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thedeadhandofseldon · 3 years ago

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The Anti-Mercer Effect

On the Accessibility of D&D, Why Unprepared Casters is so Fun, and Why Haley Whipjack is possibly the greatest DM of our generation.

(Apologies to my mutuals who aren’t in this fandom for the length of this, but as you all know I have never in my life shut up about anything so… we’ll call it even for the number of posts about Destiel I see every day.

To fellow UC fans - I haven’t listened to arc 4 yet, I started drafting this in early August, and I promise I will write a nice post about how great Gus the Bard is once I get the chance to listen to more of his DMing).

Structure - Or, “This is not the finale, there will be more podding cast”

So, first of all, let’s just talk about how Unprepared Casters works. Because it’s kind of unusual! Most of the other big-name D&D podcasts favor this long, grand arcs; UC has about 10 hours of podcast per each arc. And that’s a major strength in a lot of ways: it makes it really accessible to new listeners, because you can just start with the current arc and understand what’s going on!

And by starting new arcs every six or seven episodes, they can explore lots of ways to play D&D! Classic dungeon delve arc! Heist arc! Epic heroes save the world arc! Sportsball arc! They can touch on all sorts of things!

And while I’m talking about that: Dragons in Dungeons, the first arc, makes it incredibly accessible as a show - because it lets the unfamiliar listener get a sense of what D&D actually is. (It’s about telling stories and making your friends feel heroic and laugh and cry, for the record). If I had to pick a way to introduce someone to the game without actually playing it with them, that arc would definitely be it.

And I’d be remise not to note one very important thing: Haley Whipjack and Gus the Bard are just very funny, very charismatic people. Look. Episode 0s tend to be about 50%(?) those two just talking to each other about their own podcast. It shouldn’t work. And yet it DOES, its one of my favorite parts, because Haley and Gus are just cool.

And a side note that doesn’t fit anywhere else: I throw my soul at him! I throw a scone at him - that’s it, that’s the vibe. The whole podcast alternates between laughing with your friends and brooding alone in a dark tavern corner - but the laughs never forced and the dark corner is never too dark for too long.

Whipjack the Great - Or, the DM is Also a Player!

I think Haley Whipjack is one of the greatest Dungeon Masters alive. The plots and characters! The mechanical shenanigans! The descriptions!

Actually, let’s start there: with the descriptions. (Both Haley and Gus do this really fucking well). As we know, Episode 0 of each arc sees the DM reading a description - of a small town, or the Up North, or the recent history of a great party. And Haley always strikes this tricky balance - one I think a lot of us who DM struggle with - between giving too much description and worldbuilding, and not telling us anything at all. She describes people and events in just enough detail to imagine them, but never so much they seem static and unreal - just clear enough to envision, but with enough vagueness left to let your imagination begin to run wild.

While I’m thinking about arc 3’s party, let’s talk about a really bold move she made in that arc: letting the players have ongoing control of their history. Loser Lars! She didn’t try to spell out every detail of this high-level party’s history, or restrict their past to only what she decided to allow - she gave them the broad outlines, and let them embellish it. And that made for a much more alive story than any attempt to create it by herself would have - but I think it takes a lot of courage to let your players have that agency. Most Dungeon Masters (myself included) tend to struggle with being control freaks.

And the plots! Yeah, arc one is built of classic tropes - but she actually uses them, she doesn’t get caught up in subverting everything or laughing at the cliches. And it’s fun! In arc 3, there really isn’t a straight line for the players to follow, either - which makes the game much more interesting and much trickier to run. And her NPCs are fantastic and I will talk about them in the next section.

Above all, though, I think what is really impressive is how Haley balances mechanics, and rules as written, with the narrative and rule of cool - and puts both rules and story in the service of playing a fun game. And the secret to that? She’s the DM, but the DM is a player, and the DM is clearly having fun. Hope Lovejoy mechanically shouldn’t get that spellslot back, but she does, and it’s fun. The changeling merchant in Thymore doesn’t really make some Grand Artistic Narrative better, but wow is it fun. And she never tries to force it one way or the other - the story might be more dramatic if Annie didn’t manage to banish the demon from the vault, but it’s a lot cooler and a lot more fun for the players if Annie gets to be a badass instead - and the rules and the dice say that Annie managed it.

Settings feel like places, NPCs feel like people, and the narrative plot feels like a real villainous plot.

Anyway. I could go on about the various ways in which Whipjack is awesome for quite a while - she’s right, first place in D&D is when your friends laugh and super first place is when they cry - but I’m going to stop here and just. Make another post about it some other time. For now, for the record I hold her opinions about the game in higher esteem than I do several official sourcebooks; that is all.

Characters - Or, Bombyx Mori Is Not an Asshole, And That Matters

Okay, I said I would talk about characters! And I will!

Just a general place to start: the party! All of the first three parties are interesting to me, because they all care about each other. Not even necessarily in a Found Family Trope sort of way, though often that too. But they generally aren’t assholes to each other. The players create characters that actually work together, that are interesting; even when there’s internal divisions like SK-73 v. Sir Mr. Person, they aren’t just unpleasant and antagonistic all the time. Listening to the podcast, we’re “with” these people for a couple hours - and it isn’t unpleasant. That matters a lot. (To take a counter-example: I love Critical Role, but the episode when Vox Machina pranked Scanlan after he died and was resurrected wasn’t fun to listen to, it was just uncomfortable and angering and vaguely cruel).

All of the PCs are amazing, and the players in each arc did a great job. If you disagree with me about that, well, you have the right to be incorrect and I am sorry for your loss. Annie Wintersummer, for one example: tragic and sad and I want to give her a hug, but also Fuck Yeah Wintersummer, and also her familiar Charles the Owl is the cutest and funniest and I love him. And we understand what’s going on with Annie, she isn’t some infinite pool of hidden depths because this arc is 7 episodes and we don’t have time for that, but she also has enough complexity to be interesting. Same with Fey Moss: yeah, a lot of her is a silly pun about fame that carries into how she behaves, but a lot of how she behaves is also down to some good classic half-elven angst about parenthood and wanting to be known and seen and important. (Side note: if your half-elf character doesn’t have angst, well, that’s impressive and also I don’t think I believe you).

There are multiple lesbian cat-people in a 4-person party and they both have requited romantic interests who aren’t each other. This is the future liberals want and I am glad for it.

Sir Mister Person, the human fighter! Thavius, the edge lord! Even when a character is “simple,” they’re interesting, because of how they’re played as people and not action-figures. And that matters a lot.

In the same way: the NPCs. There really aren’t a lot of them! And some of them come from Patreon submissions, so uh good work gang, you’re part of the awesomeness and I’m proud of you! The point being, the NPCs work because enough of them are interesting to matter. It’s not just a servant who opens Count Michael’s door, it’s a character with a name (Oleandra!) and a personality and history. They’re interesting. Penny Lovejoy didn’t need to be interesting, the merchant outside the Laughing Mausoleum didn’t need to be interesting, but they ARE! And Haley and Gus EXCEL at making the NPCs matter, not just to the story but to us as viewers. I agree with Sir Mister Person, actually, I would die for the princesses of the kingdom. I actually care about Gem Lovejoy of all people - that wouldn’t happen in an ordinary campaign! That’s the thing that makes Unprepared Casters spectacular - and, frankly, it’s especially impressive because D&D does not tend to be good at making a lot of interesting compared to a lot of other sorts of stories.

And, just as an exemplar of all this: Bombyx Mori. Immortal, reincarnating(?), and described as the incarnation of the player’s ADHD. I expected to hate Bombyx, because as the mom friend both in and out of my friend-group’s campaigns, the chaos-causer is always exhausting to me. And yeah, Bombyx causes problems on purpose! But! She is not an asshole.

And that’s important. Bombyx goes and sits with the queen and comforts her. Bombyx gives Annie emotional support. Bombyx isn’t just a vehicle to jerk around the DM and other players; Bombyx really is a character we can care about. To compare with another case - in the first couple episodes of The Adventure Zone, the PCs are just dicks. Funny, but dicks. Bombyx holds out an arm “covered in larva” to shake with a count, and robs him of magical items, but she also cares about her friends and other people! She uses a powerful magical gem to save her fertilizer guy from death! Yeah, Bombyx is ridiculous, but she’s not just an asshole the party has to keep around for plot reasons; you can see why her party would keep her around. And one layer of meta up, she’s the perfect example of how to make a chaotic character like that while still being fun for everyone you’re playing with, which is often not the case. And I love her.

The Anti-Mercer Effect - Or, “I think we proved it can be fun, you can have a good time with your friends. And it doesn’t have to be scary, you can just work with what you know”

The Mercer Effect basically constitutes this: Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of Critical Role, is incredible (as are all of his players). They’re all professional story-tellers in a way, remember, and so Critical Role treats D&D like a narrative art-form, and it’s inspiring. Seeing that on Critical Role sets impossible standards - and people go into their own home games imagining that their campaigns will be like Critical Role, and the burden of that expectation tends to fall disproportionately on the DM. And the end result, I think, of the Mercer Effect is that we get discouraged or intimidated, because our game isn’t “as good as” theirs. (And I should note - Matt certainly doesn’t want that to be our reaction).

So the Anti-Mercer Effect is two things: it’s D&D treated like a game, and it’s inspiring but not intimidating. And Unprepared Casters manages both of those really freaking well. Because they play it like a game! A UC arc looks just like a good campaign in anyone’s home game. They have the vibes of 20-somethings and college students playing D&D for fun because that’s who they are (as a 20-something college student who plays a lot of D&D, watching it felt like watching my friends play an especially good campaign). They’re trying to tell a good story, sure, and they always do. But first and foremost, they’re trying to have fun, and it shows, and I love the UC cast for it.

And that’s the other half of it: it’s inspiring! It’s approachable; you can see that Haley and Gus put plenty of work into preparing the game but it also doesn’t make you feel like you need hundreds of pages of worldbuilding to run a game. Sometimes a cleric makes Haley cry and she gives them back a spell-slot from their deity! That’s fantastic! It’s just inspiring - listening to this over the summer, when my last campaign had fallen apart under the strain of graduation, is why I decided to plan and run my new one!

That quote from Haley Whipjack that I used as the title for this section? That’s the whole core of this idea, and really, I think, the core of the podcast.

The Mercer Effect is when you go “that’s really cool, I could never do that.” But Unprepared Casters makes you look at D&D and go “wow, that looks really fun. I bet I can do that!” And I love the show for it.

And I bet a lot of you do too.

#unprepared casters #bombyx mori #haley whipjack #long post #this is really rough but I don't have time to keep working on it and it's already a month later than intended

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dmsden · 4 years ago

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Location, Location, Location - The Vampire of Raven’s Roost

Hullo, Gentle Readers. For this month’s “Five Room Dungeon” article, I thought we’d do a little urban adventuring. This could be a side trek from the whole Angel of Chaos story, or it could be something that happens while the party is following up a lead. You can devise whatever motivation to want to put them in the city of Raven’s Roost. When they get there, however, things are going to go wrong. This adventure is written with 5 4th level characters in mind.

Background: Some time ago, the City of Raven’s Roost acquired a problem. A powerful vampire moved in. She caused a lot of problems, but she soon found herself revealed, and she fled to other climes. When she did so, she left behind several spawn. These spawn battled one another until only one, Ruthven Utgarad, remained. He was more cunning than the others, and he manipulated some of them into revealing themselves and being destroyed. Now, he seeks to find a way to become a full vampire himself (which nicely echoes the main villain’s plans of our campaign.)

When the adventurers arrive, Ruthven paranoidly decides that they are there for him. He sends mortal catspaws to to try and take them out, but this merely alerts the PCs that something is going on.

“Room” 1: The Raven’s Perch: The Perch is a perfectly acceptable tavern, and one that caters specifically to those of the adventuring nature. There are some old trophies on the walls from the owners (retired adventurers Jeth and Vaxla Homberan - feel free to flesh them out for your own campaign needs.) The drink of choice is called the Raven’s Croak and is a potent brew indeed. About the time the PCs have settled down to enjoy themselves, and definitely at night, an armed group of people enter. They appear to be town guards, but they’re acting very strange, moving jerkily, as if they are puppets. They keep saying, “For the Master.” Use Guard statistics for the guards, but they are Immune to the Charmed condition because of Vampiric mind-control. They leader is Illadra Northridge. Use the statistics for a Bandit Captain, but give her an AC of 16 (Chain Shirt and Shield) and immunity to the Charmed condition.

If the guards are knocked unconscious and then brought back with healing, they will be baffled as to what happened. It won’t take much persuading to get Illadra to admit that she was given orders to come and try and kill them. She did not see the man well, but she remembers red, piercing eyes, and she remembers the Raven’s Spire was looming above them both. The Raven’s Spire is an ancient tower that has always stood at the center of town. The town’s ravens, for which the town is named, are known to perch in its upper reaches, but people don’t go in there. It’s believed to be haunted.

If the PCs express an interest in sleeping the night and going in the morning,m the ghouls from the next encounter could start showing up, convincing them that they won’t get a good night’s sleep.

“Room” 2: The Chase to Raven’s Spire: As the PCs head towards the Raven’s Spire, the PC with the highest passive Perception begins to feel like they’re being watched. They slowly become aware of a vast horde of ghouls following them on the rooftops. Following turns to harrying soon enough, and it becomes obvious that there are too many for the PCs to face head on. If they insist, you can throw groups of 3 ghouls at a time at them until they take the hint.

I would run this like a chase using the rules in the DM’s Guide. They start with 100 feet of distance between them and the ghouls. If they can change this to 250 feet of distance, they make it to the area around the Spire, and the ghouls will not cross over the line within 50 feet of the tower. They will slowly retreat, making a perimeter, only attacking the PCs if they venture back out.

“Room” 3: The Spire, Ground Floor: The interior of the spire is a mess of stone debris, bird droppings, dust, and discarded raven feathers. The PCs can move carefully over the difficult flooring to avoid twisted ankles and bruised shins, but there doesn’t appear to be any danger here. Spiral stairs wind their way up to the top of the tower. There is a raised dais in the center with a pedestal on it, illuminated dimly by light coming in through various holes in the ceiling. You can build tension here by having various ill omens:

- ravens perched at various spots, seemingly watching the PCs with red eyes.

- shadows leaping across the holes in the roof.

- chunks of broken roof crumbling in.

The actual point of interest here is the pedestal, which has a small circular indentation in the center, surrounded by words inscribed on it in Draconic (or some other language if no one in the party speaks Draconic or has access to Comprehend Languages or similar magic. We want this to be flavorful, not something that stops the PCs in their tracks.) The inscription reads: “More valued than gold, more precious than silk. Pouring like wine, flowing like milk. The martyr’s gift, or an offering of war. A pact is now sealed forever more.” The answer is blood, and, if anyone pricks their finger and drops enough blood to cause themselves 1 point of damage into the indentation, the pedestal slides aside, revealing a stairway going down.

“Room” 4: The Top of the Spire: This is a dangerous place. Anyone trying to pick their way around the broken roof will require Acrobatics checks to balance, and/or Perception checks to avoid stepping on crumbling masonry. If these checks are failed, the PC must make a Dexterity saving throw or plummet the 50 feet back the floor below, taking 5d6 bludgeoning damage and 1d6 piercing damage (from the broken terrain below.) If they actually look out on the roof itself, however, they will be rewarded for their efforts. Some long ago denizen here secreted a crossbow bolt of vampire slaying, wrapped safely in oilcloth.

“Room” 5: Beneath the Spire: There are catacombs below the Spireand Ruthven is here waiting, along with two wolves. To make matters worse, the stairs are rigged. Ten feet below the floor of the Spire, there is a pressure sensitive step. If it is stepped on, the entire stairs become a ramp, causing anyone on them to slide down into Ruthven’s lair, taking 2d6 bludgeoning damage and beginning the combat prone. This trap can be discovered by someone with 15 or higher passive perception, or a DC 15 Investigation of the stairs. Either way, Ruthven will not be surprised. He knows he is trapped here...his creator could’ve escaped via mist form, but he lacks that option. If he’s reduced below half hit points, he will try to flee, but he will fight to the death if he cannot. Whether he escapes or is slain, the PCs can take his treasures...2,400 cp, 1,400 sp, 110 gp, a wooden cup set with 7 jaspers (1 is missing) worth a total of 350 gp, and an ioun stone of protection.

Well, I hope you like this little jaunt into undead fun. See you next month for another intriguing location.

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years ago

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Playing Doreen Green in Dungeons & Dragons 5E

New year, some bad things out of my system, time to try coming back to regural activities before this year crushes me again. And I know a perfect way. Let’s make a build for d&d, since I haven’t done one of those in a while, using a Marvel character that bings cheers, joy and friendship whenever she goes.

