#dnd familair

[ihaztea1]

Alright. I have to share this story and I hopr some of you laugh.

Of a Tuesday night, my brother runs a DnD 5e game that he homebrewed for me, our sister, our mom, and a guy I know from University. He's a new DM, so my character - a 7'2" silver dragonborn named Fayne - is using a homebrew reflavoring of hexblade Warlock to be a DM helper character.

To make this easier on myself, I will be refering to people by their character names so: Sister = Viv(dampir shadow monk), Mom = Jac(human champion fighter), Guy I Know = Mae(anthrofox whispers bard).

For my Pact I took Pact of the Tome which means I get extra cantrips, spells, and access to a nifty featire where I no longer need sleep. Not relevant, but feeds into my character's personality.

The relevant part is, I took the spell Find Familiar as a ritual and now have a raven/crow familiar that can either appear as a normal bird or a void bird full of stars, like a little piece of space.

So we're hunting a cult, as a party does, and have come to a cave base. I send in my raven to scout and see if it can't lead the guards to us for an ambush. The bird does *fabulous* and the entry guards are taken out handily. Fast forward a few combats and we're bottlenecked by the base's cafeteria ready to lay waste to the place. We know the people on the other side are expecting us cause a cultist escaped our initial attack, so we send in the bird to get them off balance and perhaps luring someone into our trap. It works, again, and all the people in the cafeteria sees is their friend looking left... Right... Cursing, and then falling down dead as two swrods flash out to end him. Viv and Mae were on either side of the door with readied actions to stab the first poor, unfortunate soul who stepped through the door.

As their comrade fell to the ground, the rest of the cultist saw The Bird standing in the hallway, its wings mantled, and it let out a mighty *caw.*

I laughed and recited, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings! Look upon my works ye mighty and despair!"

Mae laughed along and said it was fitting for a raven/crow.

After this incident, I decided, 'F it, the bird's name is now Ozymandias. We call him Oz for short.' So now we have Ozymandias as a foul mouthed, sassy, winged party member who can't actually attack but is quite content to ride into battle on Viv's shoulder and help her deal death to our enemies.

[solabees]

CHIRP SUPREMACY!!!!

another fun fact: I forgot you could talk to your familairs until like halfway through the first oneshot he appeared in. so his first words were basically "oh so now you want to talk to me father"

Calling all ttrpg players — I neeed to know what your party named your pets/mounts

Our party for instance, after some back and forth, gave our two new horses The Names ever:

Cookie chuckle and Crumble nuts

[same-pic-rick-roll]

I’ve been reading up on dnd lately and have some thoughts.

“Druidic” is a secret languange that only druids speak in dnd.

From a game mechanic pov, druids are a Class that players can choose from.

From a lore perspective, druids are basically priests of a religion that worships nature, but they get magic from it.

I DO NOT like druidic.

Since druids are a religion, lets compare them to an IRL religion. Due to mu familiarity with it, I’ll choose Christianity.

Christianity is a large religion practice on every continent.

There are christians in europe and africa and asia and australia and south america and north america,

A christian from europe moght speak dutch or english or spanish or finnish.

A christian from north america might speak french or spanish or english.

A christian from Asia might speak mandarin or hindi or thai.

And so on.

Lets say Mexican christian Maria is travling abroad and meets Chinese christian Chang. Maria speaks Spanish and English. Chang speaks Mandarin and Japanese.

Maria and Chang meet each other. They both worship the same god, have basically the same beliefs, and go to church every week. They can see that both are wearing a necklace with a cross on it, symbolizing their religion.

they both know they are christians. But they dont speak each others languages.

The same things go for druids.

Dnd is a large complicated setting, and has many different planets, especually if you go with the Spelljammer setting.

For simplicity, lets look at toril, a dnd planet im familair with.

Notice, thid has several continents. Doubtlessly each continent has a large and varied history.

Do you really think druids would all speak the same language? No.

