#honestly would anyone be interested in that combat explanation being pulled out as a separate post

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Hey Star! Bit of a weird question, do you know where's a good place to find a simplified ruleset for dnd 5e, specifically for a wizard. My wizard is finding it quite hard to remember all the rules and before I condense them all myself I thought I'd ask around and see if anyone has any resources that would do the trick. (Also, a quick update on the campaign, I made our kobold rogue worried about some mountains and now I know why you love to make your players worry. I feel very accomplished.)

Off the top of my head, I don’t know of any good resources for simplified 5e rules--I started out playing 3.5, so 5e is already about 14x simpler than what I originally learned.

I really want to convey that, as a 3.5 Druid on a campus with dubious-at-best wifi, I had one binder full of spells and another binder full of wild shapes, and spent 85% of my combat time trying to grasp the 3.5 grapple rules.  As a rules-laywer little-shit player, I miss having four thousand skills that I could finesse to give me stupid-high advantages on things like “Search” (plus thirty, I had a plus thirty to Search in my last 3.5 campaign), but 5e is WAY more accessible.

HOWEVER.  Even 5e is still pretty rules-dense, so let me try and hit some suggestions.  Without knowing the specifics of what your players are struggling with, these are going to be pretty broad, but you’re totally welcome to send in a more specific request if you want.

No one knows all the rules to DnD.  If a player, especially a new player, needs to check with their DM for every skill check and every attack roll, that’s okay!  Every DM I know keeps the Player’s Handbook in arm’s reach to panic-check a rule or a spell, or else they fully Griffin McElroy it and put the “rules” through a blender.  Please reassure your wizard from me that it’s totally okay if they’re having trouble keeping things straight.  As long as they’re having a good time, they don’t need to be able to recite the damage for Fireball off the cuff.  That’s what references are for.

The internet is your friend.  Again, multiple binders full of spells and animal shapes to be a 3.5 Druid.  This was because the internet on Friday nights got bad fast because Dolly (boys dorm) liked to run LAN parties, so googling my spells wasn’t practical because it took so long.  HOWEVER, the internet doth give many gifts, and if you and your party have regular access to it, I wholeheartedly recommend abusing that to your heart’s content.  Don’t even bother trying to keep that shit in order in your head or on your character sheet.  I shelled out for a DnDBeyond account, which does work great for my party, but you don’t need one--googling spells, special attacks, whatever, will work like a dream.  To facilitate your party being able to do this during fast-paced combat, as the DM, I suggest keeping people apprised of who’s coming up next in combat!  I do this by saying “Okay, Azara, you’re up, Heinous, you’re on deck,” as a way to remind people that they’re coming up and that they should be planning their next move, including looking up anything they might need.

It’s always a d20.  Okay, you don’t literally exclusively need a d20, but I resolved a lot of my mom’s anxiety about using the wrong dice by saying very plainly “if you want to hit someone, do something, or interact with the world in any way, you are going to use a d20.”  Everything else is near-exclusively used for damage rolls.  Damage rolls using Other Dice are described explicitly in spells or weapon attacks--for example, Fireball does 8d6 damage (described when you google the spell) and a greataxe does 1d12 damage (you should have weapon damage noted down beside the weapon).  Basically, it’s a d20 until your DM says otherwise.

Proficiency bonus is your friend.  You get a proficiency bonus in 5e rather than level-by-level skill point allotment like in 3.5.  This helps balance the playing field and limit minmaxing to a more manageable level, and also reduces the amount of math you need to do in order to level up.  Here is how any roll in 5e works: the number on the d20 + the relevant stat + (if relevant) proficiency bonus.  Let’s say you’re a Level 3 barbarian, and you want to hit someone with an axe.  You roll a d20 and get a 13, then you add your strength for a melee attack--let’s say it’s +4--bringing you to a subtotal of 17.  But you’re proficient with your axe!  So now you add +2 for your proficiency bonus, bringing you to a 19 all told.  Good job, your target is definitely going to feel it.  If you only know three numbers in 5e, they should be your proficiency bonus, your primary stat (for our example barbarian it’s Strength, for a wizard it’s Intelligence), and your armor class.  If pressed, you could probably get through a whole session with just those three numbers.  As long as you know what you are and aren’t proficient in (mark it down on your sheet if you haven’t already), you’re good.

