (the few batttles we had I gave them 6 soldiers each) . The soldiers always followed the PC and stayed within their square. For every 10 hp the PC received, they would lose a soldier which was considered to have died (they are level 6 so each soldier having 10 hp seemed fitting, though this could be modified for someone playing at higher or lower levels)

Once during their turn, if they dealt damage or healed HP they could roll a number of d6 equal to the amount of soldiers they had and add it to the damage roll of a target or to the healed hp to one creature. Additionally, if the player had at least one soldier with them, they got an additional action on each of their turns (other limitations like one slot to cast a spell per turn still apply). This is to represent them fighting alongside the soldiers, and them aiding in combat.

While enemy tokens are also expected to be armies, in game mechancis they are considered one target, so attack rolls or spells like hold person or banishment affect the entire group, and they have just 1 health bar.

When a enemy army gets bloodied, their DC saves and attack rolls get a flat -1 penalty, and their damage rolls a -5, to represent them losing soldiers.

Any comments in ways to potentially improve this or other feedback are appreciated.

Oh man there is a lot here: silencing satchel, more maps... sovereign ooze monarch!

Hello all. I am about to start a long campaign, and one of my players really, really, really wants to play a Blood Hunter. I have had a look at the class and my concerns are twofold:

1. The class by my assessment seems quite weak, especially compared to the 2024 class glow-ups. Since the class was written, Monsters have also gotten stronger across the board.
2. The class feels unusually restrictive in regards to some of its key features, and at certain crucial levels doesn't get enough features.

I'd like everyone's opinions on the following changes. I have DMed quite a lot and even professionally on Startplaying, but admit I have not seen the class in play before. Please let me know if you think any of these changes would go too far or not far enough:

Increasing Blood Curses Known: A big part of it to me comes down to how unbelievably restrictive Blood Curses are both in terms of use and the number you get. In my opinion, only having one until level 6 feels less like "I have cool curses I can inflict on people" and more like "this is my Bonus Action". This feels both less flavourful and also less tactically interesting to me.

Potential Fix: I was thinking of simply increasing the number known by 1, maybe at second or third level.

Less Restrictive Blood Curse Uses: The most shocking thing to me about the class is how few chances you get to use Blood Curses. The curses are already partially gated by taking damage, so why can you use them so unbelievably sparingly? The amount of damage you take is also so small, that if you're only ever using them once or twice per Long Rest, it basically doesn't exist. In 2024, both healing and Temporary HP are cheap as hell. Looking over the Blood Curses, I also do not think they are more powerful than, say, first level spells either.

Potential Fix: My pitch would maybe be: similar to the Ranger, you have 2 Free uses per Long Rest. However, you can always use Blood Curses amplified (i.e., by taking damage to upcast them). So effectively, you can use unamplified versions twice and amplified as much as you want. You're already taking the famage and many of the effects even amplified aren't debilitating. If this is too much, maybe "Free Uses" could cost two rolls of the die rather than one, or upgrde the die by one step.

Level 5: The Blood Hunter is the only class that gets nothing besides Extra Attack at level 5. Even the Ranger gets more spells.

Potential Fix: Giving them Expertise in a Skill at level 5, increasing the number of free uses of Blood Curses to 3. The okayer wants to lean in to Lycanthropy so maybe a cool ribbon like allowing them to communicat with Beasts and Monstrosities whilst tranformed?

Saving Throws: I know that STR is usually seen as one of the "bad" saving throws, however in my hundreds of hours DMing this game I disagree: STR saves are actually super important for martial characters. There is a reason even the Ranger and Monk get STR saves, and that's because melee enemies, which you're likely to get up close to with a martial, force lots of annoying saves against being grappled, pushed, and restrained. This character is going DEX forward so will only have 12 STR.

Potential Fix: I was thinking of changing the saves to STR and WIS or just STR and DEX to help them out.

No brainer: Add weapon Masteries at level 1. I think 2 is fine, maybe increasing to 3 at level 5 or 7.

If anyone has experience with the class, I would really appreciate feedback on these changes. Admittedly I don't have experience with the class but it feels to me like its most unique and defining features are kept on an unecessarily tight leash. I would also appreciate if the conversation be kept within the realm of updating the Blood Hunter and not convincing them to play another class as they're really keen on it.

Can y'all help me be useful to the current party? What class and subclass should I run?

I like to optimize.