Steve Ditko had an... interesting idea what Squirrel Girl should look like. Funny how people who say modern take on the character disrespects vision of artists who drew her traditionally attractive never seem to think these guys themselves disrespected Ditko’s vision, isn’t it?

Goals: As always I’m lifting the template for this from Tulok the Barbrarian, so let us start with what we actually want from this character. First of all, we need to be able to beat the ever living crap out of everyone. Second, we need to show our foes mercy and hopefully get them to change their ways. Finally, we need an army of squirrels.

Ability Scores: Usually I go with Standard Points Array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 - because it is the simplest way. But this built will starve for Ability Score Improvements so I decided to, just like a guy from whom I’m ripping this whole idea from, cave in and use point buy. This will be simple take, however - we will replace standard array’s 14 and 10 with extra 15 and 8

Strength: 8- not something we need to be honest. Doreen is good at everything but in D&D we need to prioritize the most important things.

Dexterity: 15 - Doreen is quick and swift as some sort of squirrel....girl...

Constitution: 12 - if someone does manage to hit her she can actually take that hit and keep going.

intelligence: 8 - wish it was higher but again, we cannot have everything. Yet.

Wisdom: 15 - Squirrels love you, you have senses of a squirrel, you survived Savage Land like a champ.

Charisma: 13 - your have a thing of talking your enemies out of villainy, as long as no one runs in to kick them in the head while you’re at it, which is rude.

Now for D&D’s equivalent of species, Race. It is unclear if Doreen is a mutant or not but I feel like trying to stray away from Variant Human a bit if we can. There is not enough animal-like things about Doreen to make her a Tabaxi, so we’ll go with Swiftstride Shifter from Eberron. You gain +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma, Darkvision allowing you to see for 60 feet in dim light as in bright light and in darkness as in dim light, but without being able to discern colors, proficiency in Perception and Acrobatics skills, extra 5 feet of movement, Common, Quori and third language of your choice (pick something campaign relevant) and an abilitty to shift into more bestial form as a bonus action, granting you temporary hit points equal your level + your Constitution modifier, another extra 5 feet of movement and an abilitty to move 10 feet away without provoking opprtunitty attacks as a reaction whenever an enemy ends their movement next to you.

Backgorund: Build a custom one for skills in Animal Handling and Persuasion, none they offer speaks to me.

Class levels: We will start as a Monk, gaining proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saving throws, simple weapons, shortswords, a set of artisan tools of your choice and two skills - Athletics and Stealth would be my pick.

1st Level Monks gain Unarmored Defense and Martial Arts, which all work as long as you’re not wearing armor or carrying a shield. As we see from the picture above, it would be hard to call a jacket and shorts an armor. You can add your Wisdom (WIS) modifier to your Armor Class alongside yoru Dexterity (DEX) modifier, you can substitute your DEX in place of Strength for attack and damage rolls of your unarmed attacks and you roll a d4 for the damage and you can spend your bonus action to make an additional unarmed attack. You can also use simple weapons that aren’t two handed or heavy and still get these bonuses

2nd Level Monks gain Ki Points, whose number is equal to your Monk level and replenishes on short or long rest. You can spend 1 ki point to make two unarmed attacks as a bonus action or take Dodge or Disengage actions as a bonus action. You also get unarmored Movement, meaning that when not wearing armor your speed busts up to additional +10 feet.

There is an option for Monk to also gain an additional abbility allowing you to between each long rest choose one martial weapon that isn’t heavy or special and you’re profficient with to treat as a monk weapon. This isn’t something Squirrel Girl would use, I’m only bringing it up because it was added in a book Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Tasha, also known as Iggwilv, is considered one of greatest villains in d&d. So it’s a good think Doreen has this whole thing about befriending and trying to reform villains because from next level on we’re gonna be best friends with Tasha and her cauldron. Consider Tasha your Kraven.

3rd Level: We will switch to a Ranger, getting proficiency in Knowledge Nature and we will grab variant Ranger features from that Cauldron. Deft Explorer makes you Canny, doubling proficiency bonus you add to one of your skills, I’d go with Persuasion so that you can convince people like Kraven to switch sides.

You also get Favored Foe - it lets you mark an enemy you hit with an attack for 1 minute or until you break a concentration check (as with spells, it is a Constitution Saving throw you make while taking damage, you need to beat either 10 or a number equal half of damage dealt to you, whichever is higher, or you lose focus). During this itme whenever you hit the target for the first time in a turn you deal an extra 1d4 of damage. You can mark a foe total number of times equal your prficiency modifier betwen each long rest.

4th Level: 2nd Level Ranger can choose a Fighting Style. Let us reach to that Cauldron and grab Unarmed Fighting, which lets your fists deal 1d6 + your Strength modifier damage, 1d8 if you use two hands and 1d4 a turn to a creature you’re grappling.

You may wonder why we picked it if we already have Martial Arts? Well, let us talk about Rules as Intended (RAI) vs Rules as Written (RAW) - the idea that the way rules in a game are written may not necessairly reflect what the author wanted and reason behind many, many, many rules debates in history of RPGs. As Intended you should use your Martial Arts dice with your Martial Arts attacks but as written there is nothing saying you have to. Talk with your DM how they feel about it and if they side with RAW, you can now deal damage like 11th level Monk - 1d8+your DEX modifier. If not, grab Blind-Fighting, which makes your senses so good you can effectively “see” creatures within 10 feets of you even if you’re blinded or in darkness and even notice invisible creatures who aren’t succesfully rolling stealth to hide. Only total cover (like, a wall) stops this, giving you some sweet Squirrel Senses.

Remember when Doreen beat Wolverine? I do.

2nd Level Rangers also get to learn spells. You know two spells of 1st level and have two spell slots you can spend every long rest to cast them.

Longstrider for 1 hour adds 10 feet to your speed. For those keeping track at home that’s now 50 feet while shifting.

Hunter’s Mark requires a concentration but let’s you as a bonus action mark a target and deal it extra 1d6 damage on every hit you deal it and have an advantage on Perception and Survival checks to find it for the next hour or until you break concentration. It it drops to 0 hit points on your next turn you can move it to another target as a bonus action. It’s Favored Foe but better. Mostly because Favored Foe originally was just Hunter’s Mark but many players felt it was too powerful and asked Wizards of the Coast to nerf it in official surveys. To the utter bafflement of everyone who discuss this game online. If I felt more political I’d make a joke this is the first case ever of silent majority being a thing but after last 4 years I cannot force myself to make it funny.

5th level: 3rd Level Monks can Deflect Missiles, letting you use your reaction to catch a ranged attack that would hit you, reducing its damage by 1d10+your Monk Level+your DEX Modifier. If you reduce damage to zero you can spend a Ki Point to send it back at the attacker, making ranged attack treating missile as a thrown monk weapon you’re proficient with.

You also get too chose Monastic Tradition and Way of Mercy from Tasha’s Cauldron will let you both show mercy to your enemies and kick some more ass. You gain Proficiency in Medicine and Insight, letting you read on villains what problems may haunt them and how to help. You also get Hands of Healing, which let you for one Ki Point as an action heal a creature an amount of hit points you roll on your Martial Arts die. You can also not spend a Ki point and replace one of your Flurry of Blows attacks with this. Doreen is kind enough to help patching up beaten enemies. Also, Hit Points aren’t meat points, they can reflect someone’s will to fight. So I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it to cheer your allies up if their spirits are down - Doreen is cheerful and friendly, she is a delight to have on a team and is sure to keep the morale up. Flavor it as a good pat on the back from your Squirrel-loving pal.

Also, you get Hands of Harm. Letting you once per turn and for one Ki Point deal extra necrotic damage on a single attack, its number equal your Martial Arts Die+ Your Wisdom Modifier.

6th Level: 4th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement, add +1 to your Dexterity and Wisdom, and Slow Fall, letting you reduce amount of damage you take from a fall by five times your Monk level. You can refluff this as gliding down on your flying squirrel gear.

Wish it could help me find better version of this appriopriate picture.

7th Level: 5th Level Monk gets an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice as a part of your action. You also get Stunning Strike, letting you spend a ki point to make the target suceed a Constitution saving throw or be stunned until end of your next turn. And your Martial Die bumps up to 1d6 - we do not use it for Unarmed attack but we do use it for other stuff, so keep a track on it.

8th Level; 6th Level Monks’ strikes become magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance and immunities. Also, your Unarmored Movement bumps up by another 5 fee, it’s not total of 55 feet of movement.

Way of Mercy gets Physician’s Touch, which also let’s you remove a single blinded, deafened, paralyzed, poisoned, or stunned condition from a creature you use Healing Hands on or apply poisoned condition to target of your Hands of Harm. No idea how that works. I mean maybe Doreen punches someone so hard they get nausea? And knows first aid?

9th Level; 7th Level Monks get Evasion, meaning that when you make a Dexterity Saving Throw to avoid damage, if the effect says you take half damage when you suceed, you instead take none. You also get Stillness of mind, letting you end one effect causing you to be charmed or frightened on yourself. Makes sense, Doreen clearly is not afraid of anything or anyone.

10th Level: 3rd Level Rangers gain an additional Spell Slot, an additional Spell and one extra Spell from Primal Awarenes class feature - that last one you can cast once per long rest without spending a spell slot.

You also get to pick Ranger Conclave. Swarmkeeper can summon a swarm of squirrels to aid you in combat. Whenever you hit an enemy with an attack you can dicide to make Squirrels bit them for an extra 1d6 piercing damage, force that enemy to make a Strength saving throw or be pushed away from you by 15 feet or have yourself moved up to 5 feet in any direction except up or down. You also get Mage Hand cantrip, except made of squirrels and an extra Spell you know. So for full list of spells you get:

Jump Triples your jump distance, it lasts for 1 minute with no concentration.

Speak with Animals let’s you talk to animals for 10 minutes, also no concentration required.

Faerie Fire let’s you set up lights on a 20-foot cube, making lal creatures in it roll Dexterity saving throws or be outlined, nuliffiling invisibility and giving everyone attacking them an advantage. Sadly, it requires concentration.

Mage hand can let you make a hand out of Squirrels that can carry objects no heavier than 10 pounds and do viarious tasks except for attacking or activating magical items. But this is effectively you sending a pack of Squirrels on an important quest.

11th Level: 8th Level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement, cap your Dexterity.

12th Level: 9th level Monks can now move on vertical surfaces and walk on water like Jesus as long as they don’t end their turn there. Which is good since canonically Doreen is a poor swimmer.

13th Level: 10th Level Monks gain Purity of Body, making Doreen so powerful she can punch poison and disease away from her body. I’m sure she’s still social distancing AND SO SHOULD YOU!

14th Level: 11th Level Monks' Martial Dice bumps to d8 and Way of Mercy let’s you now replace all of your Flurry of Blows attacks with healing and neither that nor touch of harm cost you ki points anymore. You can still only do the latter once each turn.

15th Level: I was sitting on 4th level of Ranger for so long, we’re taking it now for an Ability Score Improvenet....or rather a Feat. Magic Initiate let’s us learn two cantrips and a 1st level spell from the Wizard Spell list we can cas once per long rest.

Prestidigitation let’s you do small things more for mood than anything else, you can fluff it as squirrels helping you.

Message let’s you send someone a message only they can hear and let’s them reply. It’s your phone, basically.

Find Familiar allows us to conjure a squirrel that we can talk to telepatically or see through its eyes. It cannot attack but it can flank and take help action to give us an advantage on attack rolls and when it dies it doesn’t, instead it vanishes until you cast this spell again.. We can even decide to see through its eyes. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, we have Tippy Toe!

Tasha also grants you Martial Versitality, allowing you to change Unarmed Fighting to Blind-Fighting now that your Martial Arts Die caught up to it. This is the reason we waited so long for this level.

Level 16: 12th Level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement, invest in Wisdom for better Hands of Healing and Harm and Unarmed Defense.

Level 17: 13th Level Monks get Tongue of Sun and Moon, meaning you can now speak any language. I have no idea how in character it is but I could see Doreen learning extra languages to make more friends.

Level 18: 14 level Monks get Diamond Soul making you proficient in all saving throws. And you can spend a ki point to rerol a failed saving throw. Meaning now you can more or less tank everything bad guys throw at you, fireballs, Hold Persons, shove action.... And your Unarmored movement increases one last time, giving you speed of 75 feet.

Level 19: 15th Level Monks get Timeless Body, making you immune to effects of aging and no longer needing food or water to live. I kinda struggled to justifyu this one, then I remembered old Squirrel Girl from the future who is still kicking butts so here, you can now grow up to be her

Level 20: We will finish on 16th level of Monk and final Ability Score Improvement to round up Wisdom.

Before we go further let me take a moment to address possible alternatives Variant Human could let you grab Tippy Toe at first level and grab a Tough Feat.

3 levels in College of Rhetorics Bard could allow you to be really good at talking to people by making you unnable to roll lower than a 10 on Persuasion, Bardic Inspiration you could use to both support your allies and make your enemies worse with unsettling words, an extra skill, expertise in two more skills and spells like Calm Emotions, Enchance Ability, Heroism, Animal Friendship, Vicious Mockery and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter for puns. But I admit I could not fit them in any way that didn’t feel awkward, they did not mesh well with everything else and cost too much other features I wanted. If you want to go this way I recommend being Variant Human, taking Magic Initiate at first level and putting those Bard levels after Swarmkeeper Ranger ones, final build would be Monk 14/Ranger 3/Bard 3. Both this and previous bullet point would be fully legal under Adventurer’s League “you can use Player’s Handbook and one other book” rule.

Another option were two levels of Rogue for Expertise in Nature and Animal Handling and Cunning Action to decrease your Ki Points economy problem.

Finally I didn’t go for Path of the Beast Barbarian despite it letting you grow tail because that tail stabs people - something your do not.

Anyway, time for Overview:

Pros: First of all, Mobility. you have movement of up 75 feet, meaning with dash you can move 150 and with double dash 225 feet in one turn, ways to move out of enemy range and even move up walls or over water. Second, you make a lot of attacks and between Hunter’s Mark, Swarmkeeper and Hands of Harm can deal consistent damage and you have Tippy Toe to ensure you keep hitting. Finally you’re plucky heart of the team/backup healer, pretty good Party Face and a skill squirrel, making you a very good party member, someone others benefit from very much.

Cons: Your HP is somewhere below 140, which means that only vew hits or one big need to hit for you to be in Power Word Kill range. Second, your Intelligence and Strength are low enough you may fail some nasty saving throws even with Diamond Soul. Finally you have a lot of abilities that use Ki Points and Ranger spells that regenerate only on long rest, meaning you may run out of resources pretty fast if you’re not careful.

Overall, however, I do think this is a good build. You’re hard to hit, you hit hard, you unleash fury of squirrels on your foes and you can take care of yourself. Just remember you have many abilities that benefit your allies and play a very social character - d&d is a game best enjoyed as a social one - get some friends and fight evil.

-Admin

#Squirrel Girl #marvel #Dungeons & Dragons

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ask-the-crimson-king · 4 years ago

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Tales from D&D: The Campfire Song Song

[It is I, your friendly neighborhood Hermit back with another tale from D&D. And this one is... Certainly a saga. LONG POST AHOY.

IT IS ONCE AGAIN FROM MY CURSE OF STRAHD CAMPAIGN! The characters, in brief, are:

AETERNUS -- Goliath wild soul barbarian, played more like a golem than a goliath. Stoic, remembers almost nothing of his past. ARAZEL -- Blood angel (aasimar x tiefling hybrid) bard, has a patron because he used to be a Warlock and the player wanted to keep the patron. Very much a Bard. Has tamed a fucking dire wolf who is now named Boris. He is a good boy. LEON -- Human time domain cleric, worships a god of time called Tempus. Old retired soldier sent out into the world because his god has plans for him. CALEB -- Vampire desperado gunslinger, a vampire hunter who wants revenge against the creatures who turned him and killed his family.

In the last session, the players had made it to the Old Bonegrinder and met the three hags living there. Thanks to a Fifth Nat 1, the hags became hostile because Arazel mentioned how he had a pet dire wolf and the hags thought he was sent by Strahd.

I told them at the beginning of this one, “If you can talk your way out of this encounter, I’ll let you level up right now instead of waiting for Friday.”

What the fuck happens right after I say that?

Arazel fucking crits on persuasion and the party is now LEVEL FOUR! HURRAY!

Caleb is dealing with the two sisters upstairs, his gun is mentioned, and then Arazel’s player says, and I quote,

Arazel had also purchased a pastry, and Aeternus ends up charging upstairs and Arazel turns to him and says, "Hey Pebbles, eat this okay?" Aeternus made the con save, so instead of having weird dream visions, he instead felt this weird sense of nostalgia that he cant place his finger on. Seeing the cakes were safe, the rest of the party all pay for a cake themselves and they all. fail. the save.