Spell slots: write them down.  If you’re using DnDBeyond, they have a helpful little line of boxes to tick off each time you use a spell of a certain level, or an expendable ability like Rage or Action Surge.  I would recommend this technique, it’s the one I used when I did paper character sheets.  Make tally marks, tick boxes, cross out numbers, whatever.  If you have your spell slots written down instead of trying to remember what you still have available, you have more brain power to free up for other, more interesting things.

Combat’s a bitch.  Combat rules are the finickiest part of DnD, and again, do not feel bad about not getting them right off.  In fact, don’t feel bad about not getting it for multiple years.  I probably only got a good handle on combat in the last six months and I’ve been DMing for three years.  That being said, you can do three things during your turn, and one thing the rest of the time, and I’m going to break them down as best I can.  During your turn you have:

MOVEMENT: Pretty much what it says on the tin.  You have a movement speed based on what kind of critter you are (and occasionally what class you are, e.g. monks), and you can move that far. 

ACTION: This is where you Do Stuff, including but not limited to attacking.  You will start at a low level with one attack per action--that may be an axe, a spell, a punch, whatever, but you get to deal damage or protect your friends or whatever.  As you level up, some classes can do more stuff with a single action, notably fighters, who can basically evolve into a murder whirlwind with four attacks per action.  On your action, you can also interact with something (like, say, a bomb you’re trying to defuse or a lock you’re trying to pick), keep moving (this is called “Dash” and lets you move in the same way as the above MOVEMENT), get paranoid (this is called “Dodge” and gives you advantage on getting out of range of an attack), use your special abilities (like a ranger’s Primeval Awareness, or a cleric’s Channel Divinity), hide, (this is called “Hide”), or any number of other things.  You may also get something called an Action Surge, depending on your class, which lets you take ACTION twice in a row.  (High level fighters can actually do like...twelve attacks on a turn with this.  Fighters are underappreciated.  Be a fighter, julienne your enemies.)

BONUS ACTION: Something short and sweet that may also save your life.  Barbarians can Rage as a bonus action.  Certain spells can be triggered as a bonus action, like Hunter’s Mark or Hex.  Other spells can be used as a bonus action, like Spiritual Weapon.  Some classes can do other stuff as a bonus action, like a monk using it to attack or a rogue using it to hide.  If you’re not sure if something is a bonus action, it’s probably not.  It’s a fairly limited but powerful list.

If you’re not the person who’s currently taking their turn, you have something called a REACTION, once per turn, where you do something triggered by someone else’s turn.  Most importantly, this allows you to do something called an attack of opportunity when someone leaves your personal space--you get to whack them with whatever melee weapon you’ve got.  For some classes (notably wizards and anyone who can access the wizard spell list) you will eventually be able to use your reaction to exercise the Biggest Dick Energy in all of Dungeons and Dragons, which is called Counterspell.  Actually any spell saying that its casting time is “1 reaction” can be cast like this, but mostly people just use it for Counterspell.  REACTION is also what lets you “hold” your action, which means saying “I can hear Nym running toward me with the goblins behind her--I’m holding Fireball until the second the horde is in range.”  When the ‘trigger’ you chose happens, you can do your thing.  This means you’re committed and cannot adjust your plan if things change (in the example, Nym might still be in range, but your Fireball is still going to go off), but it also gives you the ability to lay a trap.  

