I was wondering if I could potentially get some input on the changes to the Dual Wielder feat I made. The one presented in 2024 is horribly confusing and unclear. I wanted to make sure my players aren't going to need an explanation every time they see it.

Dual Wielder

General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+, Strength or Dexterity 13+)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Enhanced Dual Wielding. When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that you are holding in one hand, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn using a different weapon in a different hand. Both weapons used must lack the two-handed property. You don’t add your ability modifier to the extra attack’s damage unless you have the Two-Weapon Fighting Feat or that modifier is negative.
Nick Master. The Nick Weapon Mastery now allows you to make the Light property extra attack twice on your turn. Once as part of the Attack action, and a second as a Bonus Action.
Quick Draw. You can draw or stow two weapons that lack the Two-Handed property when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.

Edit: Made a couple small errors typing this out.

There have been a lot of discussions on Ranger damage lately, mostly spurred by Treantmonk's videos last week. What I feel a lot of these analysis don't consider is the full ranger spell list. They either look exclusively at hunter's mark, or maybe throw in one other concentration option. What I want to explore is the new version of Conjure Animals. Unique among these types of spells, Conjure Animals says:

Whenever the pack moves within 10 feet of a creature you can see and whenever a creature you can see enters a space within 10 feet of the pack or ends its turn there, you can force that creature to make a Dexterity saving throw

I read this as, even if an enemy starts its turn within 5 feat of the pack, and then moves 5 feat away, it still is entering "a space within 10 feat of the pack" and thus would have to make a save. Even if I'm interpreting this wrong, I feel like a melee character should be able to keep an enemy within the area of effect fairly easily, and thus force the enemy to make the save twice. So even if an enemy has a 50% chance to make their dex save, that's still an average of 16.5 damage per round. If you don't factor in the chance of losing concentration, this is by far the most damaging option for third level spells, even if you're just looking at one enemy.

However, not losing concentration for a melee character is a huge assumption, so I did some calculations to at least attempt to give some idea on how concentration effects the overall damage of these spells. I'm specifically looking at a lvl 11 twf ranger, and comparing it to a lvl 11 monk. This is because this is where the ranger really seemed to loose ground in Treantmonk's calculations. His dpr calculations for a basic no-subclass twf ranger was 27, and the monk was 37.8. Here are my assumptions

• The ranger took the dual wielder feat at 4, and got it's dex up to 20 at 8. This gives you less defense than TM's build, but you can always be human or something and pick up magic initiate wizard for shield
• Conjure animals is cast on the first round
• If you are able to maintain concentration, and enemy will make two saves against conjure animals
• You win initiative and attack the enemy before they get to attack you. Kind of a big assumption but at least plausible with a dex build
• You have to make one concertation save per round, and you have a 60% chance of making this save. Okay, I know this is a big assumption, but sometimes you the focus of enemies and sometimes you're not, sometimes you take a lot of attacks and sometimes none. Sometimes you take ton's of damage in one hit and the dc becomes much higher. I don't know how to factor in all of that so I'm using this as a starting point
• Once you lose concentration, you cast hunter's mark for the remainder of the battle. If you lose concentration in the first round of combat, you have at least one round where you can use both the dual wielder bonus action attack and hunter's mark
• Treantmonk calculated the average damage for a round where you use hunters mark as 27. By my calculations, using Treantmonk's methods, the average damage for a round where you use the dual wielder bonus attack without HM us 25.7, and with it is 34.6

Okay, so using those assumptions I did the following calculations:

Scenario 1: Concentration is lost in Round 1

- (8.25+27+34.6+27)/4*.4= 9.68

Scenario 2: Concentration is lost in Round 2

- (8.25*3+25.7+27+27)/4*.6*.4= 6.27

Scenario 3: Concentration is lost in Round 3

- (8.25*5+25.7+25.7+27)/4*.6*.6*.4= 4.31

Scenario 4: Concentration is lost in Round 4

- (8.25*7+25.7+25.7+25.7)/4*.6*.6*.6*.4= 2.91

Scenario 5: Concentration is maintained all four rounds

- (8.25*8+25.7+25.7+25.7)/4*.6*.6*.6*.6= 4.64

Add it all together and you get a whopping total of 27.81 average dpr when casting Conjure animals at 3rd lvl. Yikes, that's barely an improvement over just using hunter's mark, but let's see what happens next level when you pick up warcaster, making your chance to succeed on the concentration check 84%. I won't subject you to all of the math again:

CA with warcaster

- 31.77

Okay, a little better. CA has a duration of 10 minutes, so you might not be able to precast it all of the time, but at least in some scenarios, and then you don't have to sacrifice your attacks on the first round, let's look at that

CA precast with warcaster

- 37.9

Yea! We've finally closed the gap with monk! Let's look at one more scenario. What if we cast Summon Fey instead? Summon fey has a duration of 1 hour, so it should be able to be precast much more reliably

SF precast with warcaster

-31.74

Note, this is assuming that you use the summoned fey's misty step to back out of the fight. This makes me feel better about assuming the summon survives the entire battle, but if you use something like fuming fey to get advantage on your attack this damage will be significantly higher.

So what can we conclude from this?

• None of these options overpasses the dpr for the base monk. I'm not saying rangers can get fantastic damage at this level, but they can at least close the gap somewhat. There are also a lot of other factors to consider; the fact that CA will likely be damaging multiple enemies, the fact that the ranger has a lot of utility within and outside of combat through spells and skills, and the fact that in his calculations Treantmonk never had the monk using step of the wind or patient defense.
• The ranger really needs to consider multiple factors when choosing what spells to cast and when to cast them. Factors like, what information does you party have on what lies ahead, how many and what type of enemies are there in the battle, and what are the capabilities of your allies? Say what you will about the thematics of the 2024 ranger, but I at least consider this a pretty "rangery" way to play
• Maintaining concentration is extremely important. Ranged builds should probably be reassessed in light of this.
• Expanding on the previous point, a fighter dip is very impactful for a ranger, first for the concentration save proficiency and extra fighting style, and then at some point later for action surge so you don't have to sacrifice your round 1 attacks to cast a spell. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that the more "optimal" way to play ranger will be taking a fighter dip, using shillelagh with a staff and shield, grabbing warcaster at 5 and maxing wisdom.

If a warlock casts Shadow-Blade and then binds with it, for one bonus action, and then dismisses the shadow-blade … when they next cast it, is it already bound to them? I see no reason for it not to be the same blade, I just wanted to hear some thoughts on this.

Hey everyone!

Been reading through the new DMG, and is anyone else a little disappointed that the Greyhawk setting is defaulted to 579 CY?

I was kinda hoping that they'd push the setting forward to be in parallel to the Forgotten Realms, which would place the setting sometime in 710s.

I totally understand that it's presented as an example setting, but the lore nerd in me was hoping for a little more.

What is everyone else's thoughts? :)

Hey all, I've been looking through the new PHB and exploring concepts for a summoner druid, and I've found myself a bit confused by the difference between spells like Conjure Fey and Summon Fey.

Namely, in how they Fey Spirit from Conjure Fey differs from the Fey Spirit of Summon Fey. Summon Fey has an entry for the stat block of the Fey Spirit, while Conjure Fey just tells you what the fey does when conjured. Can enemies target the conjured fey the same way they can target the summoned fey? And does this apply to other conjure vs summon spells?

I did read the book but I'm also REALLY bad at looking for things, as my wife can attest to.

So now that the 2024 Ranger is officially out, I can’t help but feel it kinda…didn’t get finished. While just about every other class got some major updates, including a host of new features that provide lots of interesting options and choices to make, I can’t shake the feeling that the Ranger got skipped over in this regard. With that in mind, here are the ideas that I came up with to address this. Feedback is encouraged and appreciated!

