Let's Play: Hoard of the Dragon Queen (A D&D 5e Adventure) SIGNUP

[Zergrinch]

Channel Divinity basically has you calling on the power of your god to aid you.  It recharges after a rest, long or short.

 

Starting from level 2, you can do it once every rest.  This increases to twice at level 6, and three times at level 18.

 

The spells you can cast are:

1. Turn Undead: All undead within 30 feet must make a WIS save.  If they fail, they are "turned" for 1 minute or until damaged.  A turned creature must spend its turns moving as far away from you as it can.  It cannot attack or take reactions, and can't willingly move to a space within 30 feet of you.  Starting at level 5, you can instantly destroy a turned creature within certain thresholds.  In short, it makes undead afraid of you.
2. Preserve Life: You can restore a number of HP equal to your cleric level times five.  This can be divided among any number of creatures within 30 feet of you.  This is very similar to the Paladin's Lay on Hands feature, but the difference is you can do it every short rest, you don't have to touch your target, and you can't restore someone to more than half of their maximum HP.

In addition, at Level 10 (won't come up in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, sorry), you can call on your god to directly intervene on your behalf.  The chance is roughly equal to your cleric level divided by 100.  For example, you are level 12, you have a 12% chance of success.  At level 20, this becomes an automatic 100%.  Naturally you can do this only sparingly - once a day, or after seven days if the call was successful.

[Rilbur]

Honestly, I wouldn't say that 'channel divinity' gives you more spellcasting ability.  I'd say that clerics, in general, make up for it by being just a tad bit beefier, able to actually think about risking melee range.

 

Edit:

Also, they automatically gain access to all their spells, which is a big advantage to other classes which can only know a limited subset of them (or as wizards have to find the scrolls to scribe them).  They still have to deal with preperation limits, but...

[Zergrinch]

Light Clerics can be downright nasty at blasting.  

 

Also, channel divinity at least gives you a lot more options than saying "I attack XYZ with my warhammer" or "I cast Sacred Flame at XYZ" once your slots run out (which is now the case).

 

Personally I prefer Druids as far as prepared casters go.  Yeah, there is the downside of being limited to non-metallic armor.  But dude, a level 2 moon druid is basically Easy Mode on Hoard of the Dragon Queen, since Wild Shape gives you a huge pool of health to draw from.  And the best part is Wild Shape can be done twice every short rest!

 

Fighters may be boring (I hit XYZ with my sword!  Action Surge - I hit it again!  Second Wind!  I hit it again!  And again!) but they really have great lasting power, since both Action Surge and Second Wind recharge on a short rest. At the end of the day when your spellcasters are running on fumes, the fighter's still fighting on as reliably as he's done all day.

[Rilbur]

Fighters may be boring (I hit XYZ with my sword!  Action Surge - I hit it again!  Second Wind!  I hit it again!  And again!) but they really have great lasting power, since both Action Surge and Second Wind recharge on a short rest. At the end of the day when your spellcasters are running on fumes, the fighter's still fighting on as reliably as he's done all day.

That describes a champion, maybe, but Battle Masters and Eldricht Knight's are... a bit more involved, with their manuevers and their spells.

[Zergrinch]

For some reason, I got it in my head that Morganor was a Cleric from the Life Domain.  So here are additional battle options for your Light cleric:

1. You always have Burning Hands (AOE, cone, fire attack) and Faerie Fire (AOE, cube, grants everyone advantage) prepared
2. At level 1, You have the Warding Flare feature.  When you are attacked by an enemy within 30 feet of you that you can see, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage.  You can do this as many times per day as your wisdom modifier (currently 3x).  At level 6, you can also do this if the enemy attacks someone other than you.
3. Your Channel Divinity at level 2, in addition to Turn Undead, is Radiance of the Dawn (not Preserve Life).  This dispels magical darkness, and any hostile within 30 feet that fails a CON save takes 2d10+cleric level radiant damage (half on save).

BTW I'm kinda waiting for more detailed readied actions from Jelkor.  If there is no post within 8 hours, I will autopilot Morganor to be casting his damage cantrip, and Garanth will be shooting with the longbow. 

 

I assume you guys aren't trying to stealth yourself from the Bears?

[Jeikor]

If you check I did have Garanth notch an arrow but forgot to have Morganor ready his cantrip although so far it has been totally ineffective. I will take care of that now.

[Zergrinch]

Statistically speaking you do greater damage with Sacred Flame than the crossbow. The exception is against enemies with low armor class but high dexterity.

Like Bears

But it's just the luck of the dice, really. For example, just because Vicious Mockery missed the last few times doesn't mean it's a useless cantrip.

[Jeikor]

I didn't say it was useless but it does get disheartening and frustrating when it doesn't hit the enemy.

 

Considering how this campaign has gone so far maybe Morganor should have been in the Life domain. LOL

 

Are Burning Hands and Faerie Fire spells or cantrips? I am thinking they are spells so no help at this time until I get spell slots back.

 

I would appreciate lots of suggestions on play. I haven't played since a little after D&D became AD&D and I have never played a cleric before.