Again, combat is a bitch.  The DM’s job is to know this stuff and help the players when they need it.  There’s no shame in needing a cheat sheet with this stuff noted down or needing to google references for casting time or whatever.  As long as you’re keeping things rolling and having fun, combat works however the DM says it does.  If you realize you made a mistake, just move on.  The nerd gods don’t care.

Any rule too obnoxious to live with can be dismissed by the DM.  You think I played around with 3.5 grapple rules when I was DMing?  Absolutely not.  In my campaigns you rolled a strength check and you lived or died by it with good grace.  If there’s something nonessential that your players really struggle with or you personally think is dumb as hell, just.  Don’t use it.  Wizards of the Coast isn’t going to come to your home and shake you down for ignoring travel rules or whatever.  Homebrew, my babies.

[fantroll-purgatory]

@tuesdaney

Info!! (rip this got super long). also image uploader within this is being weird so image is coming as a separate submission. or maybe it’s in the post three times and i just can’t see it, in which case i am so sorry

We can fix every formatting problem behind the scenes. Shh, no one even needs to know anything went wrong. 

Alternian, AU since she eventually joins a session.

Age: 7 sweeps

Name: Januss Celera. Januss from Janus, in reference to both the Roman god of time and Janus particles (specifically particles which are half hydrophilic and half hydrophobic). Celera from Acceleration.

Janus is also a god of transitions and duality, so I think it makes sense for this switching-up thing you’ve given her. He is also associated a lot with travel and journey and so forth. It’s ALSO speculated that his name could’ve been derived from the Latin verb ‘to go’, which fits her speed theme. What I’m saying is Januss Celera is a great name.

Strife Specibus: vehicular manslaughterkind i don’t actually know. she’s not really one for combat, which is to say she’ll murder anyone clearly weaker than her no problem but if it looks like anything close to a fair fight she’s going to be a coward and run away. at a loss for something that fits

She has a really rough and tumble vibe. I think for a regular weapon you could give her maybe a tireironkind? Something that’s functionally related to her interests but that she can also grab and wail on someone with if she needs to. 

Or you could reference her excessive need to win by giving her trophykind. If someone beats her in a race, she can just grab the trophy they won and bash them with that. Seems fitting for her personality.

You could give her vehiclekind as a secondary weapon, though! Weaponize those cars, Januss.  

Fetch Modus: also not too sure. I like the idea of a modus where she has to be traveling at least a certain speed to get items out, so at walking pace she could only get out little things but if shes flooring it in some kinda vehicle she can take out whatever she wants

Velocity Modus sounds like a good idea. Gotta speed up to eject things. 

Or you could do like a Time Challenge Modus. When she wants to eject something from the modus, it’s split into ‘components’ that are scattered across an area and she has a time limit to collect them all. If she fails the time challenge, the item gets locked down for a time proportionate to how important the item is. She could use such a particularly annoying modus because she feels confident in her ability to Always Succeed.

Blood Color: ok hoooo boy here’s where we get to the Whole Idea behind Januss and its going to take a second of explaining my personal speculations on troll genetics and biology, so:

There’s a specific part of the troll genome that goes “hey! this troll is a seadweller” which triggers the development of gills and fins in a grub-to-be, and the violet blood. It’s actually present in the genes of every troll, but is only able to switch on in purplebloods, and only in specific circumstances. basically, all violetbloods are technically mutant purplebloods (and fuchsia blooded trolls are like. an even rarer “hyper mutation” of purplebloods but thats not relevant here) uh. I hope that makes sense? I like speculating how blood color works in trolls and seadwellers in particular are weird. Anyway,

Januss is a violetblood, or at least appears to be one when she’s a grub. She has a mutation in the protein responsible for “switching on” the seadweller gene, though, and it basically switches back off after 4 or so sweeps. As a result, her blood color has shifted from violet to purple and her fins and gills are stunted. On the surface she just looks like a violetblood with kinda small fins, on the inside her gills barely work and are getting worse, and she probably has a few other odd symptoms from her body suddenly changing its mind about blood color. (she’ll probably live to some weird age inbetween what’s expected of violet and purple, for example. if no one finds out and culls her.)