We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

We've know each other for so long Your heart's been aching But you're too shy to say it Inside we both know what's been going on We know the game and we're gonna play it

Anyways obligitory rickroll.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Any thoughts on what the kids on bikes system? Or Tales from the Loop? I’m trying to get my players into trying out some different systems as we’ve only played dnd in the past.

I'm probably not the best person to give you opinions about them, I have never played or read either of those, so sadly I can provide no take other than "I've heard very good things about them in the ttrpg groups I'm in but they don't really seem like my cup of tea personally", but still good on you and your group for wanting to try different games. The games that got me and my group to explore outside of the D&D space were Troika! and Mausritter, both of them being just familair enough for a ttrpg player while still providing extremely flavorful cocnepts and unique mechanics. I still maintin that mausritter is probably one of the best starter RPGs I've ever encountered, thanks in no small part to its extremely solid yet condensed set of GM tools.

[memento-morri-writes]

Hi Morri! Happy blorbo blursday!

This is a semi-unconventional ask, since it’s not about the characters that you’re writing, but what is your favorite DND or ttrpg character to play and why?

// @cryptid-s-wips

NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR ASKING ME ABOUT D&D. This shit is my special interest, and has been for MONTHS.

Okay, okay, buckle your seatbelt. I have a lot to say about this. (Note: the only ttrpg I'm familair with atm is d&d 5e, so just assume everything I say is about that.)

This is going under the cut, because it's about 6 miles long.

My favorite class is rogues by far. They're just so awesome??? Like, not only do they have sneak attack (my beloved), but they also get so many amazing subclasses?? Like, swashbuckler, assassin, arcane trickster are all amazing. (I'm aware this is most definitely biased by my obsession with thief/pirate/etc. characters in writing, but idc. Let me live my dream.) I have at least 4 thief characters out of my 20 or so character concepts.

Aside from rogues I love fighters, because I love stabbing people (IN GAME, I SWEAR). I've yet to play a paladin, but that would also probably be up there because it's a good balance between fighting and magic. (Smite, my beloved.) Also, Oath of Vengeance is such a sexy concept.

I will say that Warlocks have some of the best concept possibilities, though. Just the number of possibilities. Did they sell their soul? Did they ask nicely? Did they have a choice at all? What is their relationship with their patron like? (For example, I have one warlock whose patron possesses them every so often, forcing them to do things they would never agree to do. When they come to, they've received new powers. It should be noted that they didn't ask for the pact at all. But I also have a warlock who has a decent relationship with their patron, and is very happy to have their gift, and uses it to help people.)

Also, it should be known that I have a tiefling obsession. Best race in-game, hands down. Idk, I just love them so much. The horns, the tails, the colored skin, I love it all. (It will come as no surprise that I have both tiefling rogue and tiefling warlock concepts.)

When it comes to my actual characters, I have WAY too many. (The current count for concepts is 20...) The one thing they all have in common is very complicated, always traumatic, backstories. I haven't played most of them (I've only played 3 in campaigns, and one more in a oneshot, but two of those campaigns got cut very short.)

Here's a pic of my character database that I made in notion:

My favorite characters on that list are Laverna (who I've had as a concept for 2 years), Zen (the warlock I mentioned, the one who gets possessed), Alarion (half-drow ranger who started out as a sorcerer concept, but I realized that was Not Right for him.), Avra (shadar-kai assassin rogue!!!), Asra (human fighter with so much shit in her background), Rook (half-elf pirate swashbuckler who makes his debut on Satuday!!!!), Sabe ("what life is there for a warforged with no war?"), Elira (aka Ellie, autistic former gifted kid abjuration wizard with a cat familiar), and the Feylost Bard (wandered out of the woods/feywild with no memories whatsoever. Has a very uncanny valley aura about them.)

Okay, I promise I'll shut up now, but if you want to read more about my characters, I made a post about them all here, which I just updated for this ask. <3

[whimsysalesman]

Tag Game

tagged by @seiya-starsniper. I know I just did one of these like a couplefew weeks ago but its fun so Im doing it again :3

Last song: Four Hours performed by the Longest Johns

Favourite colour: Im gonna be pretentious and name a color that doesn't really exist. My favorite color is the yellow of sunshine shining through tree leaves. It's technically green, but im talking about the several degrees of yellowfication the leaves undergo when backlit by the afternoon sun.