Design Goals:

1. Add new, interesting options for the Ranger, both in and out of combat, to match the other 2024 classes. Making sure that there are still simple, quick to use options, as well as more complex/niche ones.
2. Resolve some of the clunky feeling associated with the consistent use of Hunter’s Mark, and allow its power to scale with higher levels.
3. Alter as little as possible with the existing 2024 Ranger, focusing mainly on adding new features or revising existing ones. All of the below assumes using all of the standard 2024 Ranger rules, unless otherwise noted.

New Ranger Class Table

Favored Enemy (Revised Feature): You regain one use of this feature on a short rest, and regain all expended uses on a long rest. The damage die you roll for Hunter’s Mark will also increase in size as you gain Ranger levels, as shown in the Hunter’s Mark Die column of the Ranger class table.

Superior Instinct (New Feature): Your natural instincts can help to steel your senses, as well as your mind. When you fail a Wisdom ability check or Wisdom saving throw, you can expend a use of your Favored Enemy to give yourself another chance to succeed. You roll your Hunter’s Mark die, and add the number rolled to the initial roll, potentially turning it into a success. If you still fail the ability check or saving throw, this use of Favored Enemy isn’t expended.

Steady Hunter (New Feature): Taking damage can’t break your Concentration on Hunter’s Mark. Additionally, if the creature currently marked by your Hunter’s Mark drops to 0 hit points, you can use your Reaction to move the mark to a new creature that you can see within range of the spell.

Hunter’s Bane (New Feature): You can mystically illuminate the weak points of your chosen foe. If there is a creature currently marked by your Hunter’s Mark, and you can see that creature, you can expend one use of your Favored Enemy as a Bonus Action to enact one of the following options:

• Honed Attack: You can add your Wisdom modifier as a bonus to either the attack roll or damage roll of any attack that you make against the marked creature*.* You add this in addition to the normal ability modifier used for the attack. You must decide which roll to affect before each attack that you make.
• Remove Resistance: You can attempt to remove one damage Resistance possessed by the marked creature. You choose any one damage type, and if the creature currently has Resistance to that damage type, it must make a Constitution saving throw, with a DC equal to your Spell Save DC. On a failure, the target loses that Resistance. A creature with Immunity to the chosen damage type is unaffected. If the creature does have Immunity to that damage type, or simply does not have Resistance to it, you learn that, but your use of Favored Enemy is not expended.

You can only have one of these effects active at a time. Whichever option you choose, it will last for as long as your Hunter’s Mark stays active on the target creature. If you move your mark to a different target, or if you cast the spell again (even to target the same creature), either of these effects will end. 

Relentless Hunter (Revised Feature): When you cast Hunter’s Mark, the duration is 1 day, regardless of the spell slot used. The spell also doesn’t require Concentration, but it still ends early if you cast the spell again, have the Incapacitated condition, or die.

Improved Hunter’s Bane (New Feature): You gain access to the following enhanced options when using your Hunter’s Bane:

• Instinctive Attack: You can add your Wisdom modifier as a bonus to the attack roll and damage roll of any attack that you make against the marked creature*.* You add this in addition to the normal ability modifier used for the attack.
• Make Vulnerable: You can attempt to impose a new damage Vulnerability on the marked creature. You choose any one damage type, and if the creature doesn’t currently have Vulnerability to that damage type, it must make a Constitution saving throw, with a DC equal to your Spell Save DC. On a failure, the target becomes Vulnerable to that damage type, or loses Resistance to the damage type if the creature currently has Resistance to it. A creature with Immunity to the chosen damage type is unaffected. If the creature does have Immunity to that damage type, or already has Vulnerability to it, you learn that, but your use of Favored Enemy is not expended.

Unending Hunt (New Feature): Your chosen quarry is marked by a supernatural aura, visible only to you. When you cast Hunter’s Mark, you always know the location of the marked creature, even if they are behind total cover, and the spell lasts until it is dispelled. As long as the spell is active, you are treated as having Truesight with regards to seeing the marked creature. The spell still ends early if you cast it again.

I’m pre-planning for my next campaign. I have a few weeks of preparation time as we tie up our current campaign.