I like this explanation of her state a lot. Something like her having an enzyme/growth hormone that has a visible effect on the blood color and results in the development of particular features. And then her body just says Oops and stops producing that hormone and so her blood goes back to the basic state… It’s really interesting. I think it works, especially because there’s some speculation on the bridge between purples and violets anyways, considering the purple association with aquatic mammals. They’re Close to the seadweller without actually Being the seadweller and I think that provides some definitely reasonable room for mutation and weird halfway development. 

All of that is to say- your theory tracks well enough to justify the theme of your character.

Symbol and meaning: Aquaries is what she’s grown up under and goes by, but technically she’d be Capries, which is somewhat reflected in her horns. When she winds up playing Sgrub and eventually stops hiding her mutation, she makes a new (non canon) symbol for herself by taking Aquaries and making it fit the purpleblood sign language. (caus like, I doubt she’d automatically know “oh yes my actual sign is capries” but she does want to reflect her real blood color)

I like that a lot! Figuring out and working things out for herself is great. And not to spoil what we talk about during the land/title/moon section, but I do agree with these assignments. So I’ll be keeping this in mind when working w/ her design!

Trolltag: agileTraverse. caus she’s fast and can do some sick stunts and she knows it

Might I recommend supersonicAstrobatic[SA]? Just to REALLY push her speed theme and at least pay reference to the fact that she wants to race spaceships. Or astrobaticTerminality[AT] if you want to keep the same abbreviation. It keeps the spaceship reference. Terminality pays reference to the god Janus’ theme of End Points, meaning here the Extreme, The Most. Also a good reference to the fact that she’s ruthless and will, in fact, do a kill. She’s a terminal astrobatic.

Quirk: ^she encloses her words like this to resemble her symbol. she types fairly normally, no capitalization unLESS/SHE/GETS/EXCITED/OR/ANGRY/IN/WHICH/CASE/SHES/FAST/AND/LOUD/AND/EVERYONE/KNOWS/IT!!!!!!!!!!!!^

Not sure how she’d change that after changing her symbol, maybe by swapping the ^ for a u.

Honestly I think just keeping it around would be acceptable? It’s the way she’s talked for a lot of years, so you could make the argument that the habit is hard to break and just sticks around. It’s implied that it reflects a real manner of speaking, too, since Sollux’s changes upon blindness. So unless you think she would change some of her vocal mannerisms or would undergo some physical impact (like losing her front teeth, to return to the Sollux example), there’s no Real need to adjust her quirk. 

Special Abilities: nothing beyond standard highblood stuff, and the aforementioned mutation. It’s worth mentioning that she can’t do chucklevoodos though. I figure her seadweller upbringing keeps her distanced from the whole juggalo religion thing, even after she “shows her true colors”, as it were.

Makes sense, since she didn’t fall back into purpleblood until she hit, what, ~8 years old? I think you could probably make a case for her not having psychic abilities but still having just the subtle passive influence of chucklevoodoos. Because I think the implication is that it’s a natural ability meant to Keep Lowbloods In Check that is cultivated by the church for a specific purpose/aesthetic. 

What I’m saying is that you could give her some really weak chaotic auras that make her slightly more naturally intimidating.

Lusus: Sailfishmom! A large sailfish with some froggy qualities, like bug eyes and fins that are more like a tadpole’s tail. Sailfish caus they’re fast and frog caus they start in the water but do land stuff later in life. She has a pretty ok relationship with her lusus, who helped her through the rough patch that was “oh fuck im a mutant”.

Love the idea of this! Really clever. The transition of the tadpole combined with the speed of the sailfish fit her image very well! Do they breathe through their skin?