Currently reading: Still working on my OALC re-read (thanks again @deadcatwithaflamethrower!) though I'm now on book 8 where previously I was on book 6 the last time I did one of these

Currently watching: Had a craving for junk TV the other day and pirated every season of Kitchen Nightmares, so thats what I'm working on rn. Was delighted to find that the early british seasons are... kinder? Less "Idiot Sandwhich haha" than the later american reality TV stuff. Less of that water bowl screech sound effect, too, which I appreciate.

Current obsession: Sandman still owns my ass, but I am getting back into Critical Role campaign 2, as well. Been in the mood for familair comforting media and it doesn't get more familiar than the parasocial friendships I developed with a bunch of fictional suspicious assholes.

Currently working on: packing to move! I'm moving out of my parents house in like 2 weeks! Thats fucking terrifying! exciting, but AAAA

Last series: Good Omens. Did 1/3 of a puzzle and got wrecked by season 2 last week

Last movie: Django Unchained, I think. SO fucking good, and I want to turn that dentist in a dnd character posthaste.

[el-oh-her]

I dunno if this is the vibe you're going for, but I play a Lore Heavy dnd game and if players realize something if familair and can't place it, or they think there's a connection but they don't know what it is, I always have them roll a DC 10 History Check and I just tell them the piece of information they might have forgotten. And if they fail I never say nothing, but I'll give them a more broader hint. So a pass might be "You remember The Goddess of Hope told you about this monster."

and a fail might be, "You can't quite remember. You think you might have talked to a goddess about this, but you don't know which one."

This puts less stress on notetaking for players who hate it, and it also assures the notetaker that not being able to find the information in their notes doesn't mean it's lost information. And it means if they pass, they get to know the thing (good!) and if they fail, they can go on a little adventure to find that information again (also good!)

I also use the intelligence checks and wisdom checks (Arcana, Medicine, Survival, History, Religion)--whichever one is relevant, for players who don't want to figure it out for themselves and do just want to roll in a pass/fail sort of way. it's like being asked, "Can I figure this out?" and I say, "Yes, Roll Religion."

And while that feels very hostile towards what dnd is all about--I've found that some players like it. Some people feel overwhlemed at the idea of trying to figure it out themselves and I found that this eases out the anixety.

I also have a whole system developed for investigation checks. I, too, dislike the pass/fail when it comes to intelligence checks because it can stop a campaign in a really unfun way.

My party rolls a group investigation check to look for clues. There's three teirs of clues. One's absolutely necessary for the plot, ones that add context but aren't necessary, and secret knowledge. The party can also physically look at the map and if they see something on it they can ask what it is.

Once all the clues are revealed, every player can look at any given object once. However, you cannot roll the same skill twice on any object. So, the first player might roll investigation and fail the check. the second player can look at the item, but they can't roll investigation. Maybe they ask to roll history because maybe they read a book. It's an ongoing bit for the Barbarian to figure out how to roll athletics in invesgitaions such as "can I break a simialir sized obejct to see how strong you'd have to be to break down this door." My rule is that you can roll any skill to determine the meaning of the clue as long as you can justify it--and the justification doesn't need to be grounded in logic, you just gotta sell me on your solution. I've had players persuade the water to move a boat faster by giving it compliments, and that's honestly the best roll I've ever witnessed as a DM.

And if players roll low, they get bare minimum knowledge to help progress the plot. If they roll well, I provide context and what the presence of an obejct might mean. And if they nat 20 they get secret information.

You might think that this system is tailored in such a way that players almost always succeed and you'd be right. Investigations are fun, but if you fail them--then what do you do? Where do you go from there? The investigation experience in my campaign is less about failure (save that for combat) and more about the roleplay of finding clues.

Once I am the despot of roleplaying games my first decree shall be that game designers can't put knowledge skills in their games unless they can demonstrate a use case for them in their game that actually makes for good gameplay. After that it'll be fines for everyone who talks about "metagaming" and "roleplaying not rollplaying."