I’m looking forward to playing a warlock in the new 2024 setting. I played a (fallen) Aasimar Hexblade character in the past. It wasn’t my longest played character, but it definitely was my favorite. I’m looking to play something similar, but different.

I’m really torn right now between a FeyLock and a GOOLock. Can anybody argue one vs the other? They both sound super fun to play.

I've been thinking about general game design recently and wondering what people's thoughts are regarding the ranger. The following is purely because I think its fun to think about game design, and continue to try to hone those skills.

I see two types of rangers when I think of the class - 1) the Aragorn kind, that go around and investigate and fight with two swords, or 2) The 'Companion Class', which could also have investigating and such, but has a greater emphasis on the companion.

The second one is almost exclusively because of the PHB Beast Master being the only thing in the PHB that remotely resembles a companion class (or at least, prior to Artificer and the current ability to do some neat stuff with the Warlock Pact).

My personal opinion is that the first type of ranger is mostly just RP flavor, and can be achieved with either Fighter or Rogue (or a multiclass of the two), and that it would make sense to me to instead double down on the companion concept for the Ranger class. You could still include investigation / hunting style stuff, but that the companion would be integral to it, with subclasses providing features that expand you *and* your companion in various ways.

That being said, I'm sure my opinion is not the majority, but I am curious to see how other people are thinking about stuff. It seems to me that there are a ton of designs in DnD for classes to emulate other classes in some ways (many casters can get extra attack, including Warlock getting up to 3 attacks, and many martials can get partial casting). There are options for getting a consistent companion, which seems to emulate a class that actually doesn't exist - which makes me think, maybe it ought to.

So, all that being said - when you think of the Ranger, what thematic niche do you think it should occupy?

I know to us, that's a week nd makes sense, but faerun, for example, has tendays, not weeks

Greyhawk and Ebberon have 7 days weeks, sure but most dnd adventures take place in faerun

Title. Trying to figure out pacing.

Since the release of the 2024 PHB, there has been a lot of discussion and argument about the role of custom backgrounds, and why they should or shouldn't be player-facing. While I don't want to start (yet another) argument about whether backgrounds should restrict your ASI choices as much as they do, I do think there is an under-appreciated reason why it makes sense to keep custom backgrounds as an "ask your DM" thing.

If you read through the Greyhawk chapter of the new 2024 DMG, which is meant to be an example setting, both that you can use and to guide/explain how you might create your own setting, you will see that backgrounds are integrated directly into the world. In the "Free City of Greyhawk" section, there are eight city locations given, each of which starts with a description, followed by 1-4 paragraphs of background text, and then sections on Character Backgrounds and Reasons to Visit.

The Character Background section outlines how you might connect a player to this location, based on their origin. The Reasons to Visit outlines what in-game motivations might drive a party to go to that place. Together, these provide a much more accessible and useful way to think about a place than previous sourcebooks, which often focused more on a kind of almost Wikipedia style "Gazetteer". While often nice for flavor, these don't always tell you how to actually use the locations.

If you keep in mind that both the 2024 PHB and the 2024 DMG are written largely from the perspective of teaching new or less experienced players how to play (and run) the game, I think it is more obvious why backgrounds are treated the way they are. By formalizing a limited set of options (while providing an out for experienced players and DMs who want something different), you make it much easier to introduce how to use origins to integrate characters into the world.

And, of course, one common argument for putting custom backgrounds in the PHB kind of falls apart from this perspective. If you, as a player, have a well-developed backstory idea, connected to the game world, that doesn't fit with the pre-packaged backgrounds, you've already done all the work, and a custom background should work fine. But for a DM who wants to build an organic world where the PCs have a stake, a custom background that is just "a feat, two ASIs, skills, and a tool" is not that useful because it is just a pile of game mechanics with no way to tie it in to anything.

Would removing concentration from hunters mark for Rangers be too good? Or maybe just the favored enemy castings of hunters mark ?