So they get to fall into a pleasant, dreamlike state, for 1d4+4 hours... and OF COURSE I roll a 4. So eight hours of them being in this trance. Arazel, Leon, and Caleb, all conked the hell out. Which meant Aeternus was alone with this Night Hag who was now cackling.

And so he asked the witch what was in the cakes, and she simply said “some very rare and exotic ingredients. it is an acquired taste.” aeternus then took many hints, scooped everyone up, and left with Ismark (Kolyana and Ireena were waiting outside in a cart, not trusting that place one bit, but Ismark went in to help guard the party and keep an eye on Caleb.)

They run back to the cart and Kolyana is asking what happened. Aeternus explains the situation with the cakes, and Kolyana then facepalms. He says,

"You didn't eat any, did you?" "I did, why?" "Those are dream cakes. they're popular in Vallaki -- you'll see why." "I do not dream." "Everyone dreams, my boy. daydreams, plans for the future, or-" "I have nothing to dream about." The cart goes quiet before Ismark speaks up. "What do you mean?" Aeternus then says, "I remember nothing but war from my past." "A miserable existence, then." "Heh, makes you sound like a barovian," Kolyana says with a snicker. "We're all miserable bastards."

More silence.

"You really don't remember anything?" Ismark then asks. "Nothing but war." Aeternus shakes his head. "How old are you?" "... I do not know. I have been wandering for some time, but I know I am quite old." "I don’t remember any wars in our recent history. You don’t seem to be old enough for any of those." "Definitely not," Kolyana agrees. The cart is silent, and Aeternus goes quiet.

Hours pass, and the cart is pulled off to the side of the road. Ireena and Valerie, a Vistana woman they had met, (who owned the cart), go off to build a fire, while the rest stay back in order to wait for the others to come out of their trances.

When they do awaken, the world is darker. More grim, more miserable. The mists seem to cling to them, and they long to be back in their dreams.

Arazel awakes with a start, drawing out his magic string and wrapping it around Leon's neck while a thin knife hovers at Caleb's throat. Kolyana, Ismark, and Aeternus all stand to try and apprehend him as he asks, "What the HELL happened to me?" "You were dreaming," Aeternus tells him. "We didn’t do anything to you." "Put the weapons away, you're around friends here," Ismark says, his sword half out of its sheath. Slowly, Arazel backs down, checking his wings to see if any feathers are out of place. Boris looks up at him expectantly, and Arazel takes him to the fire as the rest of the party files out of the cart.

They all go and head down to the fireplace, and enjoy a nice thick stew. Some of the vegetables are freshly picked from the lands around them, although they are thick mountain-dwelling plants. They are a bit higher up in elevation, though more surrounded by foothills instead of mountains.

They enjoy their dinner and Kolyana asks them what they saw in their visions. Leon goes first, recalling his home. recalling the people he loved, the community fostered, everything. It felt warm. It felt safe. But that wasn't here anymore. Kolyana gave him a small reassuring pat on the shoulder before Arazel spoke up.

"I saw my mother." "Your mother?" Aeternus asks. "Okay, well, here's the thing. My mother was this holy angel, and my father was a damned and hated tiefling. And my father kinda dipped on me when i was younger. My mother served a very holy god who didn't want to be sullied with such a sinful abomination," he then gestures to himself, "and so my mum had to leave me." "Wait, wait, your mom left you because her god said so?" Caleb asks. "Well yeah but I mean I get it. if she didn't then she would've lost her powers, and-" "That’s pretty selfish of her." Caleb shrugs. "sorry, man." "Not really. I’m sure any parent would do that." "I can tell you, as a father myself, I would never do that to my children. No matter who the god was. I'm sorry you had to go through that," Kolyana tells him, giving Arazel a meaningful look.

“And what about you, vampire?” the old man asks. “What did you see?”

"I saw my home. I saw the old homestead. I saw my parents, and my siblings. It was nice." Before Kolyana responds, a conspiracy of ravens descends from the sky. one lands on each of Aeternus' shoulders, cawing. The three Barovians all gasp.

"What fantastic luck," Kolyana mutters. Arazel is tempted to have Boris pounce on them, but Kolyana quickly says "DO NOT ATTACK THEM! That would bring nothing but doom and misfortune. Ravens are symbols of good luck, not evil. At least not here."

Arazel shrugs, and tosses a piece of his stew at them. They caw and hop off the giant's shoulders, peck at the food, then flutter off into the night. The party all decides to settle in for the night, and this comes my FAVORITE fucking part of the session;

Dream Chats with Strahd!

(Yes I’m bending the lore a bit but it’s for the rule of cool okay)

I bring each of the players into the Special Corner (Discord call, we have a D&D voice chat and then Special Corner for 1-on-1 with the DM) one by one.

First in was Arazel.

Arazel feels the presence of his patron. He feels a warm, golden glow about him, even if he cannot visualize Sanguinius himself. He soon finds himself within a hall. It seems to be that of a cathedral. Polished stone, nearly gleaming, is under his feet. But everything feels... a bit fuzzed out. Just barely out of focus. He sees a lectern at the end of this great hall, with, what 40k fans would recognize, as the BA symbol, inscribed into it.

And then he hears a very familiar voice, and sees a very familiar figure walk out from behind a pillar.

Familiar dark clothing, familiar face, familiar dark eyes.

It is Strahd von Zarovich, and he has come for a chat.

And he doesnt greet arazel with hostility. He says that he is impressed with this place of worship, and that he knows very little about Arazel’s patron. But he would love to learn more about him, and about Arazel himself. Arazel asks “why are you here?”

Strahd takes a sip from his glass before he says, “You and your compatriots all fascinate me. So I want to learn just a little more about you. How you think, what your morality is." He shrugs, and then explains that he does not have too much time to speak. An invitation will be given -- soon, though he does not know when -- and tells him it is within Arazel’s best interests to accept it. He wants to be able to have an open, honest chat with him and his friends.

He also asks that he does not discuss this meeting with anyone. A measure of trust. Arazel agrees, and Strahd disappears.

Next up, Caleb.

Caleb is dreaming of his homestead. He feels grass beneath his feet, but none of his family is here. Everything around him feels fuzzy, blurry. The only crisp image is of the homestead itself. Strahd appears to him as well, coming out of the homestead, and says similar things to what he told Arazel, namely the reason for his arrival and his interest in him and his friends. However, he also remarks on how similar the two of them are, referring to their shared vampiric nature. Caleb says,

"Actually we're probably very different. I think we became who we are through very different ways."

Strahd agrees, but he offers a solution to Caleb's little bloodthirst-issue, (which luckily has been able to be curbed thanks to Leon being generous), and potentially knowledge about his abilities. Caleb recently gained the ability to be able to shift into bat form, and he thinks he may have other skills locked away.

An invitation is mentioned, along with the same condition. He cannot tell anyone of this meeting.

Caleb, begrudgingly, agrees. Strahd vanishes once more. Interestingly, Strahd does not mention how one of Caleb’s current goals is to go into van Richten’s tower to find the old hunter in order to find a way to kill Strahd.

But we’ll get to that.

Then we go to Leon.

Leon appears within an old library. The books around him are nothing more than vague shapes, and there is a musty smell from the bookshelves. Ahead of him is a strange device, a piece of machinery made of many different concentric rings, which he realizes must represent the different planes of reality. It slowly moves, casting around shadows as an unknown light source dances around the room. This is a representation of how Tempus views reality and its many potential timelines, he realizes. Just a very, very simple model, but it resembles the one from his own church.

Enter Strahd, a warm smile on his face.

“I’ve been waiting to speak with you for some time. You and I have much to discuss.”

Leon asks why he is here, and Strahd explains what he had told Caleb and Arazel -- though he also adds he wants to learn a little more about him, here and now. He wants to also extend the offer for Leon to learn more about Strahd himself in a sort of private talk, and expresses interest in learning more about Tempus and Leon's nature and relationship. He asks Leon to tell him a few things, and Leon agrees to tell him a bit about his past -- his life as a soldier, the village he had settled within, how he found Tempus, that sort of stuff.

Then Leon cuts right to the point, saying, "Why are you really asking me this? I don’t like to associate with bad people."

"Well I wouldn’t call myself bad. I have made my mistakes, and I am no saint, but I’m not a horrible person." Strahd shrugs. "I ask because I’m fascinated by you. By all of you, honestly. You're quite the interesting little crew."

He mentions the invitation, but also gives a different message.

"I know Caleb is going to be going to van Richten's tower. I want you to stay behind in Vallaki when he does. I will send my invitation then. Our conversation will be a little more... private, for lack of a better term, then the one I shall have with all of you."

He gives the same terms -- that Leon cannot tell anyone of this meeting -- which Leon agrees to, and Strahd disappears once more.

Last but not least...

Aeternus.

Aeternus doesn't dream, but his mind does come to a daydreaming-state. He comes to one of the few scenes he remembers. A field, with the rubble of a broken house nearby. Nothing else is clear, or even blurred. It feels like he’s standing on the edge of a vast void.

Strahd appears once more, commenting on how grim this place was. Aeternus is on edge at the appearance of the vampire, but simply replies, "this is all I can remember."

"Oh, I know. All you remember is warfare. But even then, of no clear battle. Just fragments of death and misery. A shame, really." Strahd sighs. "I know of a way for you to begin remembering all you had lost. My libraries may hold some of the answers you seek, as do I."

Aeternus is quiet. Before he speaks, strahd smiles.

"Petting that wolf made you remember something, didn't it? And the cake you ate? You remember something about a raven, too."

Aeternus is caught way off guard. Strahd has, somehow (rule of cool and plot reasons) gotten into his head. He goes on guard, but Strahd puts his hands up.

"I can offer answers. I will be sending an invitation, soon. I do not know when. But I need to be able to trust you. Tell no one of this encounter."

"How can i be able to trust you?" Aeternus responds with a grunt. One hand is on his axe. Strahd chuckles. "Caleb wants to go to van Richten's tower. Go with him. There is something waiting for you there."

And then he disappears, and that is where the session ended.

#very long post #sorry about that #D&D stories #tales from D&D #moonclaws dm bullshit #i need to come up with a D&D tag #D&D

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pixelgrotto · 4 years ago

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Remixing a tomb plus a highway to hell

Last month I finished DMing Tomb of Annihilation for one of my D&D groups. It’s a campaign that sees heroes adventuring to the land of Chult to stop big bad lich Acererak, who’s made a device known as the Soulmonger that’s emanating a Death Curse and screwing up the world’s resurrection magic. It’s also a spiritual successor to Tomb of Horrors, one of the classic deathtrap dungeons of tabletop RPG history that came about because D&D creator Gary Gygax wanted to screw his players over for opening doors wrong. In short, it’s certainly one of the more memorable adventures for D&D 5e, but the version of Tomb of Annihilation that I ran for my players was actually extremely remixed and hacked apart, as is the case with every official Wizards of the Coast module that I run.

There were a few reasons for this - my players were coming into this campaign fresh out of Curse of Strahd, and everyone was level 8. One of the players had died early on in Curse of Strahd - in the very first session we played, hilariously enough - and was temporarily sustained by the mists of the Shadowfell only to collapse upon returning to the material plane. With this in mind, I felt that it would be a great twist to have the party venture on a quest of resurrection only to learn that resurrection magic throughout the world had stopped working due to Acererak’s nefarious plans.

Additionally, I wanted to give my players the chance to try out alternate characters if they so desired. In the name of grand ambition, I decided to have my players create two sets of characters, and wove a homebrew story, dubbed “Fiends in Waterdeep,” that would run analogous to and eventually intertwine with Tomb of Annihilation. The first set of characters - consisting of some of the veterans who had survived Curse of Strahd - would investigate the streets of Waterdeep, which was suffering from an invasion of devils and demons that seemed unconnected to Acererark’s dark doings. The second set, consisting of new level 8s, would venture to Chult, the vaguely African-inspired landmass in the south of the Forgotten Realms, to track down the source of the Death Curse. After progressing through seemingly unconnected storylines, at the end of the campaign the disparate plot threads would mesh. The Waterdeep explorers would travel to the Nine Hells only to learn that the fiend invasion was caused by the abduction of the Queen of Hell’s newly born infant - a soul-devouring mass of flesh that could open portals into other worlds with its burps and farts - while the Chult expedition would delve into the jungle to find Acererark, smash the Soulmonger and free the aforementioned child.

In short, I basically made a complicated D&D adventure even more complicated by layering my own story on top of it and running two campaigns at once. I think I was looking for a challenge, and oh boy, I got one. I probably won’t be undertaking something like this ever again, because it required a lot of planning hurdles on my part. For instance, my players and I usually gamed for about 5-6 hours at most, which meant devoting 2 and a half or 3 hours to both sets of characters. If one battle lasted too long or a social interaction went south, I’d have to adjust this timeframe accordingly, and every DM knows that players will always defy your expectations in one way or another, so there was a lot of improv on the fly to make sure that our sessions stayed well-paced.

In the name of pacing, I also stripped much of the fat out of Tomb of Annihilation, which is largely composed of a really long hexcrawl. D&D 5e’s hexcrawl exploration and survival rules have never been particularly good, in my opinion, and the rules in the book expect you to roll LOTS of random encounters and deal with stuff like inclement weather, mosquito attacks, hunting, getting lost, etc. I incorporated some of this stuff (the hunting, since we had two rangers in the party), but I pre-rolled all of the random encounters and potential locations the party could go ahead of time, getting rid of some of the ones I didn’t like, and largely handwaved stuff like getting hopelessly lost. Reddit explorations have revealed that by far and large, everyone running this campaign does the same thing - particularly for higher level players trying to get through the jungle without feeling like they’re wasting time. (And from my firsthand experience with Out of the Abyss, there’s nothing worse than going through multiple D&D sessions and feeling like you haven’t accomplished much.)

My approach to streamlining Acererak’s deathtrap lair at the end of the campaign was similar. I skimmed through the entire dungeon with all of its bajillion floors (which could take an average group months to get through) in favor of using the 10 rooms that I liked the most, which was more than enough. Tomb of Annihilation, while probably fairer than Gary Gygax’s Tomb of Horrors, is still in my opinion full of wacky stuff in the final dungeon that just isn’t my cup of tea for D&D, including one trap that can get characters stuck in real-world Victorian London. (Okay, that’s cool on paper, but to actually run it as a DM, especially when your players are in the final hours of their adventure? I’ll pass.)

Additionally, I made Ras Nsi - the warlord-turned-yuan-ti - into more of a developed NPC who was actually willing to help the players slay Acererak. In the book, he’s very much a Darth Maul-type bad guy who looks cool but has a minimum of characterization. This is because Tomb of Annihilation leans into the stereotype that Ras Nsi and the rest of the yuan-ti are all merciless bastards with inscrutable plans, and while this may be fine if you’re familiar with the Conan the Barbarian serpentfolk tropes that inspired the yuan-ti, it’s not great if you’re trying to build a believable world with compelling characters. Much has been written about how Chult stumbles at portraying a fantasy Africa - largely by depicting the characters as foreign saviors and the Chultans as relatively helpless - and while some of this was alleviated in my game by the fact that one player’s character actually was Chultan, I still felt it was necessary to give some of the indigenous races a chance to help undo the curse that, after all, was first and foremost affecting their land.

Switching gears, when it came to the accompanying Fiends in Waterdeep homebrew story, I recycled some material from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, which I’d previously run for two different groups, and also took inspiration from the Wizards of the Coast module Descent into Avernus. At the time of planning, Descent Into Avernus was the most recent D&D hardcover, and all the reviews I’d read painted it as cool in concept but a major pain in the butt to run in reality. So, I decided to use only the nifty bits - a journey into the first layer of the Nine Hells via Mad Max-style tanks powered by souls - and mixed it with my own tale that was influenced by a profile of Fury, the dragon queen of hell, that I’d read in the third-party 5e supplement Legendary Dragons. It turned into a mildly amusing story about Fury warring against her ex-husband Asmodeus, and the players ended up serving as therapists in what amounted to an interplanar lover’s spat. I’d recently started therapy when I came up with the campaign concept, so this is probably one of those unique instances where real life truly influenced art. And hey, the unpredictable whims of all-powerful, world-shaping deities make for great adventure hooks, and judging by how Greek mythology seems to have re-entered the modern zeitgeist these days (I’m thinking about Hades, one of the most popular indie rougelikes out there, as well as that Netflix series Blood of Zeus) it seems like I was on the nose!

In the end, this two-tiered campaign lasted roughly 70 hours and climaxed with all sets of characters reaching level 10. Acererark’s Soulmonger was smashed, the feud between Fury and Asmodeus smoothed over, and after enduring the eerie mists of the Shadowfell, the hot temperatures of Chult and the flames of Avernus, the story of these motley players - who’d started questing with me back in 2018, and endured a move to online games in the era of COVID - came to a gentle end. I’m a believer in the reality that campaigns don’t necessarily need to last forever, and with real life throwing some of my players (and myself) a few recent curveballs, this seemed like a solid finale point. A consistent campaign running over two years is in many ways a dream for a lot of D&D players and DMs, and I’m glad I got the chance to make it happen.