[bigwraith]

Hmmmm do I take Pact of the Chain for a familiar that can be a pseudodragon or do i take Pack of the Tome so I never need to sleep again

[caffeinated-tater-art]

follow me, I dare u

[notthewriteryourelookingfor]

Imagine if dungeons and dragons existed in the our flag means death universe.

Imagine Lucius running weekly dnd sessions.

Ed and Stede flirting in and out of chracter and they share Stede's insane collection of dice (over 20 sets) which he gladly shares with everyone but they have to fight Ed for the good ones.

Izzy is forced to play but secretly enjoys it.

Fang always has a familiar, doesn't matter what class he is or what the story is, he has to have a familair. And Lucius never hurts the familiar cuz he knows what it means to him.

Ivan has 1 set of metal dice and everyone is jealous cuz they're so cool.

The Swede's name is always The Swede because he gets confused otherwise and loves playing a bard cuz then he can use music to fight.

Black Pete keeps getting the best power ups cuz he's the DMs favourite. Fang doesn't mind because of his familiar.

Buttons is always a moon druid and Karl is always included but not a familiar, he's just there.

Frenchie always has to sing even when he's not playing a bard.

Wee John loves playing smaller races like halflings, goblins, and dwarves, the thought of being smaller than everyone is funny to him.

Oluwande is always a healer, not because he wants to but because if he doesn't everyone will be dead by the 3rd session.

Roach always supplies the snacks and tries to bribe Lucius into giving him cool power ups.

Jim says they don't care what happens as long as they get to kill someone. But they have a favourite set of dice which is an orange set Oluwande gave them.

[celticat21]

Some more of Alessa! These were supposed to be sketches but... I couldn’t help but make them more detailed. In the top one she was experimenting with making “negative fire” and.... well, it may have gotten out of hand. The bottom one shows her with her familiar, a baby dragon. As stated, she’s basically a DnD character. 

More on Alessa:

Name: Alessa Dragonbreath

LI: Julian Devorak

Age: 24

Height: 5 ‘1

Pronouns: She/her

Familair: Baby dragon named Burnie because I am cliche as hell.

Likes: Fire, soup, sewing, dolls/stuffed animals, drawing, writing, when someone plays with her hair, dancing on the tables of the Rowdy Raven, Volta.

Dislikes: The ocean, whales, traveling, when people touch her things without permission, her parents (strained relationship).

Fears: The ocean, whales, having people destroy something she worked hard on, financial dependence. 

Favorite Color: Blue

Favorite Food: Hazelnut soup

Favorite Flower: Lavender

Yes, it seems with her dislikes and fears its very ironic she would end up with Julian, but with Julians help she can work through her fears. Many of the reasons she doesn’t like travel, is because she never had anyone to travel with in the past. With Julian, she enjoys it a lot more. She also just loves to see Julian happy, so she willingly goes sailing with him. She feels more safe with him there, anyway. 

In regards to her strained relationship, her parents are very disapproving of her learning magic, as previous I had said it was stigmatized where she came from. She is also the oldest of three and has always had high expectations placed on her. They are partly the reason she is afraid of never being financially independent, as they controlled her finances for a long time until she learned to stash her money somewhere secret. 

The other part of the reason is due to an ex she had, who was also very controlling. One night they got into a bad fight and Alessa broke up with her. The ex, yet to be named, threw a vase at her and gave her the scar on her eyebrow. Not only that, but she cursed Alessa with infertility. 

[clawdee]

I’m just gonna ramble because I’m annoyed and I keep thinking about it and maybe if I write it all down I’ll stop thinking about it?

But I’m annoyed at the DnD game I’m in and our DM (I’m not the only one).

He’s constantly pitting us up against monsters WAY higher level than we are and in large AF numbers, as in, at least 1 of us goes unconscious every encounter and at one point Talora full on died and 3 others went unconscious until he decided the people attacking us just gave up and went away because we only had 2 players still up and BARELY alive.