I find hunter's mark concentration requirement really interferes with a ranger's ability to use some of their cooler spells. You can't use ensnaring strike or entangle if you got hunter's mark going. Or even some out of combat ritual like detect magic would make you drop hunters mark. Also things like pass without a trace, spike growth. You have to choose between dropping your key feature and potentially wasting one of its uses in order to use other key spells.

I understand concentration needs to exist to prevent you from stacking too many good ongoing spell effects. Also you can lose concentration on it if you get hit, but that also feels super bad to lose a use of your key feature like that. Is this really necessary for hunters mark ? What concentration spell could you combo with hunters mark that is just too good to allow this? Does it get broken if you start multiclassing or something ?

I just don't want to accidently make it OP if there is good reason hunters mark needs concentration.

Edit: Thanks for the replies all. Definitely some good suggestions and ways to go about it. I was genuinely curious to hear people's views about it. I appreciate those who pointed out it is just a straight damage boost that isn't necessarily needed for Rangers, especially at low levels. And I agree with those who think the feature could have used a redesign/overhaul. But ultimately i was thinking of simpler tweaks to improve the overall feel of the class rather than a total re design of favored foe/HM.

I've been extensively theorycrafting the new classes with D&D Beyond, and the sheer number of purely broken combos you can make with the new EK is staggering. I don't want to write a 10,000 word essay, so I'll just highlight two that center off of opportunity attacks:

1. At 6th level, a Soldier EK can stack Sentinel and War Caster. This means that you can cast Witch Bolt (WB) as an AoO, and the Bolt will set their speed to zero. You then get to pulse them on your turn, make 2 weapon attacks and still pin them if they try to run away. You have full fighter AC and War Caster, so concentration is not an issue. Top end, you're doing 11d12 lightning damage for the WB, plus 20 weapon damage rolls with Savage Attacker.

2. Add Polearm Master into the mix, and now you can make that WB AoO when the opponent enters your reach, as the wording of PAM specifically says you must be holding a polearm, but doesn't say the attack must be made with the polearm. To be even more stupid, none of the Heavy, Reach or Two-Handed properties say that you have to have two hands on the weapon at all times; you only have to be holding it in two hands when you attack with the weapon. So, our mythical EK can have plate mail, a shield and a halberd, and still get the benefits of both PAM and Sentinel, even though they can't legally swing the weapon. Considering that the WB pulse is a Bonus Action now, you could drop the shield once you have the opponent pinned with WB using the utilize action, still get the 1st pulse, and go crazy with the polearm in future rounds.

This is just a small sample, of course. We haven't even touched the insane AC an EK will be able to hit, the permanent Bane on unlimited opponents from Blade Ward, eventual Greater Invisibility shenaningans, or the even more complex cheese the true power-gamers will cobble together. And yes, other classes get access to the same feats and spells, but what makes EK broken is the accelerated speed at which they get feats. The stacking of feats and spells is what really sets EK above all of the other multi-class mutants people are going to invent in the next few years.

I'm both excited and terrified to hear the community's suggestions for further ways EK breaks the game. Have at it!

When it states you can cast it without a spell slot that means it's cast at lvl 1 exclusively, right?

The loading property says “You can fire only one piece of ammunition from a Loading weapon when you use an action, a Bonus Action, or a Reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make.”. I’m not English myself, so I’m slightly confused by the wording: does it mean I can only fire one ammunition across the action, BA, and reaction, or one for each? As in, I fire an ammunition with my action, then I can’t take reactions with said weapon ammunitions? Or does it mean I can only fire one shot per type of action, which results in stopping extra attack but not the ability to use reaction? The specific case I’m interested in is for Thief rogue, where I get to use heavy crossbow with multiclassing, if I use a spell scroll of True strike as BA and attack with the crossbow, do I get to also attack with my action (through an other true strike) or I can’t (and need crossbow expert)?

So me and a friend are trying to work out how Nick works.

Let's say you have Weapon Mastery and you make an attack with a weapon that has Light and Nick.

You can make your main attack and off-hand attack as your action, leaving your bonus action still available. can you then use your off-hand weapon again as the bonus action, or is it now only available for other bonus actions, such as hide for example (if you were a rogue)?