#pixel grotto #musings #tabletop gaming #dungeons & dragons #d&d #tomb of annihilation

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ask-vaal-hazak · 4 years ago

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I just left a homebrew dnd campaign I've a message for new DM's

If your running a campaign for 2 ppl and there level 3 do not throw cr 6 and 9 monsters at them. For the love of the divine do not.

Extremely fustrating and deadly. And dont use the monsters from a homebrew forum bc it just sounds cool. Bc that "cool" cr 6 hag going against a lv3 party with multiple attack. Multiple spell cast and spell immunity and able to polymorph into any creature it wants at will is devastating.

Just to rant here. I lost 3 characters in 1 hour. My lv 3 barbarian (minotaur zelot). My battlemaster (centaur) and my wizard (yuan ti)

To be a dm ya have to balance and make sure every fight isnt designs to just upright kill ppl at the start bc. 5d12 worth of dmg with multiple attack on a hag or any creature. Is friggin broken.

There no way in hell a monster for a party of 2, level 3 adventures should hit for 5d12 (3 times) and be able to cast 2 spells (at will without using a spell slot) EVERY ROUND. And on top of that have a movement speed of 90 and an ac of 23. (I asked the dm to let me see what he was using and thers more. Swim of 30, fly of 300 ect this is pretty much a god with its stats but the cr says 6. It dosent even feel like a 6. More like a lv 20 broken sack of crap)

This is the reason there are tutorial guides in the book(s) and youtube to show you why you should look at cr then your players levels b4 u design an encounter.

I cant describe how fustrating it was to see my barbarian. Who I spent 5hours making just get tapped lightly and die. Bc 48 hp at lv 3 and taking well over 10 pts of dmg bc apparently she crit me on all attacks and only did like 1 attack to our female player (for 2 dmg with a level 6 scorching ray [its bs] ) was "Fair bc your a barbarian and should be able to tank this EASILY" (quote the dm.)

If there is a way to piss off players it's this and having a game were you get railroaded so hard it's a traveling trip with skill checks with a minimum of 18-20 to notice something like a bear on the road when the weather is CLEAR and everyone is PAYING THE HELL ATTENTION ON A BANDIT HIGHWAY. Not to mention the SCREAMS OF A CYCLOPS AS IT LITERALLY SMASHES INTO THE CARAVAN ACROSS A PLANE WITH A FEW TREES ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

Oh and let me not forget the NPCS WHO WANT TO SLEEP WITH EVERYONE BC THEY THINK THERE HOT AND DESERVE A NICE HOT MEAT ROD FOR THEIR SERVICES OF INTRODUCING THEMSELVES.

*Facepalm* my god....oh and if your thinking

"GEE-WILLY Mr. Person surely it couldnt be that bad?" This guys campaign was pretty much parappa the rapper, jojo bizarre adventures, bloodborne, Resident evil and memes.

I had a character who came in and apparently they caused the world to have wormholes? (Somehow) and referenced it everytime we played even when that character died. In session one. Bc apparently a company named (I kid you not) Shoe Rack was the equivalent of resident evil's umbrella cooperation. Complete with a drow leader and a litch bookkeeper who turned everyone into zombies to work for free while they apparently made diamonds to sell for millions of gold and keep the workers working g for 1 copper every month. Only giving gold to ppl that would sleep with them.

Not to mention apparently everyone in this world had magic resist or spell immunity to everyone except to females. And when I made a female char apparently that rule became I valid and it was just a straightforward

Me: does a 17 hit?

Dm: well it would but .... *they grin*

Me: but?

Dm: they use a special ring to catch the spell and cast meteor swarm on you point blank.

Me: well they get hit too I just stabbed them with a dagger.

Dm: no you see it's a SMALL METEOR THAT ONLY HITS THE PERSON THAT HIT THEM

Me: so they and my teammate. Who has literally been stabbing them are fine?"

Dm: yes

Me (takes like 589 pts of dmg and is ded)

Dm: the litch turns to you and asks if you want a cup of coffee.

Female player: umm sure?

Dm: whoo-yeah. Combat over you get 500 go and a date with the litch.

Me: I'm sorry what?

Female player: umm...ok. awsome.

Me: ......ok cool so I'll just bring in-

Dm: no that's cool the litch revives yorubas a female zombie slave.

Me: why?

Dm: and you need to have sex to keep yourself alive.

Me: yeah no. I'll just bring in my centaur battle master

1 hour later

Dm: you take umm..let's see *rolls dice.*

Me: (waiting)

Dm: *rolls a shit ton more dice*

Me: (waiting)

Dm: oh oh no *grins*

Me: (takes 40 dmg) I'm still up

Dm: how?

Me: I have 48 hp....I'm still up

Dm: ok it's your attack I guess.

Me: rolls a nat 1 "ok I guess I have disadvantage on my next att-"

Dm: rolls a d100 and a d10 (the percentile)

Me: what are you doing?

Dm: rolling for severity of your fail. Btw how much dmg does your lance do?

Me: it does 1d12 dmg and why are you using severity. That's not in 5e and you said we-

Dm: as you fail you accidentally stab yourself in the throat as your spear hits a rock and you take *rolls dice* 35 pts of dmg

Me: ok I'm out that's bs. Number one and two I have a lance and thers no way I can do 35 dmg. I get about 24 dmg on a crit and 28 if I use my racial feature to kick a person at max with a crit.

Dm: oh your just being salty, you dont play fair!

Me: excuse me?

Dm: ALL YOU DO IS PLAY SPELL CASTWRS AND THATS CHEATING!

Me: bc everyone has spell immunity for some reason or only takes 1/4 the dmg. I'm pretty much useless and am being fored to play melee unlike our LOREMASTER BARD who got an item to DOUBLE HER DMG AND SPELL SLOTS AND CRIT ON A 15 PERMANENTLY (this is the female btw)

Dm: well maybe you should have slept with the litch

Me: she literally found that item in a store for like 3 silver and when I looked (with a 17 arcana check) I found a rusty dagger and a flask of poisoned potion.

Dm: well maybe roll higher?

Female player: umm I rolled like a 10 and found this that's kind of cool but I dont think it's fair. But o wanna keep my items

Dm: ugh fine. You keep yours. Ummm (to me) I guess you get a potion of greater healing for....umm 500 go.

Me:.......nah I'm good, FUCK IT. I'll just make another spell caster Oops. Cant do that. How about a nope. Cant make a barbar I'm going to make a artificer

Dm: cant do that

Me: why?

Dm: they're broken its not good.

Me: *with the book* not broken..ulyou know what why dont you make me a character and I'll use that.

Dm: hands me a sheet

Me: reads "Zonia the sexy zombie elf sex slave that gets stronger every time she has sex?" *Looks at everyone* ok I'm out enjoy the campaign.

Dm: we cant have a dnd adventure with only 1 person.

Me: yes you can you've been doing it since session 1. I'm out goodbye. I'm still running my campaign on sunday. I wont hole anything against you. But I will not sit here and be shit on bc I refuse to kiss yur ass and make a slut of a character. Pull your head from your ass. I'm taking my stuff and I'm out.

Dm: but I need the dm screen and the mat and the markers.

Me: then buy your own or use theater of mind. I'm out.

Like how bad is it to want to be a dm to shit on ppl. THIS, THIS IS NOT OK. and no one wants a zombie sex slave that can only have sex and has a str of 0 a con of 30 a dex of 1 a cha of 40 and so on. Its friggin stupid!

Anyway that's my rant. Im....I think I'm just done with dms and crap I just want to play a dnd game I can be happy with. And not always be the Forever dm. Who has players challenge everything. Like why as a monk they cant use sleight of hand to CATCH A FRIGGIN FIREBALL AND/OR AN ARROW AIMED AT ANOTHER PERSON.

Anyway leave a comment or add on I'm just burnt out and glad I could get this rant off my chest

#dnd #bad players #bad dm #horror story #ugh

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dndaddyissues · 5 years ago

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im new to DMing, and while i seem to have gotten the hang of most things well, im super confused when it comes to running battles (especially when theyre my own monsters) how do i balance a battle? how do i tell how many enemies/how much health per enemy = fair for certain amounts of players? is there a chart or resource somewhere you know of, or is it all intuition? (bonus question: how long should normal and boss encounters last irl time wise?) thanks so much!

thanks for sending me this question! this answer is particularly huge… you have been warned.

as usual, here’s the tl;dr:

- for an easy to moderate challenge, have the same (or fewer) number of enemies as there are players;

- for an advanced challenge, outnumber the players;

- lower your enemies’ AC to something that your players can hit 60-70% of the time;

- in exchange, buff your enemies’ HP;

- feel free to fudge hit points whenever you want;

- utilize the “minions” mechanic from 4th edition;

- for boss battles, introduce special bonus actions, reactions, and villain actions;

- combat usually lasts 3-4 rounds: plan accordingly;

- ask yourself: why is this combat happening? what narrative/dramatic and character stakes can i introduce?;

- and have fun!

i want to preface my answer by saying that i don’t enjoy easy combat – unless played for laughs/comedy, or used to foreshadow something plotwise (like a goblin scout’s death alerting the goblin horde at large), i hardly ever throw an easy combat encounter at my party.

so, the following advice is given with challenging the players in mind – either moderately, immensely, or impossibly. i guess i’m just a big sucker for jim murphy/matt colville-style DO OR DIE challenges. otherwise, what’s the point?

another preface: this answer is given in the spirit of avoiding the “slog” – the combat encounter where it feels like baddies and PCs are just stepping up to the plate, whacking at each other, and stepping back down. that’s boring. and boring combat is the worst. sometimes it’s unavoidable – we all have our off days, nothing wrong about that – but the less that it happens, the more fun that everyone has! right?

now, on to the answer itself!

first of all, i’ve already written an answer to an ask a little while back about combat that might be useful to you. click here to read about how to make more action-oriented monsters, especially for boss battles and random encounters that you want to feel significant and deadly.

second of all, here’s the 5e CR encounter calculator i used to use all the time. it’s extremely intuitive and has toggles for number of players, level of players, monster CR/EXP, and how difficult encounters would be rated (easy, medium, hard, deadly).

third of all, i never use that calculator anymore.

over the course of the 2.5 years i’ve spent DMing 5th edition, there are three main things i’ve learned that can drastically increase, or decrease, the difficulty of a combat encounter. they are: # of baddies, armor class, and # of hit points.

regarding # of baddies. due to how the action economy in 5e plays out, the more creatures there are on either side of a combat, the bigger the advantage that side has. it’s just kind of how it works. so, an easy way to bump up the difficulty: throw more monsters at the players than there are players.

the one soft exception is boss battles. personally, i fucking LOVE having just ONE, super badass, super hard to kill, hardcore boss that the party gets to face down during crucial turning points in the campaign. it makes me feel like i’m running fucking Dracula in Netflix’s Castlevania against some lovable and deadly dumbasses. it’s great. it’s fun. it’s thrilling. to make bosses as challenging (and therefore rewarding) as possible, i highly recommend reading the ask i linked earlier in this reply. (click here for the link again.)

now, i say it’s a soft exception because i like giving my bosses minions. i basically utilize the 4th edition (i think?) “minion” mechanic where the AC, bonus to hit, and damage of all minion creatures are the same as regular versions of the creature. the only difference is, they have 1 HP.

this can give the PCs the awesome feeling of wading through waves and waves of minions – say, dozens of zombies, as an evil lich cackles upon their raised stone dais 80 feet away. i don’t utilize this too often because then it can feel tiring to the party. but done sparingly, and with narrative stakes, it can be quite thrilling! (that maxim is also true for basically any kind of combat encounter in D&D.)

regarding armor class. obviously, the higher the armor class, the harder the challenge. if you can’t hit the damn thing obviously you can’t kill it. i personally like to pitch the AC of my enemies a liiittle bit lower, to increase my PCs’ probability of hitting. the exact number of the armor class will depend on your players’ level.

as a super general guide for players at level 3, 10-13 is easy, 14-15 is moderate, 16-17 is challenging (heavily favoring 17), and 18+ is very challenging/almost impossible.

just so you know, i generally set my enemies’ ACs for a level 3 party to be 13 for less important creatures, and 14 for more important creatures. i’d probably set the AC to be 15 or 16 for a mini-boss, and 16 or 17 (if i’m feeling cruel lol) for a boss.

obviously, this scales as your party levels up, finds magical items, and gains special features and boons. i would scale the difficulty by 1 when they hit level 4 and get an ability score improvement, and then by 1 every 2 levels or so.

in other words, at level 4, i’d consider an AC of 11-14 to be easy, 15-16 as moderate, 17-18 as challenging (heavily favoring 18), and 19+ as very challenging/almost impossible. and by the time your party is levels 12-16, AC can often feel like it doesn’t freaking matter anymore because they’ll be able to hit, like, fucking everything. anyway.

there’s some nitty gritty mathematics about this if you like to get granular. this is a good video about dice math, armor class, and calculating advantage mathematically if that sort of thing interests you.

regarding # of hit points. honestly, i fudge this most times. because i like to scale my AC on the lower end, in exchange, i make my creatures fucking FAT. like, i’ll look at their stat block in the monster manual, and add 30-50% to what they already have. sometimes i’ll straight up double or even triple it.

for example, the spectator normally has 39 hit points, but i gave my spectator ~100, because it was a miniboss. i did, however, keep its armor class at 14 because that meant my players, at 3rd level, would be able to hit it 60-70% of the time. this strategy of mine tends to work out, because my players are usually able to dish out a LOT of damage per round. (we have a barb, a fighter, and a warlock in the party lol.)

something i did in the spectator fight, that i wish i didn’t do, was stay faithful to the number of hit points it had. the barbarian ended up killing it with a rather anticlimactic attack. i know for certain that my warlock, which was next in the initiative order, had this SUPER cool and character-relevant attack planned. what i would do differently, is keep the spectator alive just long enough for my warlock to do their cool fucking move, and have that move kill the monster.

and now for the big takeaway. combat, for me, is all about giving my players a chance to shine, be badass, utilize their class abilities, and be creative. just like any other aspect of d&d, such as roleplaying and exploration, combat is an exercise in collaborative storytelling (for me, at least).

i rarely introduce combat that doesn’t tie into an A plot, a B plot, or a side quest that the PCs are chasing. i don’t have anything against random encounters – in fact, i ran some RE’s in the second-most recent session – but what makes combat fun for me as a DM is the fact that it advances story, and potentially deepens the players’ understanding of their character.

so, before you throw your players into a combat situation, ask yourself: why? how can i make this narratively dramatic – and not just a slogfest?

bonus answer: most combat encounters will struggle to last beyond three, maybe four, rounds. especially if there are an equal or fewer baddies to the player characters. however, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. in fact, if combat went on for five, six, seven rounds, it can begin to feel like… well.. a slog.

so make the most out of your three, four rounds, and make each combat encounter unique! how about an environmental challenge? slippery ground, swinging axes, pools of lava, a sudden earthquake, a portcullis dividing the party, water filling the room.

or roleplay/plot-related challenges? maybe there’s a circle of mages attempting to summon a demon that are protected by enchanted suits of armor that the PCs need to hack through. maybe there are hostages. maybe there’s a powerful magical artifact that the baddies and PCs both want, and the challenge in the combat lies in who can most deftly and efficiently maneuver through the clockwork maze protecting the raised dais the item resides upon.

#ask #reply #dnd ideas #dm tips #combat ideas

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ninjafrogofhnm · 4 years ago

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3, 22, 31, and 49 for Bash, and 27 and 29 for Udia :3

@lesserideafountain ohhh some for Udia too, i n t e r e s t i n g

3. What is their romantic/sexual orientation?

Bash has no idea himself, he has taken a look at the people he’s been attracted to or been intimate with in his life - vanishingly small though those tallys may be - and just went ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I, as his creator, know he is Demi.

22. Have they ever hurt or lost anyone?

His mentor Leal passed away unexpectedly about a year pre-game and quite a few people from his home village died when he was around 14, though he doesn’t know exactly who/how many which kinda fits both those criteria.

31. Does the character worry about their place in society?

Not much anymore though it was one of his main worries throughout most of his life up to recently. He tries so hard, for so long to find a place to belong and never really did. Eventually he pretty much cut ties and took off, figuring if he wasn’t ever going to belong anywhere he might as well keep moving around on his own instead.