And then recently in group chat, he was like “ I’m also trying to knock Kharis unconscious again and it’s just not working. “ “ I have to get past your high AC somehow” and I’m SORRY but wasn’t the point of the DM to NOT be against your players? Like yeah, you gotta be monsters and stuff but you don’t /want/ to kill them.

There’s also just... so much going on. Okay, so the main storyline is finding out what’s causing rifts between the Planes, and making the veils between them weak. Our group is the main research group of what’s going on. Awesome! Cool! Then Ronan was sent a letter from his mercenary group that ‘hey we’re in trouble’ so we went a WEEK out of the way to go over and see what’s up, we get info on what’s going on, we run into a racist ass elf who starts attacking us and then tells us she’ll stop if WE stop attacking her for attacking us... BUT ANYWAY we get the info on his trope who dissapeared and we have to find out what happened... and then we’re called back to our ‘boss’. Who tells us we have to basically go back to where we were with the elf... and then Kharis shit happens that we have to deal with and now we just have... 3 fucking things going on at once and peoples lives are at stake in /each one/

AND THEN after we find out Kharis’ mother has been kidnapped in the middle of us trying to do a ton of shit - some kobolds steal fruit in a market and some of us chase and some of us are like ‘we just found out Kharis’ mother has been kidnapped this isn’t our priority I’ll give the merchant money for the fruit’ and because WE HAD OTHER THINGS TO DO he fucking CHANGED MY ALIGNMENT. I’m not super huge on alignments to begin with, I don’t fully get them and I just tell my DM what my character is like and let them pick but I went from Neutral good to just Neutral. I don’t mind Neutral. I MIND my whole alignment being changed for this small tiny thing. (also I think my deity is super pissed at me about not going after a fruit thief)

Nevermind that Talora is still like, dealing with suddenly possibly being a Princess or an Abnormality, being brought back from the DEAD, and having some weird ass void crystals now embedded in her stomach that are connected to what’s going on with the Rifts. Like. I’m not even following up on any of that unless we’re in an area/with a person I can be like ‘so hey you know anything about these?’ -lifts shirt up- because we have so much to do.

He’s always pushing us along the storyline he set up instead of letting things happen organically. Like he’s trying to control us like it’s a video game - he has literally said ‘ I can make sure you guys go where I need you to go’, I understand keeping the group on track but we’re not the kind of group to go /off track/ for very long we are very set on track with short detours to shop and maybe stop at a bathhouse. The only time the group really gets to /do/ anything is when they drink, Kharis and I literally sat in discord discussing how Talora would learn her find familair spell because I leveled up and got that but I like there to be a reason I have a spell if that makes sense? Like I don’t want her to suddenly just /know/ something.

And combat is so boring because it’s just like ‘okay he’s going to hit you’ instead of ‘the spider rears back and shoots acid at you!’ He just tells us what it’s doing and not showing us. Along with the fact that he doesn’t do voices or accents and like - fuck he was being Kharis’ dad telling her his wife was fucking kidnapped and it was like someone just stole his sweetroll. There was 0 emotion. 

There will be times I’ll be in character, talking with the group, and ask the group a question - and he’ll answer as DM. Like at one point Talora found out some location and asked the rest of the group where that was because she’s not from this Plane and Dan was just like ‘uh, you have a map’ like I was fucking STUPID and I was just like ‘YES, Kelsey has a map, Talora does not, that’s why she was asking her GROUP.’

I’m just. Annoyed. I like the plot of what’s going on, I love Talora and what’s being done with her character, and I love the rest of the players! The characters are fun and interesting, but our DM... he’s a nice guy out of game but fuck.

[the-scottish-costume-guy]

In our latest dnd game, when confronted with werewolves - the elf child wizard climbed on the back of the animal companion which bolted 100ft into the woods and 25ft up a tree. The noble we were transporting immediately disappeared into the forest, the wizards familair turned elf (long story) got bitten and infected, and their very important ally also got infected... the combat ended with everyone hiding in trees.

We started combat with 6 werewolves involved, killed two and ended combat with 6 still alive.