I checked 2024 DMG but Magical Contagion is almost same with Disease in 2014 i guess

If this is the case, why did Wotc remove diseases from the 2024 PHB?

Edit: so Antimagic Field blocks or cures Magical Contagion?

So, I'm playing a level 4 winsdom based feywanderer ranger. I enjoy hitting monsters with my stick and I enjoy even more being an incredible face (I have +9 at Deception and +7 at Persuasion without counting guidance). I know that I will definitely take another level in ranger for the extra attack, favored foe charges and spell slots... But I also realized that after this the class doesn't get a lot of interesting toys to play with. Especially if we consider that the few toys I get all revolve around fricking Hunter's Mark. So I was considering multiclassing: my idea was to get a 6th level as a Rogue (can't use Sneak Attack, but I gain two extra Expertise) and after that I either continue as a Druid or a Cleric to capitalize on that High Winsdom. I wish I could avoid the Rogue level, but I really want that extra expertise and seems like Rogue is the only way to gain it.

I would just like to point out that my character is an Aasimar and so it wouldn't be that weird if he became suddenly more magical.

What do you think of my multiclass plan? Is it feasible or really bad?

Has anyone found the running a business section in the 2024 DMG?

In the 2014 DMG, there was a sidebar explaining how characters could learn to craft magic items:

Magic Item Formulas (Legacy DMG pg.141)

A magic item formula explains how to make a particular magic item. Such a formula can be an excellent reward if you allow player characters to craft magic items, as explained in Chapter 6, "Between Adventures."

You can award a formula in place of a magic item. Usually written in a book or on a scroll, a formula is one step rarer than the item it allows a character to create. For example, the formula for a common magic item is uncommon. No formulas exist for legendary items.

If the creation of magic items is commonplace in your campaign, a formula can have a rarity that matches the rarity of the item it allows a character to create. Formulas for common and uncommon items might even be for sale, each with a cost double that of its magic item.

Was this information included in the Revised DMG, and if so were there any changes?

Which strike of the giant feat and possibly the succeeding feat (edit: 2 of which can increase Cha) can be great for the Dance Bard?

Especially since at level 6 there's a good chance to proc Strike of the Giants 2x per round.

The new dmg outlines items that let you cast spells, with the only limits being the level of the spell. If someone gets an item that casts bless for example, how would they be able to keep concentration?

Edit: Yes, I was not reading it right. Thanks for the replies.

These first three columns in the table are three distinct set of keys for the same success rates

As of Oct 31 2024

The first column is what roll is needed on the d20 for the mob to be successful (i.e. target AC - Monster Attack bonus). Then the next two columns are what the roll must be if all the monsters have advantage or if all the monsters have disadvantage... And that's where there seems to be a problem... first few rows read like this

A cursory glance at the table seems to indicate having advantage requires a higher minimum roll than with disadvantage. Am I missing something here?

Just curious if there is an obvious level to go to?

I'm about to start a campaign and was looking to run 2024 characters. I know there have been some bumps in implementation. Does anyone have a list of known bumps in character creation to be aware of or is it mostly patched?

Edit: more a reference to website bugs building characters improperly

Edit: To clarify, this is about switching out tool proficiencies to be able to craft whatever you want. Not rest tricking to craft Just got the new DMG, and I was looking at crafting magic items in bastions. It looks like you and a helper need proficiency in certain tools for certain types of magic items, for example: a ring needs jewelers tools, and staff needs woodcarvers tools. I’m playing an Eladrin elf, and in their trance feature they can select/swap out two types of tools at the end of the trance to gain proficiency. Seems like a major buff to the feature. Any other hidden buffs you know about?

they don't talk about size of creatures so is the 'or' in the sentence meant to imply the covering creature is at least half the target? if so what is the relationship of size to cover? does a medium provide half cover to large? even tough a large is four squares and a medium is only one? or does a tiny bug provide cover for a huge dragon?

COVER

Half +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws

Offered By ...

Another creature or an object that covers at least half of the target