49. What is their job?

Keeping the other Silver Tongues alive. He’s gonna start using a baby leash on everyone if they keep on running off into danger without him. xD

27. Are they very driven?

Udia was very driven as a youngster, extremely focused on their training and assignments within the hierarchy of the church of the High Court. They spend decades pushing their status higher until they were actually one of the highest ranked church officials at their posting, but as they got older they also mellowed out slightly. They are a lot less ambitious now but, after leaving their stationary position within the church to be out traveling and more directly serving the country, they are starting to feel that familiar drive spark again.

29. What kind of state is the world that they live in?

A very thoroughly thought-out one, as our DM has run a few campaigns with other people in this world before though at the beginning of the campaign rolls were made to determine what timeline we were in and where in the timeline we were, etc. We’re still pretty low-level as well (just hit 6 xD) so we’ve only really explored a small portion of Daranarod, the country we started out in, and the state of the wider world is much less known to us.

From what we do know, however, is that there is something effecting those of faith or that use divine magic recently. There was a short period of time when divine casters could no longer regain spell slots or spell like abilities and many, many priests/clergy/devout citizens’ dreams were invaded by dark magics leading to many deaths over an expanse of many town or possibly the whole country. Which, given that Daranarod is a theocracy, is a bit of a problem.

Also apparently our compasses point to the SOUTH pole and not the North like everyone in the world believes.

#silver tongues #ask meme #all the words all the time

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whateverwarrior · 4 years ago

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D&D tumblr I need your opinion

So I’m playing in a dnd campaign right now after a coworker/friend asked me to join his group since he’d never played dnd before, but heard me talk about it. I play a tiefling warlock with a criminal background. the criminal background part if kind of important to why I’m thinking of leaving this campaign for a few reasons.

the DM doesn’t plan much in advance for the sessions. He basically takes a nap an hour before the sessions to decide what he’s going to do for the session. no planning. no keeping loot in mind, no notes. This is sort of annoying as a player because it feels like he’s pulling everything out of his ass and not putting any thought into the campaign.

He doesn’t really do a good job setting up the scene and us as the players have to basically play 20 questions to figure out what the area we’re in looks like and what’s around and he has us roll perception checks for things that should just be obvious.

He wasn’t clear about the time frame in between sessions and makes it overly confusing. after a few sessions in, he noted that we’d been in town for three weeks, but we were under the assumption that we’d only been in town for three days. He didn’t think to explain the time frame in session or ask us what we wanted to do in our between time.

He’s convinced I hate him, but won’t tell me why, just that it’s obvious to him that I hate him, but i don’t know what i’ve done to make him think that.

He throws a lot of tpks at us at low levels. we’re all at level 3 right now and last session, he had us face a vampire and three vampire spawn. at level 2 he had us up against a hydra and bullshitted by having the hydra be really stupid and attack itself on some turns, but it still almost killed our cleric in one round.

He constantly shits on me for playing my character how I think my character would react. My warlock is a kind of shady and suspicious guy being a criminal and everything, but when we faced the hydra I climbed up the wall of the pit we were stuck in to get to higher ground and avoid being hit. that made sense for me as a spell caster with no melee weapon at the time, but the DM constantly brings it up, saying that I abandoned the cleric to die to make the cleric mad at me when I just got to higher ground to do spell attacks and went for help after the battle ended and our only healer was out and we had no healing potions because we were at level two.

He insists on only rolling a d20 when he can and will sometimes use it as a damage die. He also gives me disadvantage for seemingly no reason and himself advantage at random times.

We’re about five sessions in now, still in the same town we started in with no over arching quest or goal. I have literally no idea what we’re supposed to be doing and I have to resist the urge to make my character just pack up and leave town basically every session, since my character’s backstory means he’s kind of on the run and needs to keep moving.

The DM also doesn’t want to be DMing. he told me that my friend (bless is stupid little heart) just put him in a dnd group chat without telling him and announced that he was going to DM. The friend was under the impression that he wanted to dm something but apparently not.

I know I’m complaining a lot and I really do love playing dnd, but this game is exhausting me and I’m not sure I want to keep playing with this group. I really like the character I made and would rather play him with a DM that actually cares about putting the players into their story and wants to DM.

Is having a shitty DM a good enough reason to leave a group or should I give him a chance?

#dnd #Dungeons and Dragons #dnd 5e #advice #I need help #what yall think

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tabletoptrinketsbyjj · 5 years ago

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Running the Numbers: On Balancing Homebrew Masterwork Weapon Bonuses

Hey folks,

My name is JJ and since March 2017 I’ve been working on this blog of D&D related homebrew content for your looting needs. I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from people and I’m very appreciative of everyone who has written to me or shared the tables on their own blogs or with friends and gaming groups. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has taken the time and energy to read through my tables, I know people lead busy lives and homebrew content is everywhere online. What I would like to talk about right now is balance for this blog’s homebrew material and how I decide what to include or not include in the tables and how that might help a DM justify using homebrew my homebrew material in their campaign without breaking the game or providing a wild power imbalance between their players.

To start off, I’d like to say that I have a decent background in RPG games in a variety of different systems with most of my time playing, Pathfinder, D&D 3.5 and 5th Edition. For balance purposes for this blog I have tried to be system neutral, talking about skills, benefits and mechanics in general terms so that the trinkets (Especially magic objects) can be easily worked into D&D, Exalted or Numenera alike. For general bonuses and negatives I have taken language from 5th edition D&D, namely the Advantage/Disadvantage system because I find it simple and straightforward. Since I primarily play D&D 5e now I gear a lot of the wording of objects towards it and d20 systems in general. Although this article can be used to talk about balance in a number of different systems, any specifics are usually aimed at D&D 5e.

While I'd like to talk about all of the different types of trinkets I have on my blog, this post will focus exclusively on Masterwork Weapons. While this concept was standard in D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder (And similar ideas can be found in other systems), it does not exist in 5e, which I find disappointing because I like the idea of an exceptionally crafted weapon that is mechanically better than average but weaker than a +1 weapon. To talk about masterwork weapons we should also talk about magic weapons so we have a clear comparison. Magical “+1 weapons” are a staple in D&D and are an easily benchmark for what a “standard” magic weapon looks like. A +1 weapon has four different bonuses that set it above a typical weapon, It grants a +1 on accuracy rolls to hit, a +1 on damage rolls, it counts as magical for bypassing the resistances of enemies and it is much harder to break or damage. When the concept was used in 3.5 and Pathfinder, a masterwork weapon gave a +1 on accuracy rolls to hit. In my interpretation, this means that the value of a masterwork weapon was about ¼ of a +1 weapon and I have tried to keep that in mind while writing. It is no accident that the first four masterwork bonuses are each different aspect of a +1 weapon. While researching what other people have done for their version of a homebrew masterwork weapon in 5e, the common theme I've found seems to be a +1 on damage rolls. Due to the bonded accuracy in 5e, a +1 on accuracy would be to strong and we’ll talk more about this later. A +1 to damage rolls for a price of 100gp (Which is the same price as getting a weapon silver plated) seems like a fair enough trade, especially if masterwork weapons are rare and can only be purchased in large cities or commissioned from master weapon crafters, requiring a side quest or roleplay scene. In short, I found a general consensus that a masterwork quality that grants a +1 on damage rolls is balance and therefore it will serve as the benchmark against which all the other masterwork bonuses are compared against.

Keeping “+1 to damage rolls” in mind as a benchmark for how strong I wanted a masterwork bonus to be, I created and cannibalized more than a dozen options for DM’s to use for introducing masterworks into their own campaigns. I will be going point by point crunching numbers to show how each bonus lines up with one another. For those that want to do your own math, feel free to use https://anydice.com/ or http://rumkin.com/reference/dnd/diestats.php to double check the work. I will be using 1d8 as an example for most damage rolls to make it a little more standard. For context going forward, a d8 has a minimum damage of 1, a maximum damage of 8 and an average damage of 4.5. Please note that with one or two exceptions these benefits only affect the default weapon damage dice themselves, not additional dice such as sneak attack, divine smite or spell effects.

I will be going through one at a time through each Masterwork Bonus I currently have written up and talking about them and showing you how their specific benefit effects damage rolls so you as a DM have a better idea on how strong it actually is. To save space I have cut out the fluff descriptions of the Masterwork Bonuses but they can be read here if you’re interested.

Keep reading for a point by point analysis of the Masterwork Bonuses.

This paragraph outlines the Advantage / Disadvantage system from D&D 5e, because some of the bonuses use it. If you're already familiar go ahead and skip this. When a character is given help from a tool, other character, magic effect, etc. they gain Advantage on the dice roll made to accomplish the task. This means that they roll 2d20’s and pick the higher result to determine the outcome, thereby increasing the overall dice roll, slashing the chances of critical failing and boosting the opportunity to critically succeed. Disadvantage is the opposite, the player rolls twice and has to use the lower result increasing the odds of failing. The real great parts about this system is if a character has advantage and disadvantage, they cancel out and only one roll is made so you cannot get “super advantage”. If the character is gaining advantage or disadvantage from multiple sources he still only rolls twice and picks the higher result. This makes circumstantial bonuses very simple to apply on the spot and prevents players from having to calculate a +1 or +2 from half a dozen different sources at a time. Personally I like it because it’s quick and simple allowing everyone to roll fast and move on, in a game where play time is often hard to schedule. Plus, bonuses and deficits just cause the player to roll more dice in a game where players typically love any excuse to roll dice.

1, Precise: Grants a +1 on attack rolls to hit targets

In many systems a bonus to accuracy rolls can deal more damage than a boost to the actual damage rolls. Logically, more accurate attacks hit more often and all damage resulting from a hit that was only successful because of the +1 accuracy bonus can be considered extra damage. In D&D 5e this would bonus would probably be considered the most powerful due to bonded accuracy (Which you can read more about here) and would probably end up doing more damage than the +1 benchmark, especially if the wielder had class features such as sneak attack that further increased damage on hit.

2, Balanced: Grants a +1 to all damage rolls.

The simplest and most reliable damage dealing bonus. A flat +1 damage increases the minimum, maximum and average amount of damage that can be dealt by the attack by 1, making it a nice choice to quietly provide a small benefit for the player that can be added to the damage roll’s math and otherwise forgotten about. For damage bonuses, an average damage increase of +1 is what we are looking for in terms of power and serves as our benchmark.

3, Spellbound: The weapon is considered magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances, damage reduction and other defenses.

This provides a nice compromise to DM’s who want their players to go up against more varied enemies that might have resistances or immunities to non-magic weapons but who don’t want the players to have a full +1 weapon yet. The weapon’s bonus will only provide a benefit when dealing with a small number of enemies (Like elementals, ghosts or fiends) that have that resistance. On the resistant enemies it effectively doubles damage (Compared to a non-Spellbound weapon whose damage would be halved by the resistant monster) granting the wielder and player the time to shine in combat. Against the majority of low and mid-level enemies such as humanoids and beasts who aren’t resistant to non-magic weapons, the weapon provides no benefit at all and is just as useful as a regular weapon.

4, Impervious: The weapon is five times more durable than normal, never breaks, chips or dulls as a result of casual use and is all but impossible to break or damage as a result of combat, even when targeted by enemies who attempt sundering or weapon breaking techniques.

This allows a player to feel comfortable in the knowledge that their sword isn’t going to explode on a natural 1, leaving them unarmed and useless in combat. Furthermore it encourages players to use the sturdy weapon outside of combat for roleplaying or problem solving reasons. Perhaps a war pick is used to dig a foxhole in rocky terrain, a warhammer is used to break down a door, a quarterstaff is wedged against a door to brace it, or a sword is used in place of a crowbar to pry open a stuck chest. Other than resisting being broken in combat, this bonuses has no real offensive capacity making it a great thing to give to your players with almost zero risk that it will upset the team’s power balance or make them too strong in combat.

5, Relentless: Instead of a single damage die when the wielder successfully hits a target, the player instead rolls two dice that equal the value of the original damage die and add the results together.

This grants the player the ability to roll two dice when they would normally roll one, which will probably increase their level of happiness right there. This is a good benefit for raising the minimum damage the wielder does, and in the event of a critical allows the player to roll a multitude of small dice, further raising the minimum damage dealt. If our 1d8 example die is turned into 2d4 with this, the weapon now has a minimum damage of 2, a maximum damage of 8 and an average damage of 5. This increases the minimum by 1 which is nice but only provides an average damage bonus of +0.5 which is not much, but can allow players to feel like they are getting more from the weapon than they normally would. Since this average damage increase is less than our benchmark +1 damage this makes it a balanced addition to the masterwork bonus list.

6, Superior: The weapon’s damage dice increases by one step to the next largest die.

This is a nice and simple benefit with a clear but small increase in damage potential. If our 1d8 example die is turned into 1d10 with this, the weapon has a minimum damage of 1, a maximum damage of 10 and an average damage of 5.50. This increases the maximum by 2 which allows for slightly bigger hits and provides an average damage bonus of +1. This has a slightly higher than normal damage cap but with the drawback of no increase to the minimum damage. Overall the average damage is increased by +1, the same as our benchmark and thus of comparable balance.

7, Cruel: Whenever the player roll a 1 on a die to calculate the weapon’s damage, they can reroll the die until they receive a result that is not a 1.

Like the flat +1 damage, this bonus was also very common on homebrew sites discussing how to implement a masterwork mechanic. Raising the minimum damage the player can deal on hit is a good things for them, since nobody wants to roll a 1. Applying this to our 1d8 example gives it a minimum damage of 2, a maximum damage of 8 and an average damage of 5. This increases the minimum by 1 which is nice but only provides an average damage bonus of +0.5 which is not much, but can provide the player a great sense of relief and excitement when they do roll a 1 and can reroll it into a much higher number. Since the average damage increase of +0.5 (Which is the same regardless of the size of the die) is less than our benchmark +1 damage this makes it a balanced addition to the masterwork bonus list.

8, Defensive: The weapon grants +1 to the wielder’s armor class / defense value / dodge rating or other system mechanic that decreases the chances of being hit with an attack.

Similar to Precise, making homebrew changes to the accuracy and armor class system can be risky for the mechanical balance of the game. In D&D 5e, a +1 to armor class is a big deal and hard to come by and the potential damage prevented by virtue of being harder to hit can add up. This kind of bonus is meant to evoke the idea or a parrying dagger, sword breaker or boar spear, deflecting attacks and keeping enemies at bay by nature of their design. Although it doesn’t directly compare to our benchmark +1 damage, a Defensive weapon can be a Godsend to a squishy melee striker like a rogue or bard who would definitely appreciate the increased armor class.

9, Vicious: Whenever the player roll a 1 or a 2 on a die to calculate the weapon’s damage, they can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2.

D&D 5e players should be familiar with this bonus because it is taken straight from the Great Weapon Fighting style. Due to this, lots of other people have done the math in detail and you can follow this link for nice graphs about the statistics. In short, this bonus on our 1d8 example keeps the minimum damage at 1, a maximum damage of 8 and an average damage of 5.25. That is only an average damage increase of +0.75 which is lower than our benchmark value of +1. It is important to note that the damage changes based size and number of dice and that if the weapon dealt 2d6 damage (Which has an average of 7) was affected by this, the average damage would be 8.33. An improvement of +1.33, which is slightly higher than our +1 benchmark.

10, Brutal: Whenever the player rolls the maximum result on a weapon damage die (I.e. a 6 on a six-sided die.), they can roll that die an additional time and add both results to the total damage dealt. This ability can trigger multiple times per turn but only once per attack.

This is one of the swingy bonuses that either provides either a lot of extra damage or none at all. Based on the concept of “exploding dice” from Shadowrun and some White Wolf systems, if you roll the maximum result, you’ll be rewarded with another die to add to the damage total. I like the idea of having a slim chance to do extra damage since it’s like a mini critical hit. On our example d8 there is a 12.5% chance (One in eight) to trigger the Brutal effect, which adds an average of +4.5 damage (Another d8) to the damage roll. This means that a triggering hit deals a minimum of 2 damage, a maximum of 16 and an average of 9 damage. Although this seems like a lot, remember that the effect only happens on 1 in 8 attacks, so if we take the 4.5 extra damage and average that across of 8 attacks it’s only an average of +0.56 damage per hit. This trend holds steady for different die sizes as larger dice deal more damage but less often and vice versa for smaller dice. A d12 grants an average of +0.54 damage per hit while a d4 grants +0.63. It is important to note that this math is conducted in a vacuum and wielders with the power to reroll damage dice (Especially 1’s and 2’s) can make this bonus more lethal. Though even if on a d8, if the wielder was capable of rerolled all 1’s and 2’s, it would still be 4.5 extra damage once every 6 attacks which is an average increase of +0.75. Since the average increased damage bonus will always be less than our +1 benchmark, I feel like this is a reasonably balanced effect. This can be more fun than a flat +1 to damage because it trades the dependable and boring damage would be represented by a 1d8+1, into an unreliable and therefore exciting 1d8+?, with the possibility on every damage roll of getting an 8 and having your damage explode into high numbers.