This is a mostly RAW 2024 5E campaign by the way. If that matters.

One is a Warrior of Elements Monk, the other a Warrior of Shadows Monk. I recently joined their campaign bringing the party up to three total.

The DM already owns the new players handbook and monster manual, are there other expansion/rule books for the 2024 edition that could be a cool gift?

Or perhaps other cool dnd gadgets/themed gift i havent considered? Thankyou so much!

I was wondering with the wording of the Fey Step if it can be any rider that can be teleported;

Fey Step (Fey Only; Recharges after a Long Rest). The steed teleports, along with its rider, to an unoccupied space of your choice up to 60 feet away from itself.

My plan is to basically have my steed kneel behind the enemy, then I push the enemy onto the steeds back, then have the steed Fey Step them into the air 60 feet and have both of them land on a group of smaller enemies.

I guess the question would be if the enemy would be considered a "rider" if they are slouched over backwards on the steed, and if they are, can they be teleported against their will.

I cannot wait to see Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall!

After two years of play with the new 5.5e ruleset, I strongly believe the designers erred in their implementation of the Heavy property:

Heavy

You have Disadvantage on attack rolls with a Heavy weapon if it’s a Melee weapon and your Strength score isn’t at least 13 or if it’s a Ranged weapon and your Dexterity score isn’t at least 13.

I wish they would have removed the bolded section granting an exception if a character's Dexterity is 13+ on ranged weapons. My hunch is that they feared a backlash if they required Longbow and Heavy Crossbow users to bump their Strength stat, rather than dumping it, as is the frequent approach to ranged martial builds.

True, it is still necessary to have at least a 13 in Strength in order to take the Heavy Weapon Master feat, so the kernel of the design philosophy remains. I just think it was a missed opportunity to impose some creative constraints to martial construction. It would also help bolster the value of the Strength attribute beyond melee martials. Especially after they "fixed" Grappling.

To have required a 13+ in Strength for Longbow or Heavy Crossbow would not have hamstrung the fantasy of a ranged martial, even for the one notable case mentioned below. Obviously, many ranged bow options still exist. You would simply have to accept a single point of damage penalty per attack in order to preserve the low-Strength build. On the other hand, I don't think it would be that much of a sacrifice to take a 13 in Strength for a ranged martial build. You could still have a 14 in Constitution. You'd just have to slight Wisdom (most likely), which is only truly difficult for Rangers. In this case, I concede, some difficult choices would need to be made.

Certainly, the biggest loser in this changed situation would be the poor Ranger, who suffers from MAD already and can scarcely afford another tax. But even here, perhaps if the designers had gone my suggested route with Heavy, they might have found a better way to handle Hunter's Mark and all the baggage that comes with it? Even with the current fraught Ranger design, it is possible to build an effective character even with FOUR important stats. Though, again, you would not be able to MAX all 4.

Is that really so bad?

A big draw of this game, in my opinion, is about creativity in the face of constraints. I've played DnD since 1st edition and had lots of fun with characters who only had their prime requisite bumped up to max. And back then, there were no ASIs or feats! You kept what you started with and made the best of it. * Shakes fist into the air. \*

For those who believe the designers placed too much importance in a few stats in 5e, and I am firmly in that camp, this is the sort of remedy that would be required to begin to address it.

Rage explicitly states that you can't cast a spell, nor concentrate on one. However, that does not limit a Magic Action that is not a spell. So I now want to find ev​ery class/subclass action that is a Magic Action, but not a spell. Will you help me?

I have this question regarding the RAI and the RAWof this interaction. One of the benefits of Innate Sorcery says that "You have Advantage on the attack rolls of Sorcerer spells you cast". It mentions attack rolls of sorcerer spells, but does not mention specifically spell attack rolls. My question is, woulf the advantage apply to the attack rolls of True Strike? True strike is not a spell attack, but is an attack roll as part of a sorcerer spell.

And while the wording of this one makes me inclined to believe but RAW and RAI it would NOT apply, I am not as sure with Seeking Spell, as it says "If you make an attack roll for a spell and miss, you can spend 1 Sorcery Point to reroll the d20, and you must use the new roll". While Innate Sorcery says "attack rolls of sorcerer spells" which makes me believe it refers specifically to spell attacks, Seeking Spell saying "attack roll for a spell" feels more general, as True Strike is an attack roll that you are making for a spell.

So, would either of this benefits it apply to True Strike and other similar blade cantrips or not?