[Zergrinch]

Burning Hands and Faerie Fire are all level 1 spells.  So yes, you are out, sorry.  

 

I'm still waiting for the sorcerer to use his Breath weapon, which recharges on a short rest. 

 

Well, so far you were the ambush-ee, and now you are the ambush-er.  What do you think so far on what you should do to survive a D&D 5e encounter? 

[Rilbur]

I'm still waiting for the sorcerer to use his Breath weapon, which recharges on a short rest. 

 

Well, I'd say I forgot it... but honestly, we haven't had a lot of enemies in a reasonable clump that I could hit with it without hitting allies.  There hasn't been an appropriate moment for it, unless you want me to burn it on a single target.

[Zergrinch]

Sorry Rilbur, I'm going to disallow the off-hand attacks. The characters were firing with light crossbows which need two hands. You only have one free item interaction, to yank out a dagger or a rapier. To take out the off hand dagger will require either an action or your free item interaction for the next turn.

[Rilbur]

Ooof, oh well.

[Jeikor]

Would either of my characters know how to skin a bear? Maybe Morganor since he has a 3 on Survival?

[Zergrinch]

I'll let you skin the freshly-killed bears as a straight out Nature Survival check, DC 12.  The difficulty class increases by 1 for every 2 hours you don't skin them.

• Meet at least that, and you've got yourself a bear pelt for every 1d3+1 man-hours you spend skinning.  You can sell each pelt for 10 GP.  I will apply a learning rate of 5d6% if you wish to skin multiple bears.
• Fail by less than 5, and you've halved its value to 5 GP.
• Fail by more than 5, and the bear pelt is unusable.

Note that this only to make a pelt - if you want to craft hide armor from it, that's an entirely different story (you'd need access to lots of salt as well as a set of leatherworkers' tools  

 

It is still in the middle of the night, so make sure you can have the benefit of a long rest, or the next day may be rougher for your character than it should be.  For your reference, here are the hours of sleep you got.  There are 5 more hours till daybreak:

1. Garanth (first watch): 1 hour
2. Erwin (second watch): 2 hours
3. Perrin (second watch): 2 hours
4. Morganor (third watch): 3 hours
5. Arjan (third watch): 3 hours

[Rilbur]

Sorry for my limited availability the last few days -- mother was in the ER, I kept on getting jerked around with little or no notice.

 

Resuming play in three...

[Rilbur]

Oh, and I honestly thought some of the caravan workers would jump on the opportunity to earn themselves some more coin -- and meat.  Oh well, always fun if it goes in my pocket instead!

[Zergrinch]

No worries, take all the time you need.  Jelkor and I will be here.  Family should always come first, Rilbur.

 

Also, yes, just about all the fighter's resources recharge on a short rest.  Except for hit dice.  But that's not an issue for Garanth yet.

 

Do note that lack of sleep will lead to exhaustion 

[Rilbur]

Do note that lack of sleep will lead to exhaustion 

 

Erwin's already planning to tell him to spend some time resting in a wagon for a while... plus the guy is an elf.  He can get a lot more rest out of a trance than the rest of us can in the same length of time.  So long as we don't repeat the process next night, we should be good... right?

[Jeikor]

Just what I was planning to tell him. As long as we don't make a habit of it a young elf will be no worse for wear. And he will listen to Erwin because he sees him as his commander just like in the army.

 

Hope your mom is better, Rilbur!

[Rilbur]

Hope your mom is better, Rilbur!

 

IV fluids & antibiotics turned her from a miserable wreck who had me seriously worried, to a sick but livable human being.  Who likes to talk about pee the color of a tequila sunrise.  (Massive kidney infection, from what I understand -- blood in urine).

 

Still an improvement from the 'ice dagger in my heart' and 'put your cold hands on my nose to keep it warm' that I kept company in the ER yesterday.

[Rilbur]

BTW Jeikor, what are your long-term plans for Garanth?  He has a very... odd build, combining a dex-based archer with the protection fighting style.  Doesn't really match.

[Zergrinch]

Dexterity based fighters are perfectly viable in melee with a finesse weapon such as a rapier.

[Rilbur]

Dexterity based fighters are perfectly viable in melee with a finesse weapon such as a rapier.

 

You're still trading off armor class.

[Zergrinch]

The ultimate trade off isn't as bad as you think.  With max dexterity, studded leather gives you 17 AC.  That's only 1 AC less than plate, which gives you automatic stealth disadvantage and costs a fortune to boot.

 

Plus, raising Strength affects your melee attack, Athletics (climbing, swimming, jumping, shoving), and your carrying capacity.

 

Raising Dexterity affects your finesse attack, ranged attack, skills (Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, and the very-important Stealth), armor class, AND initiative bonus.  In 5e especially, it is better to give than to receive damage

 

Finally, DEX is one of the most common spell saves.  There are STR saves, but these are relatively rarer

[Rilbur]

Why exactly is Perrin (but not Erwin) poisoned?  Giant Wasps deal poison damage, but they don't inflict the poisoned condition.  (If you're house-rulling that in, please tell me you're increasing the challenge rating / XP gained from them)