11, Mighty: Whenever the wielder scores a critical hit with the weapon, the player can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add the result to the damage dealt by the critical hit. This is in addition to the standard bonus damage of a critical hit.

Drawing on weapons mechanics from D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder this is essentially the idea of an “increased critical multiplier”, which allowed weapons to deal more damage on a critical hit. In terms of damage output on hit, this is similar to Brutal but provides even less average damage per hit because critical hits are rare. In a d20 system where you only critically hit on a 20, you have a 1 in 20 (5%) chance to critical hit on every attack. If you use the example die, you turn the regular critical hit from 2d8 damage (Minimum 2, maximum 16, average 9) into 3d8, (Minimum 3, maximum 24, average 13.5) which does increase the average damage by 4.5 on a critical, but across 20 attacks it averages to +0.225 damage per hit. Comparing that to the benchmark’s +1 damage per hit, this masterwork bonus is very weak but makes up for it with spikes of high damage on critical hits.

X, Inexorable: Whenever the player rolls to determine the weapon’s damage, he may roll the weapon’s damage die twice and choose either result to use.

This bonus allows the player to effectively roll damage twice and choose the higher amount, essentially granting advantage on damage rolls. On our example d8, this bonus keeps the minimum and maximum at 1 and 8 respectively and changes the average to 5.81 damage. Although the minimum and maximum don’t change, the increased average damage by 1.31 per hit, which is slightly higher than our goal of +1. The improvement to damage is magnified by the size and number of dice. On a d12 it grans an increased 1.99 damage per hit and on 2d6 it’s a 2.34 increase. This bonus would also affect the additional damage dice from critical hits making this benefit very powerful.

Inexorable by our +1 damage benchmark is actually too strong to be a Masterwork bonus. To be honest, I added it in here originally to pad the original Masterwork list out to 12 entries so it could be rolled on a d12. Since it doesn’t belong here I have moved it over to the Minor Weapon Enchantments Table (Which was nowhere near ready at the time the Masterwork table was introduced), where it’s magical theme and stronger bonus better fits in.

12, Silvered: The weapon’s business end is covered in a durable layer of alchemically treated silver of incredible quality. Although unnaturally processed, the metal is pure and effective at dealing with undead, lycanthropes and fey creatures. The weapon’s grip also sports discrete bands of intricately worked silver which prevents the wielder’s supernatural enemies from handling the weapon and using it against him.

Silvering weapons is a staple in most RPG games that have monsters that are vulnerable to the metal. This benefit is similar to Spellbound as it really only has any benefit when used against a certain set of enemies and otherwise has no effect on a typical attack. The only change that this blog provides are the silver bands on the grip, preventing monsters from wielding it properly. If your system already has rules for silvered weapons you can just use those instead. See Spellbound for how it compares to the +1 damage benchmark.

13, Tactical: Using an action equivalent to making an attack or casting a spell, the wielder can attempt to perform one of the previously mentioned combat maneuvers. Whenever the wielder could make an attack with the weapon, he can instead perform one of the previously mentioned combat maneuvers... Furthermore, the wielder is able to take advantage of lucky blows and turn them into skillful maneuvers rather than simply powerful attacks. Whenever the wielder lands a critical hit, he can choose to cause it to be considered a normal hit instead and immediately perform one of the previously mentioned maneuvers (With advantage because of the weapon’s design) on the target.

I really like the idea of combat maneuvers, tactics and strategies in RPG’s that contain more than just mindlessly attacking the enemy. A frontliner who effective at tripping, disarming or grappling the enemy can be just as, if not more effective than a wizard specializing in battlefield control, because the fighter can do it more often. Unfortunately it can sometimes be hard to justify attempting maneuvers, as it’s often far more efficient to just focus on dealing damage, especially when both take the same type of action. This bonuses grants players an incentive to attempt maneuvers because they automatically gain advantage and gain access to a larger range of said maneuvers. Furthermore they can trade the extra damage from a critical for the chance to disarm / grapple / trip / etc. the target, which can let a player think strategically and provides some new combat options. As a roleplaying experience it can allow for better teamwork, granting a supporting bard a better chance of tripping an enemy, allowing the two handed fighter to attack the prone target at advantage as well as reducing their chance of escaping. This bonus doesn’t deal damage directly so it doesn’t compare to our benchmark +1 damage, but it does grant the wielder a few benefits and options at the cost of making a regular attack or additional critical hit damage.

14, Poisoner’s: Even a bludgeoning weapon that is normally difficult to poison effectively can benefit from the grooves, allowing it to deliver the offending material with ease. The channels are always positioned in such a way that a creature can apply a solid or liquid material (Such as but not limited to: poison, holy water, flammable oil or animal venom) in them without any risk of accidentally poisoning themselves (Even if they are not proficient with poisons) and taking no more time than usual to coat an object with poison. Furthermore, the recessed pathways protect the material from the elements, keeping it from drying or spoiling and after it’s applied, the material remains potent for an additional hour longer than normal before becoming inert. Lastly and most importantly, the virulent trenches are divided and spread out, allowing a single dose of poison to be delivered normally and effectively while still having some leftover in a separate groove. The number of strikes the weapon may make before the poison is rubbed off is increased by one. Alternatively to being spread out, the blighting substance can be confined to a single groove which will deliver its payload in a single concentrated strike which causes the victim to suffer disadvantage on the save against the material, or the PC can roll the poison’s damage twice and choose the higher result. The bearer who applies the poison chooses whether the material will be spread out over multiple strikes or if it will be concentrated into a more lethal hit (And if it applies disadvantage or increased damage) when the material is applied.

This bonus provides a few benefits in order to allow a lower level PC better make use of expendable items like flammable oil, holy water or poison before magical weapons and stronger spells render them too inefficient to use in combat. The DM should feel free to adjust any parts of this bonus to better fit with the specific poison mechanics of their game. Personally I love the idea of poisons, oils and alchemical coatings appealing as concepts but at low levels they are often too expensive to buy and once you have the money you’re usually better off buying magic items since a large number of enemies are either resistant or immune to poison.

In D&D 5e for example, a vial of “basic poison” can coat up to three slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Applying the poison takes and action and on hit the target must make a fairly easy save (A Con DC of 10, about a 50% chance of failure on average) or suffer as much poison damage as a dagger deals. Once applied, the poison retains its potency for 1 minute before drying. Overall pretty weak but could definitely be useful in many situations, especially ambushes rewarding players who prepare and think ahead. However this vial of three-use poison costs an exorbitant 100 gold pieces, the same value as a suit of scale mail and a greatsword combined. A PC with 100 gold at low levels might get a silvered weapon (Which is also 100 gold), get better quality armor, buy healing potions or adventuring equipment or weak magic items. The 5e Player’s Handbook list’s the cost of a hired mercenary at 2 gold pieces per day, so you could hire a bodyguard to fight for you for 50 days (Or an army of 50 for one day) for the same price as one vial of basic poison. At mid-levels, enemies will pass the save more than not, taking no damage and even if they roll poorly and fail, a dagger’s worth of damage is not a substantial drain on their hit point pool.

If we apply this masterwork quality to a warhammer (Since it uses our d8 example die) in conjunction with 5e’s basic poison we can look at the benefits. Normally you wouldn’t be able to poison the warhammer at all (It deals bludgeoning damage) but now you can and without risk of accidentally harming yourself. Rather than drying out in one minute, the poison will remain potent for 61 minutes, a fantastic improvement, allowing the player to apply it with a greatly reduced chance of it being wasted due to drying out before the next fight begins. The wielder can also choose to spread the material out among multiple grooves, turning a three use-vial into a six-use vial of poison, making it much more cost effective. Alternatively the player could choose to force the victim to suffer disadvantage on the saves to resist the poison or roll the poison damage twice and pick the more lethal result, making the poison more viable at higher levels.

In short this masterwork bonus provides a number of small benefits and options to allow a PC to make poisons and alchemical weapon applications more fun and a viable strategy that offers the player a range of options, rather than an ineffective money sink. As this weapon does not deal damage directly it is hard to compare against the benchmark. The goal of this masterwork is to increase the damage deal by poisons and similar materials but it is weighed against the fact that the player has to expend gold or resources buying and using the poisons to actually make use of the benefits (As opposed to the benchmark “free” +1 damage on every hit) so it seems balanced to me.

15, Bypassing: A wielder who makes an attack with a weapon with this bonus ignores any and all defensive benefits that an opponent’s shield would normally provide.

This bonus attempts to reflect the real world weapons such as the flail, sica, shotel, and war pick, all designed to get around armor and shields in order to reach the tender flesh of the enemy. Although this benefit does affect accuracy rolls rather than damage, I would compare this more to the Spellbound or Silvered bonus rather than Precise. In my experience as a player, I rarely run into to humanoid enemies wielding shields and typical bestiaries and monster manuals don’t have a lot of shield using enemies. If your PC’s are mostly fighting undead, elementals, beasts and aberrations this bonuses will probably not help them. In the rare instance when they do come across a heavily armored fighter or blackguard paladin or other hard to hit foe, this bonuses will let the wielder bypass some of those defenses and let that wielder shine. Handing out this kind of weapon in a military or war campaign where it would be used regularly, would be comparable to handing out a Silvered weapon in a werewolf heavy campaign. Since it doesn’t deal damage directly I doesn’t compare to the benchmark and you can refer to the Spellbound and Silvered for how this bonus works in play.

16, Resounding: Whenever the player rolls a damage die he must roll a second confirming die of the same sort. If the second die is the same result as the first, the player is considered to have instead rolled the maximum possible result for that type of die instead of the current result.

As the fluff description mentions, getting a resounding blow that triggers the maximum damage is rare. The value of this bonuses is odd to calculate because as the maximum damage output of the die increases, the odds of actually rolling two of the same number to trigger it goes down proportionally. Over the course of 64 successful attacks with our example d8 (every variation of the damage die and confirmation roll), the effect only triggers 8 times (A 12.5% chance) and only 7 of those times actually benefit the wielder since rolling two 8’s is already the maximum amount of damage possible. Over the 64 hits, the total increase in damage resulting from the bonus is 28, an average increase of 0.44 per hit with most of the damage coming from when the player rolled low and would have done very little damage.

This table is a chart of each result of the 64 hits possible with a d8 Resounding weapon. The leftmost column is the damage roll while the top row is the confirming roll with the middle being the actual damage dealt. The bottom roll is the sum of the total damage from that column which is compared to 36, which is the sum damage total on a non-masterwork d8 over the eight possible hits.

To demonstrate on a smaller die over the course of 16 successful hits on a d4, the effect triggers 4 times (A 25% chance) and the total increase in damage resulting from the bonus is 6, an average increase of 0.38 per hit. The sum of the total damage on a non-masterwork d4 is 10 over the 4 possible hits.

On a larger die over the course of 144 successful on a d12, the effect triggers 12 times (A 12% chance) and the total increase in damage resulting from the bonus is 66, an average increase of 0.45 per hit. The sum of the total damage on a non-masterwork d12 is 78 over the 144 possible hits.

In summation, this bonus gives the occasional burst of damage at the cost of providing no benefit most of the time. It grants an average damage increase of 0.45 per hit (on a d8), which is well below our +1 benchmark in terms of balance.

17, Chargebreaker: If the wielder has not moved yet on his turn he can take up a defensive position, which causes his speed to drop to 0 until the end of his turn. While in this stance, the wielder is able to make an attack of opportunity with the readied weapon against an enemy that enters his reach. The bracing stance ends if the wielder moves, attacks or at the start of the wielder’s next turn.

Much like Tactical, this benefit rewards players who think strategically and offers them options in combat, like the ability to plant themselves and defend a key position rather than just rushing the enemy and attacking. This does potentially allow the wielder to make an additional attack per round, possibly doubling the number of attacks they can make. However these extra attacks come at the cost of all of the wielder’s movement during that turn, which can trap him in an inconvenient corner of the battlefield, not be able to move to reach allies, render him unable to retreat or not be able to place himself between the enemy and the more fragile party members. The wielder gains no additional benefit against creatures already within his reach and is potentially worse off against ranged attackers and mobile enemies, since bracing himself means that he is not closing that distance.

18, Parrying: Using an action equivalent to an attack of opportunity (See Note) the wielder may attempt to parry an incoming melee attack, increasing his armor class or physical defensiveness as if he was properly wielding a shield. The wielder may benefit from the armor class bonus (Typically a +2) even if he is already wielding a shield. —Note: If your system doesn’t use attacks of opportunity use the following rule: Once the wielder parries an attack he is no longer able to do so until the start of his next turn.

Similar to Precise and Defensive, this is a bonus that deals with armor class and attack rolls. Unlike defensive however, this bonus consumes the wielder’s resources in the form of costing an attack of opportunity to use. A player could use this ability every time he is able to but doing so forcing him to give up on attacking fleeing enemies or striking when they are vulnerable. Furthermore, the benefit only applies to one melee attack per round so the wielder is still just as vulnerable to multiple attacks and ranged attacks. This bonus doesn’t deal damage so it doesn’t compare against the benchmark, but I feel that it provides a benefit to player’s without being overpowered due to its cost and limited use.

19, Strategic: These modifications greatly improve the wielder’s ability to resist trips, feints, grapples, pins, being disarmed, pushed, shoved and other combat maneuvers... Whenever the wielder is targeted by one of the previously mentioned combat maneuvers, he can use an action equivalent to an attack of opportunity (See Note) to grant himself advantage on the roll made to resist the maneuver. —Note: If your system doesn’t use attacks of opportunity use the following rule: Once the wielder uses the weapon to grant himself advantage on the roll made to resist a combat maneuver, he is no longer able to do so until the start of his next turn.

Much like Defensive and Parrying, this bonus deals with making the wielder more resilient when facing combat maneuvers like grappling, tripping and disarming. These tactics can be brutally effective when used against PC’s and can make enemies orders of magnitude more threatening. A monster that can attempt a grapple or trip check with every successful attack can be far more deadly than one that deals an extra 1d6 damage on each hit. Like Parrying, this bonus consumes the wielder’s resources in the form of costing an attack of opportunity to activate which helps to balance out its use. A player could use this ability every time he is able to, but doing so forces him to give up on attacking fleeing enemies or striking when they are vulnerable. This bonus doesn’t deal damage so it doesn’t compare against the benchmark, but I feel that it provides a benefit to player’s without being overpowered due to its cost of an attack of opportunity.

20, Adaptable: When the wielder attacks, he may choose to have the weapon deal either bludgeoning, slashing, piercing or nonlethal / stun damage (See Note). Otherwise the weapon keeps its usual statistics and this does not change anything about the way the weapon operates other than its damage type.

This is probably one of the weakest bonuses on this list and provides more fluff and equipment management ease than anything else similar to Impervious. A PC now only needs to haul around their masterwork weapon and be capable of dealing several type of damage rather than a golf bag of different weapons for different resistant monsters. Like Silvered or Spellbound this would only be beneficial in a small number of situations. Even then, it’s not hard or even that expensive for a fighter to carry a mundane warhammer, longspear and longsword, (Plus one or two ranged weapons) it’s just annoying to have to for purposes of overcoming resistances.

21, Twinned: Whenever the player rolls a damage die he must roll a second confirming die of the same sort. If the second die is the same result as the first, the player adds both dice to the total damage rolled.

This bonus is very similar to Resounding in the form of the confirmation roll for extra damage. Similarly to Resounding, getting a twinned strike that deals the extra damage is rare and the value of this bonuses is odd to calculate because as the maximum damage output of the die increases, the odds of actually rolling two of the same number to trigger it goes down proportionally.

Over the course of 64 successful attacks with our example d8, the effect only triggers 8 times, a 12.5% chance. Over the 64 hits, the total increase in damage resulting from the bonus is 36, an average increase of 0.56 per hit with most of the damage coming from when the player is doubling their high roll.

This table is a chart of each result of the 64 hits possible with a d8 Twinned weapon. The leftmost column is the damage roll while the top row is the confirming roll with the middle being the actual damage dealt. The bottom roll is the sum of the total damage from that column, which is compared to 36, the sum damage total on a non-masterwork d8 over the eight possible hits.

To demonstrate on a smaller die, over the course of 16 successful, the effect triggers 4 times (A 25% chance) and the total increase in damage resulting from the bonus is 10, an average increase of 0.63 per hit. The sum of the total damage on a non-masterwork d4 is 10 over the 4 possible hits.

On a larger die, over the course of 144 successful, the effect only triggers 12 times (A 12% chance) and the total increase in damage resulting from the bonus is 78, an average increase of 0.54 per hit. The sum of the total damage on a non-masterwork d12 is 78 over the 4 possible hits. Although DM’s may have some reservations on seeing the higher scale of this chart, remember that rolling two 12’s to deal 24 damage is 1 in 144 or a 0.69% chance.