Personality/interests: Januss is constantly impatient and constantly moving. Part of this is just the way she is, part of it is her anxiety to grow up and leave the planet as soon as possible so she can claim governorship over some backwater colony where no one higher up than her can figure out her secret. her passion is vehicle racing, be it ships or cars or spaceships (well, she wants to race spaceships, anyway. when she’s actually off planet.) She has an enormous garage of assorted vehicles in her hive, which is a gargantuan decommissioned spacefighter carrier, half sunk near a sandbar as the dying wish of the former captain.

Sorry to interject. There’s just something very, very funny to me about the idea of a Carpenter Drone just placing a child in a half-sunken spaceship and being like Good Luck. It’s also a great hive location thematically, so good on ya.

She loves giving custom paintjobs and shady modifications to her rides, the latter giving her a nice edge in the less respectable races she participates in (which is all of them.) Her trophies and her killcount on the tracks are both formidable in number, but out of the drivers seat she tends to be a coward. She has few friends, and barely filled quadrants, managing to escape culling only by pulling some strings with her royal status. This isn’t because she’s antisocial, rather she’s terrified someone will figure out her secret. All of her friends are land dwellers because of this, since hanging out underwater for long would probably drown her.

I like the idea of her giving some really wild paintjobs to her rides. Violets are described as the eccentrics, so her reflecting just a little bit of that seadweller tendency could be fun. The shady modifications are also interesting. Does she purchase them on the black market? Have a supplier? Or does she fiddle with them herself? All of the above could be interesting. 

Like she could start off buying from a shady person and then move into tinkering with them herself, to… mixed results.

I like the idea of her being a coward, too- it makes sense! If there’s a fair fight on the horizon, she runs the risk of bleeding. And running the risk of bleeding is something she’d never want to do. 

I have to point out that she’s not really Currently at risk of being culled for being partnerless. At 7 sweeps, she’d be sitting comfortably at about 15. Though we don’t Really have confirmation of about when the Imperial Drones come knocking, it’s safe to assume it’d be closer to when the trolls are About To Leave Planet, since that’s when they’d be adults. Which  means she’s got a little over one sweep to sort her shit out or run. …Or pull some nobility strings, as you’ve mentioned. 

I feel like it’s worth noting at this point that Janus is heavily associated with Auspices. So giving her a more firm relationship in that regard might be a good idea just to draw the link. 

Despite her cowardice she has a definite ruthless streak even when off the track, it just tends to only be aimed at lowbloods who she’s sure she can take on. While racing she’s even more brutal, and her general cockiness and arrogance combine with this to make her a terrible sport. If you win against her you’re dead as soon as the race is over if she thinks she can take you.

I like this a lot. Especially because it shines a light on a very Purpleblood habit of hers. Purplebloods are said to take their work very seriously (even if their work isn’t often… conventional, by our standards) and to desire to be the Foremost in their field, plus they’re known for being very violent. 

Also I hope her underestimating lowbloods comes back to bite her in the ass.

Title: Something of time, for sure, since the whole theme I’m trying to run with Januss is well, literally running. Trying to get into her adult life and away from what she’s afraid of, trying to always be the fastest on the track, her mutation making her a seadweller for only a limited time, et cetera. I don’t have a concrete plot planned for her but you can bet her need to hurry everything will Absolutely Ruin her life bigtime at some point and she’ll have to dig her way out of that. That being said, I can’t decide what class fits her.

I agree with her time assignation so much. The valuing of action, the refusal of passivity even if it’s reckless, the Very strong struggle against fate, the focus on the destination, her restlessness, her ruthlessness… It all checks out! 

Now on to her class:

Prince of Time, Prince of Time, Prince of Time, Prince of Time-

Sorry, got excited about that one. I just think with her general ruthless nature and her impatience, prince of time is a Very fitting role for her. She’s someone very active and someone who seems very focused on her own goals. And this title suits that, but in the worst possible ways. 

Basically speaking, a Prince of Time is able to destroy time or destroy With time. 