In summation, this bonus gives the occasion burst of damage at the cost of providing no benefit most of the time, with an average damage increase of 0.56 per hit (on a d8), which is well below our +1 benchmark.

22, Quickdraw: The bearer is able to draw the weapon as a free action whenever he rolls initiative as long as he physically capable of doing so… In the first round of combat if a hostile creature comes within the wielder’s reach (Or 20 feet for a ranged weapon) he is able to make an attack of opportunity against that creature but suffers disadvantage on the attack roll. Lastly, drawing and stowing the weapon is considered a free action.

This bonuses is supposed to allow PC’s to be able to evoke the incredible training and reflexes that come from a lifetime of having to react quickly to violent ambushes. For an easy comparison of what I imagine this looking like, take a look at Star Wars or Firefly. Characters like Han Solo or Malcolm Reynolds carry their pistols in a low slung gunslinger’s holsters along their hips and are able to draw and fire within a second. This allows them to even out or even win fights before they have a chance to properly start. For a real life example look at videos of Bob Munden, a real life exhibition shooter has the title "Fastest Man with a Gun Who Ever Lived" bestowed on him by Guinness World Records. This Masterwork bonus enhances the PC’s ability draw the weapon as a natural reflex and instinctively (If not skillfully, hence the disadvantage) lash out at an enemy within reach. If as a DM you are fond of ambushing your party, they will appreciate a weapon with this kind of bonus.

Damage wise, this bonus grants up to one additional attack at disadvantage per combat which may hit for some extra damage. Depending on the length of the fight, this may exceed the +1 benchmark or add nothing at all.

23, Unforgiving: When the player scores a critical hit with the weapon, he rolls all the dice associated with the damage as normal. After rolling but before damage is dealt to the target, the player may select any single rolled damage die of his choosing and that die will be considered to have rolled the maximum possible result for that type of die instead of the current result. —Note: This affects the weapon’s damage itself AND other sources of additional damage such as sneak attack, divine smite or spell effects.

I have seen this kind of this effect proposed as a variant critical rule for D&D, wherein anytime any PC or creature critically hits, the extra weapon damage dice are simply added in at their maximum result instead of being rolled. As it stands in D&D 5e, a player can score a critical hit and roll low on the dice resulting in a “critical hit” that deals less damage than an average hit. This makes the rare critical hits more potent by guaranteeing a high minimum damage. This bonus is all about raising the minimum damage on a critical hit, so that the wielder never rolls low and experiences a disappointing critical.

In a d20 system where you land a critical hit on a roll of a natural 20, you have a 1 in 20 (5%) chance to critical hit on every attack. If you use the d8 example die, Unforgiving turns the regular critical hit from 2d8 damage (Minimum 2, maximum 16, average 9) into 2d8[Dropping the lowest]+8, (Minimum 9, maximum 16, average 13.81) which does increase the average damage by 4.81 on a critical, but across 20 attacks it averages to +0.24 damage per hit. Comparing that to the benchmark’s +1 damage per hit, this masterwork bonus is very weak but makes up for it with guaranteed high minimum damage on criticals, making each one a truly powerful blow.

24, Reach: Melee weapons with this bonus add 5 feet to the wielder’s reach when he attacks with it, as well as when determining his reach for opportunity attacks with it. Ammunition, ranged and thrown weapons all add 20 feet to their normal and long distance attack ranges. Melee Reach weapons are cumbersome in close quarters and the wielder suffers disadvantage on attack rolls against targets within 5 feet of himself. Ranged weapons and projectiles...cause the wielder to suffer disadvantage on attack rolls against targets within 10 feet of himself.

Again drawing from D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder here is a weapon quality with a trade off in terms of benefit and drawback. Melee players who play a more mobile, kiting style with an emphasis of never being too close to the enemy will love this bonus. When surrounded by enemies however it forces them to attack at disadvantage or to drop the Reach weapon and fight with an inferior backup weapon. PC’s specializing in ranged combat will be able to hit targets father away but when in tight quarters such as dungeons, caverns or buildings, there may not be the option of being 15 feet away from the target in order not to suffer disadvantage on the attack roll because they’re too close. Even if that is possible, it forces that ranged PC to become more separated from the melee, leaving them open to ambushes, being surrounded or cut off from the rest of the party.

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solitaria-fantasma · 4 years ago

Text

((Extensive Session #3 highlights.))

We go to Von Trikona’s tower and are greeted by three students and a handful of golems.

Humphry eyes Mountain with abject terror.

Von Trikona gives us the preserved bodies wrapped in burial shrouds, and teleports us to the town of Fwee - just past the security gates, but not right in town square.

The map for the town of Fwee is heckin’ pretty.

“Oh no...oh no, I fucked up. I made a mistake! UwU!!!”

“Please don’t comment on the corpse-shaped backpacks!”

Udaji may be tol and stronk but she is also dumb and can’t roll higher than a 10 on her Perception checks.

“The only ones who don’t blend in with the local crowd are the Halfling and the Dragonborn.” Claus and I just can’t catch a break…

We walked around the marketplace with the preserved corpse backpacks for a while as we asked for directions to the Rose family home.

Mountain’s intimidation checks are on-point.

Udaji’s average Perception roll is a 4 while the rest of the party averages around 16.

It has been decided that this scaly baby should never have been allowed out of town on her own.

Somebody in this town is throwing mud balls and glitter bomb darts at our rogue and Udaji is seeing NONE of it.

“Claus would like to point out that you’re covered in paint.”

We entered a house and the DM resized our icons to reflect the height differences. It looked like a bad game of Agar.io and I was winning.

Matthias - still covered in paint - was politely asked not to sit on the furniture, and handed a single tiny-ass napkin to ‘clean up’ with.

“Yeeeaaahhh...there was no easy way to do this, was there?”

“Is it more disrespectful to put the bodies on the ground or the table?”

“It might be more disrespectful to try and unwrap the bodies one handed and risk dropping them.”

“Above the board, do we have to tell her that the bandits were already dead when we found them?”

Matthias ‘accidentally’ smeared paint on the servant on his way out, and offered him the tiny-ass napkin back.

Lady Rose thanked us for returning her family’s bodies, but asked us to give her some time to process her loss.

We then went to the magic district (mostly wizards, mostly elven) to get started on the errands we promised to run between Von Trikona and her friend Vincent.

We knocked on the door, heard a loud ‘CRASH’, and poked our heads through the unlocked door Scooby-Doo style.

The DM promptly had us roll for initiative.

I keep forgetting to select my token BEFORE rolling for initiative heck.

“Hopefully you guys don’t die.”

“Gotta be honest - I’ve thought about what character I’d bring in if Udaji DID die. But it would be really, REALLY sad.”

I had to run down to get dinner and missed half a turn of combat but I made it back just in time for my second go.

“Oh! Udaji! You missed this part, but the old wizard man has cried out for you to not set anything on fire.”

“Can do! That’s not my kind of dragon heritage!!”

The old wizard man is ‘Vincent Oman’ - an artificer. We returned his stuff, and he offered us dinner.

“This guy is, like, peak Grandpa. He’s very happy to have people over.”

Vincent has not heard of Lord Hassan, but recalled an enchanted lockbox a cohort of his (Ceri, another artificer) had made on commission for the dowry of a local girl marrying a man in the next kingdom over.

That lockbox (enchanted to be neigh on impossible to break into) was part of Clarissa Rose’s dowry, and now I’m sad.

Vincent drew us a map to Ceri’s house, and then we nearly left without picking up Maxine’s books (three advanced spellbooks & some of her notes).

He also offered to let us sleep in his attic for the night, since it was getting late, only asking us to try and keep quiet, as he was a delicate sleeper.

Matthias finally got to wash off the paint in the ‘waterifier’ (re: magical, water-creating shower).

Vincent reminds Udaji too much of her own dad, and she took one point of homesickness damage. Vincent gave her heartwarming life advice, and more food.

“It’s okay if you get sad sometimes, when traveling far from home. You will find people who will not, perhaps, fill the void, but surely make it feel less empty.”

I’m going to adopt Vincent holy heck

Ceri confirmed that the lockbox was commissioned to keep safe a dowry traveling a long distance, and told us that it could only be opened by using two skeleton keys simultaneously.

We had found one of said skeleton keys in the bandit/necromancer lair back in Session 1.

“We were too eager to shout ‘MURDER!’ in front of the guards back in Torrin so now we’re afraid to whisper it in Fwee.”

Ceri confirmed that the key we found is one of the lockbox’s two keys.

We then debated for five minutes who the key, lockbox, and dowry would legally belong to, now that Clarissa and Donald are dead, but never officially reached the wedding.

“This is not the kind of law my family studies!”

Ceri whispered a few rumors of engagements in the area that had fallen through due to ‘accidents’ which saw the dowries go missing, and that the enchanted lockbox had been commissioned by the Rose family to protect against that.

He then told us to get out of his house.

“That’s the kindest ‘GTFO’ I’ve ever gotten.”

“We haven’t heard back from Lady Rose yet, but I feel like it would be too awkward to go back to her house and knock on the door like “Hey, are you done grieving yet?”. The answer is probably ‘no’...”

“Maybe if we walk around town, someone will try to throw more paint at Matthias.”

We wandered around the marketplace for a while, trying to lure out the mysterious woman who’d been throwing things at us the day before.

[Just to set a little reference - this is all happening within the first two hours of the campaign.]

Matthias got egged, and we chased the perpetrator into a public park.

Mountain got distracted by the beautiful view, and Matthias threatened the woman with his bow. The woman pulled her own bow and threatened right back.

“I am going to swing my lute around in front of me to act as a shield in a worst case scenario. I’m not taking an arrow over an egg.

THE WOMAN. IS MATTHIAS’. CHILD.

DM: “How long has it been since you last spoke with your lover?”

Matthias: “Let’s say it’s been….twenty-five years, seven months.”

The kid’s name is Astrid, and she is mAJORLY pissed off at ‘dad’.

Udaji is backing away from the awkward family reunion, and Mountain is still distracted by the park scenery and has no idea.

“You’re Hohenheim, and she’s Edward.”

[I understood that reference!!]

“Udaji makes eye contact with Mountain and shakes her head like “Don’t get involved you’ll regret it”.”

Mountain officially confirmed for Tiefling.

Claus tries to calm Astrid with the blessings of Lathander. She refuses. Udaji bends over a little and pats Claus on the shoulder consolingly.

His player has difficulty articulating it (and honestly, who wouldn’t? Words are hard), but Matthias is legitimately upset to hear that his lover had died.

“You go up to her and give her a hug with a pat-pat?”

“She immediately starts sobbing in your arms.”

“I shed a single manly tear.”

Mountain has only just now caught up to the fact that these rogues know each other.

Astrid is now refusing to leave. Udaji is still the party baby.

“The only reason I was allowed out of town is because nobody could physically stop me.”

“Claus gives you a comforting pat on your hip, as that’s about as high as he can reach.”

After all that chaos, we were approached by a servant from the Rose family, calling us back to Lady Rose’s house.

Her name is now Ingrid Rose, because the DM forgot to name her until this very moment. Mood.

Matthias is still covered in egg.

Lady Rose admits that she thought the offer of marriage from Lord Bryant Hassan to her daughter was too good to be true.

She also admits that she thought the Lord had asked for a rather greedy amount of dowry with the proposal.

“Were any of my husband or daughter’s possessions recovered?”

Don’t look at Matthias. Don’t look at Matthias. Don’t look at Matthias.

Lady Rose asks us to look into the recovery of the enchanted lockbox that was carrying her daughter’s dowry, and offers to reward us for it.

She ALSO asks us to put a knife in the throat of whomever arranged her daughter’s death, should we find it to not, in fact, be a tragic accident.

Astrid is basically June from AtLA but without Nyla.

Everybody stocks up on rations for a long trip back to return Maxine Von Trikona’s books.

We get on the road back to Torrin, retracing the ill-fated Rose party’s steps as we go.

After two days on the road, we come across a seemingly wounded man on the side of the road, by an overturned cart.

He asks us for gold to get back on his feet.

Udaji immediately fell for it, and had to be physically stopped from reaching for her gold.

Miraculously, we all managed to avoid a bunch of mysterious projectiles and whistling noises.

Interestingly, both of the guard corpses we had ‘interviewed’ reported hearing a whistling noise before their death.

Mountain took an arrow to the horn, but only three points of damage.

We were all tired by this point and there were a lot of bandits so combat was looooooong.

Claus has two waiting Bardic Inspiration dice and is having a very good day.

“You’re going to shoot THROUGH your daughter and your cleric??”

ONE BANDIT DOWN!

I charged at a bandit, sword drawn, but couldn’t quite make it there in one turn, so I added an intimidating roar for good measure.

I rolled a nat 20, therefore proving that I inherited SOMEthing from my white dragon mother, and the bandit pissed himself.

THREE BANDITS DOWN!

I took 8 points of damage from the other bandits and it’s a good thing the DM had us level up at least once bc if I’d still had my lvl. 1 total of 9hp that damage would have damn near killed me.

“Ew, he’s got a skull face with horns! ...oh, wait, he’s just ugly nevermind.”

“If I cast the magic, but Matthias says the words, can we duet ‘Vicious Mockery’?”

“My mother [the white dragon] would be proud of that, and I’m not sure I’M proud of that.”

I stand corrected: Astrid is a ranger, not a rogue.

Dragonborn zoomies.

“I may be wearing a flower crown, but I’m still scary.”

I have now decided that there will be - at minimum - one fight where I take off my flower crown and force someone else in the party to hold it.

Probably Claus.

SIX BANDITS DOWN!

“Well, they identify as a corpse right now, so…”

We got distracted for another five minutes arguing about how useful Hawkeye was to the Avengers in the MCU vs. how useful Hawkeye was to Loki in the MCU, which spawned from the DM apologizing for her slowness in playing out Astrid’s turn, as she had never played a Ranger before because she thought they were useless.

Poor Hawkeye.

The bandit captain tried to ambush Astrid, hit her with one of two scimitars, and failed his dagger roll badly enough to stab himself.

Claus - incredibly inspired by Udaji’s music and heroics - saved Mountain from dying.

Udaji keeps rolling really well on attacks and damage...if only I could shuffle some of those over into Perception.

Astrid got the killing shot on the bandit captain.

I looted his body, and found (2) scimitars, tattered leather armor, the queen piece from a set of dragon chess, and (7) silver.

I took the chess piece, and nothing else.

Astrid found footprints leading back to the bandits’ camp, so we took over it for the night.

We leveled up! Woo!!!

Zone of Truth. Zone of TrUTH. ZONE OF TRUTH-

And College of Creation. This is gonna be fun!!!

#OOC #Quarantine D&D #((these keep getting longer and longer...))#((I need to learn to summarize))

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dmsden · 6 years ago

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More than Endless Sands – Tips for running a desert environment game

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Our Question from a Denizen this week comes from thelivingembodimentoftrash who asks, “Do you have any tips for running a game set in a desert-like environment? What are some of the dangers one might encounter there?”

Hi there, livingembodiment. I can absolutely help out.

To start with, I strongly recommend getting your hands on a copy, physical or PDF via DMsGuild.com of a 3rd edition product called Sandstorm. This is literally a book about running D&D campaigns in desert environments, and it is full of great advice, ideas, and adventure hooks. You should be able to convert anything in it to whatever system you prefer with a modicum of effort, and I think you’ll find your efforts well rewarded.

Another great resource is the Dark Sun campaign setting, which takes place on the post-apocalyptic desert world of Athas. There’s plenty to find out there, and it’ll help with all kinds of rules suggestions and the like.

Putting aside elements like specific monsters, cultures, and the like, a desert environment presents numerous unique challenges. Resources that might be quite easy to come by in a forest, such as water and food, suddenly become dangerously scarce, even if you know what to look for. In addition, deserts are places of temperature extremes. They are dangerously hot when the sun is up, but they can drop to dangerously low temperatures when the sun goes down. Let’s break these down and see how the current rules support a DM who wants to set a campaign in such an environment.

Under most circumstances, water is going to be the first issue for a party, possibly followed by food. If your party has a cleric or a druid, then they can always use Create or Destroy Water to help with this. At higher levels, a cleric, druid of the Circle of the Land who chooses Desert as their terrain, a paladin, or an alchemist (if you’re using the new playtest of the Artificer) can use Create Food and Water to get around this issue. Higher level options are also open, such as casting Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, but not all of these are ideal. What if the desert the party is in has an area of anti-magic in it, or what if the party doesn’t have a class with magic to help? How do the rules handle this?

Survival is the quintessential skill for getting a party through dangerous environments. A DM could allow characters to make Wisdom (Survival) checks to find water and food, but I would make this a pretty difficult check, possibly with a DC of 20 or higher per the Foraging rules in the DM’s Guide. I would recommend the DM review the chapter in the Player’s Handbook about characters doing without food and water, in case this becomes an issue.