Given her impatience and her desire to progress, I can easily see her just destroying segments of time. Deleting them. Poof. Trying to get to where she wants to be as fast as possible. Of course, this would fragment the universe and cause great harm. Skipping out on major segments and very important events could easily distort the timeline. Since inevitability is tied so strongly with the time aspect, Inevitability Itself could be destroyed, which could severely hurt the Alpha Timeline and splinter things to the point of incomprehensibility. Using her time travel in this way could really damage her life and like the lives of everyone across multiple different versions of reality. 

She could also destroy through time, like making things experience decay and destruction at a further rate, or bringing about their inevitable demise sooner than expected. 

Her inverse, Sylph of Space, would allow her to passively create Space. As she fragments and chews up timelines, more and more Boundless Space is able to exist. Each time she uses this power, she creates another timeline, more theoretical Room in which to operate. Which could lead to some grand ‘working with yourself from another dimension’ fun! 

The development needed for this title comes with this: She would have to undergo some major character development to stop from ruining everything. She would have to learn to reign herself in and get herself under control and learn to appreciate the moment before she Destroyed All. 

Land: Not sure? I like the idea of a water covered planet where she has to figure out how to lower the water level to properly traverse it, and even after figuring it out the water will only recede very slowly, making her wait. Sort of both a lesson in patience and an acceptance of her mutation? idk

I love this idea. The fact that it would seem like a mockery of her condition at first but it would allow her to slowly come to terms with it. And the teaching her to slow down and smell the roses. Maybe she could stumble upon mysteries and treasures, things she absolutely would’ve missed if she’d been able to rush through the planet. 

Dream Planet: Derse for sure.

Wow this is very long. I’ll send over the picture in another submission.

Here’s Januss! Left is living that highblood life, right is in session after she’s become comfortable letting that go. She wears the goggles during her races as her highblood self, and more or less all the time later, since she’s found that when she dosen’t have to keep up an elaborate lie around water, she likes it a lot better.

I’ll be honest there’s not much I had to edit for her. 

LEFT SIDE-

Horns and hair: I kept them the same. But let me tell you spriting that hair wasn’t easy! Very fun, though. 

Fins: I edited them to be slightly smaller than the traditional seadweller fins! 

Eyes: I wanted to make them nicely sharp and with some dark lines to make sure they looked defined and dangerous. I also had to give her some eyelashes because of troll rules. 

Mouth: I loved it so it gets to stick how it was. 

Clothes: I took John’s ectobiologist jacket and edited it so thoroughly I almost considered skipping on mentioning it, but that’d be rude. Either way, I liked most of the detail and really liked how it looks kind of like an admiral’s jacket. I decided to take the jacket and extend it down into the pants, though. For two reasons, really:

1. The original pants color looked too much like purpleblood and I thought it’d be antithetical to her trying to hide her blood condition to wear such a large amount of it on her clothes. 

2. Combining them together reminded me of racecar driver jumpers! 

Shoes: They’re just some pretty simple and straightforward boots.

RIGHT SIDE-

Horns, hair, fins, eyes: See above. 

Goggles: I liked them a lot, so I kept them around. I just took the outline of her shirt and created an overlay with it, and then put a screen for reflective light. 

Mouth: Purpleblood lipstick, like in your original art. 

Symbol: I couldn’t really see the detail of the symbol really well on your original drawing, so I tried to create what I could tell of it as best as I could. It looks a liiittle similar to Capripia, but that’s fine. I think the straight edge ends and the curled wings as well as the rounded diamond set it apart enough and I think it takes enough notes from her Aquaries symbol to be at least recognizable in context! 

Pants: Because she’s a purpleblood I didn’t want to leave her without some neat patterned flourish. So I added a checker pattern to one leg. Mostly because I’ve seen a lot of motorcycle racers with those kinds of patterns on their legs. And it makes her look edgy.

Boots: The same but edited to have more gold and purple. 

Thank you so much for sharing her, I absolutely loved her and loved working on her!

-CD