The next thing to think about is the inhospitable nature of the environment itself. Deserts are places of extreme heat during the day. If it’s a dune desert, then elements such as strong winds and shifting terrain that makes getting lost easy should be taken into account as well. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has an excellent section in Chapter 5: Adventure Environments about Wilderness Survival. This has rules about handling extreme heat and strong winds.

There’s also a section in here about “Becoming Lost”. Although the DC for Wisdom (Survival) checks to keep the party on track is nominally 10, if your desert is one with dunes that shift around because of strong winds, then you may want to consider making this number higher.

Of course, many D&D monsters make fantastic and flavorful D&D encounters, and the DM should use their imagination. Appendix B of the DM’s Guide has suggestions for desert monsters broken down by challenge rating. These range from bandits and flying snakes at the lowest levels to ancient blue dragons at the highest levels. I would encourage DMs to look over these lists and take some inspirations, as well as using them to develop encounters. Thanks to other books, such as Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, there are lots more monsters out there to add to your lists as well.

I hope this has given some insight into running a desert campaign. In some ways, the desert itself can be as deadly as any monster it hides. Taking this into account when running your game will give it a distinctive feel that your players won’t soon forget.

#d&d #D&D #d&d 5e #dnd #DnD stuff #DnD 5e #dnd 5th edition #dungeons & dragons #Dungeons and Dragons #dungeon master #dungeonmaster #DM advice #GM Advice

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tigerkirby215 · 5 years ago

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5e Kayn the Shadow Reaper build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Riot Games)

Hey remember when I said I wouldn’t just make League of Legends builds? Well getting back into LoL I rediscovered my love for Kayn the Shadow Reaper. Kayn’s an edgy little anime boy who doesn’t wear a shirt and he has daddy issues as well as a scythe daddy who sasses him and only slightly wants to take over his body to destroy all of humanity.

I should mention that this build is built much more for blue Kayn (the Shadow Assassin) than Raast. I might make a Raast build at some point but for now my focus is much more on replicating Kayn’s mobility and high damage output than Raast’s sustained damage. Blue Kayn is much more similar to regular Kayn than Raast as well. Just be sure to focus down ranged opponents with this build, and if you kill too many melee enemies ask your DM if you can change your race to a Tiefling.

GOALS

I am the weapon, you are a tool - Fun fact; Raast is sentient, and that’s rather necessary for this build. I think most people know where this is going but there’s a nice bonus utility in the subclass we’ll be picking.

Stealthy ganks from the dark - With a dash, a long-ranged lunge, and the ability to walk through walls you’ll be able to keep up with your enemies with ease. Believe it or not getting a spell to walk through walls in 5e is rather difficult, but still quite possible.

Kill the body - As a Shadow Assassin you’re meant to quickly burst down anyone you run into, so high damage output will be key.

RACE

Kayn was always a very skilled individual but he’s still only human. Luckily Variant Humans can still hold their own in a fight. Bump your Charisma and Wisdom with your two free points and take the Acrobatics skill as you are naturally nimble on your feet. For your Feat take Mobile to further increase your mobility and dodge enemy auto-attacks. And for Language... honestly it doesn’t matter just pick whatever language you think will be useful. Spoiler alert: this build is going to end up getting a lot of languages.

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - You’re a pretty anime boy who learnt how to be a scary shadow man from the scariest shadow man around. Also I think anyone who knows a thing or two about 5e knows the real reason for this high Charisma score.

14; DEXTERITY - You are naturally dexterous and while in a real world I’d love for this to be a 20 unfortunately there’s no finesse Scythe weapon in 5e so we’ll have to have that high Charisma score instead. Even so DEX leads to AC and 2 is more than enough for the armor we’ll be wearing. (NOTE: If you’re rolling for stats your Dexterity doesn’t need to be higher than a 14.)

13; WISDOM - Wisdom is tied to a variety of vision skills which you’ll need to be an assassin. Knowing to read your opponent’s moves is key in Zed’s Shadow Order, and being able to bandage yourself never hurt anyone. It’s also a requirement to multiclass so...

12; CONSTITUTION - Your recommended build includes Black Cleaver which provides a nice boost to your health. That, and you don’t want to be squishy as a melee fighter.

10; STRENGTH - Strength isn’t that necessary for this build as Raast does all the heavy lifting, but dumping it isn’t as in-character as dumping...

8; INTELLIGENCE - Noxus isn’t known for its education system, and you were put into the army when you were just a child which certainly didn’t help you learn math.

BACKGROUND

For your background choose the Faction Agent from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. You are a member of the Shadow Order and while that isn’t a faction on the Sword Coast it most certainly is a faction. You gain Insight proficiency as well as an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma ability of your choice - choose Intimidation as shadow assassins tend to be a pretty spooky lot. You also get the Safe Haven feature which lets you communicate with members of Zed’s order to gain access to a hidden safe house, free room and board, or assistance in finding information. If they ask why they should help tell them you’re Zed’s protege. Or just kill them for their defiance - that would be in character too.

(Artwork by AquaLeonhart on DeviantArt)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - RANGER 1

SURPRISE! This isn’t a pure Hexblade build! Quite surprisingly this build doesn’t even go that deep into Hexblade! Anyways we’re starting with Ranger over Hexblade because the skills and saving throws that a Ranger gets are far more useful to us. With that in mind take proficencies in Athletics, Stealth, and Survival to survive the jungle, gank your opponents, and survive a 1v1.

You also get Favored Enemy and the most in-flavor enemy to choose would be Fiends (as that’s what Raast would be classified as) but feel free to metagame a bit and ask your DM what types of enemies you’ll be facing - one of the key features of Kayn is the ability to adapt your play-style to whatever the enemy team picked. Enemy team got a Teemo? Take Halflings as a preferred enemy and chop down that little pest. You also get a language that’s supposed to be tied to your favored enemy, and for the sake of roleplay I’d suggest taking Infernal. Raast is an old Darkin and chances are he won’t be nice enough to talk to you in Common.

You also get Natural Explorer and again there’s no option here that’s too necessary for roleplay so I’d suggest asking your DM on what setting will be the most useful. Technically Forest is the closest similarity to the jungle but the key to playing Ranger is knowing ahead of time where the campaign will take place.

On Revised Ranger / Class Feature Variants Ranger: This build doesn’t require too much from your favored enemy and terrain but it’s well-known that the Revised Ranger UA and Class Feature Variants UA help Ranger out a lot. This build uses one of the subclasses from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything which work perfectly fine without the UA features. Even so the UA features help a lot so if your DM allows them absolutely take the opportunity to use them. Favored Enemy from the Revised Ranger PDF provides a big boost to your utility, and Deft Explorer is far more useful to you than Natural Explorer. If you plan on taking the Canny feature the skills I suggest to boost are Athletics, Medicine, Stealth, or Survival. Favored Foe from the class feature variants UA is fine but I’d honestly prefer the Revised Ranger’s favored enemy instead.

LEVEL 2 - WARLOCK 1

And now we get the key portion of this build. We’re going into Warlock and I think most people have identified what we’ve came for: Hexblade! The Hexblade patron lets you find a living scythe in the underbelly of Noxus which will give you immense power with the slight caveat that it may try to take over your body in order to destroy the world. Regardless you gain Hex Warrior which lets you attack using your Charisma modifier instead of Strength or Dexterity, which is good because a scythe usually requires a lot of upper body strength but now we can just use our dashing good looks instead. I should mention now that probably the closest you’ll get to a scythe in 5e is a War Pick, but the War Pick can’t be wielded in two-hands and Kayn doesn’t use a shield so ask your DM if you can reflavor a Battleaxe as a scythe, since you can use it in two hands thanks to the versatile property. (Don’t worry though; we’ll get a more scythe-like weapon soon.)

You also gain Hexblade’s Curse which lets you cast Chilling Smite (the summoner spell; not the Paladin ability) on an opponent to do extra damage to them and heal when they die. You can only target one creature with this and gain it back on a short or long rest so save it for the enemy ADC to pop them quick or place it on a tank to shred through them like Raast asked you too.

You also gain access to Pact Magic - You get 2 cantrips of your choice and you may notice that we’re not taking the weapon attack boosting cantrips: there’s a very specific reason for this. Anyways this is probably going to be one of the few times that I honestly suggest Sword Burst as a viable spell as it lets you spin around with Reaping Slash to deal damage to any enemy beside you that fails a DEX save. And none of these spells are really in-character for an AD champion so screw it you may as well take Eldritch Blast in case you need a ranged attack.

For your spells Armor of Agathys lets you shield yourself in cold shadows which provide a bit of extra temporary hitpoints and also cause your enemies to take damage if they hit you. Wrathful Smite from the Hexblade list lets you use Blade's Reach from inside a wall to do extra psychic damage to an enemy and they have to make a Wisdom saving throw or else become Frightened of the fact that you’re ganking them - should’ve warded bro!

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 2

With 2 levels in Warlock you gain access to Eldritch Invocations and while there is literally an invocation called “Armor of Shadows” we won’t be taking it. I haven’t mentioned it yet but while Kayn doesn’t wear a shirt in League you can’t have a 20 in DEX like he does unless you get really lucky with your dice rolls, so feel free to wear some Medium armor since in 5e armor doesn’t affect your movement speed. I recommend getting your hands on a Breastplate as early as possible as it will give you good AC while still allowing you to be stealthy by not imposing disadvantage on stealth rolls. (Which you can remedy with a Feat but Medium Armor Master is bad.)

Anyways we’re going to start with Devil’s Sight for those who can not see in the dark, which as a human you currently are. For now you can leave your other invocation empty since we need Warlock 3 to get the next invocation we want. Likewise we’re also going to wait until next level to choose our spell.

LEVEL 4 - WARLOCK 3

And now we gain access to our Pact Boon, and to the surprise to no one we’ll be picking Pact of the Blade which is the pact of choice for any melee Warlock. Pact of the Blade lets you summon any melee weapon into your hands to use as you wish. What’s more is that as a Hexblade this also works with your Hex Warrior feature so you can now use a Heavy weapon with your Charisma. Again while there’s no scythe weapon in 5e a glaive is like a scythe with a smaller blade. It does a d10 slashing damage and has the reach property which will allow you to attack at a 10 foot range, keeping you safe from opportunity attacks. Does this make Mobile’s ability to negate opportunity attacks largely redundant? Yes!

You can also now take the Improved Pact Weapon invocation which lets you wield a two-handed weapon and still cast your Warlock spells. The weapon also gains +1 to attack and damage rolls, and you can also summon a shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow as your pact weapon instead of just a melee weapon. While Raast might get bitter that you borrowed Varus’ bow don’t feel limited in your weapon choice.

You also gain access to second level spells and we’ll grab both Blur and Branding Smite from the Hexblade list. Blur lets you up your jukes to give creatures disadvantage when they attack you unless they’re scripting and have blindsense, and Branding Smite lets you do Radiant damage to the target and make sure that they don’t use stealth to get away. You’re sort of midway decent against Evelynn but this will help you get the upper hand on her.

LEVEL 5 - WARLOCK 4

4th level Warlocks get an Ability Score Improvement - bump your Charisma for better attack rolls and damage rolls.

You also gain access to another spell and Hold Person will let Raast knock up a target so you and your allies can hit them. (Note: Hold Person will not strike an enemy up into the air it’ll just paralyze them, which is still very useful!)

In addition you get another cantrip and like I said before none of these are really in-flavor for an AD champion so just grab Prestigitation or Minor Illusion to do some funky Shadow Order trickery.

Also I might suggest replacing your Smite spells with other spells that don’t take your Bonus Action soon? This is just an advanced step if your DM is really stingy on the rules - there aren’t many spells that I’d want at this level but you’re still welcome to pick and choose instead of having Wrahtful Smite and Branding Smite.

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks gain access to another Invocation which will be Sign of Ill Omen, which lets you Bestow (a) Curse of a floating scythe above your opponent’s head which will allow you to do an extra d8 Necrotic damage per hit, give them disadvantage on an ability check of your choosing, disadvantage on attacks against you (because you’re inside of them technically), and the target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or else be unable to do anything. This is the closest we’ll get to mechanically when it comes to replicating Umbral Trespass but in essence you can treat this like a more beefy Hexblade’s Curse which requires concentration and only comes back after a Long Rest.

You also gain access to third level spells which means that finally we can put a level into Shadow Step. Blink lets you roll a d20 and on an 11 or higher you go to the Ethereal Plane where yes: you can walk through walls. At the start of each of your turns you reappear in the open and have to roll another d20 to disappear again. This spell is somewhat unreliable but it is a way to walk through walls as well as avoid damage and get the jump on your enemies.

Also if you took my advice from the last level I’d probably suggest replacing one of your Smites will a spell like Gaseous Form or something? GF lets you travel through walls as long as there are cracks in them and while it doesn’t increase your speed it is more reliable than Blink for getting around. If your DM is nice I’d also suggest taking another third level spell - not quite sure which one but there are a lot of great options at this level.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

LEVEL 7 - RANGER 2

Now that we got Shadow Step it’s time to get access to our passive. But firstly level 2 Rangers get to pick a Fighting Style - unfortunately Great Weapon Fighting isn’t an option so your best bet will be the Defense style for +1 to your AC. (Yeah we’re still wearing armor.)

You also gain access to Spellcasting and... bleh giving spells to an AD character is always weird. I’d recommend Hunter’s Mark to get value out of your passive and Ensnaring Strike to cast Chilling Smite (again: the LoL summoner spell) on a fleeing opponent.

On Class Feature Variants Ranger: Hunter’s Mark is built into Favored Foe if you use it instead of Favored Enemy, which is why I suggest using the Revised Ranger Favored Enemy if your DM will allow a mix-and-match between the two UAs.

LEVEL 8 - RANGER 3

Now here’s the real shocker of the build: your Ranger subclass. Take the Horizon Walker for some unique shadow dimension shenanigans! At early levels you get access to Detect Portal which isn’t really in flavor for Kayn but to be honest chances are you won’t use this ability much. You will however gain access to Planar Warrior which lets you add a d8 of force damage to a single weapon attack as a bonus action. Force really isn’t resisted much and a d8 of it every turn can greatly increase your damage output. You also gain access to some class-specific spells and Protection from Evil and Good lets you share some of your anime determination powers to stop Darkin (as well as aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, and undead) from hurting your allies as easily.

You also gain access to Primeval Awareness which is... it is... it certainly is! Truthfully while I’ve been avoiding talking about the Class Feature Variants UA I think Primal Awareness’ spell list is far more useful and in-character for this build. Speaking of spells you get another spell known: take Longstrider to use Shadow Step’s movement speed to close in on your foes. Along with Mobile you’ll be walking at 50 movement speed, which is practically dashing speed!

LEVEL 9 - RANGER 4

4th level Rangers get an Ability Score Improvement: bump your Charisma for maximum damage and accuracy with your weapon as well as maximum anime speeches about how you’ll become galactic emperor of the universe.

LEVEL 10 - RANGER 5

5th level Rangers get an Extra Attack, allowing you to increase your damage output and burst your enemy down more quickly.

You also gain access to second level spells such as Silence which lets you stop any pesky caster from bursting you down... wait you’re caster now too shit. Make sure to stop concentrating on Silence before trying to use Blink to Shadow Step.

And speaking of second level spells you also get access to Flash-I mean Misty Step to quickly teleport out of danger if needed, but honestly with Mobile you can avoid most sources of damage by disabling the enemy’s ability to opportunity attack. Especially considering that you’re using a huge “scythe” with reach getting hit by opportunity attacks really shouldn’t be an issue.

LEVEL 11 - RANGER 6

6th level Rangers get Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer improvements and you know what that means? More languages! :D Again feel free to metagame and ask your DM what to pick since none of these are too in-character. ...Or just use UA?

LEVEL 12 - RANGER 7

7th level Horizon Walkers gain access to Ethereal Step and let’s be honest this was the main reason to pick Horizon Walker. This will let you cast the Etherealness spell which is a far more reliable Shadow Step than Blink will ever be. You can move in any direction though moving up or down will cost double movement. The spell only lasts for 1 turn but with 40 movement speed from Mobile you should be able to get wherever you’re going. This ability comes back after a short rest: Shadow Step has a long cool-down so don’t waste it!

You also get another second level spell and ehhhhhh? None of these are overly impressive or in character so I dunno... Find Traps? I just want to remind everyone that you don’t have to follow this build word-for-word, and even if you’re an anime edgelord some extra healing never hurt anyone.

LEVEL 13 - RANGER 8

Level 8 Rangers get another Ability Score improvement but with a maxed out Charisma modifier you can prove worthy of some Feats.

Alert - A Shadow Assassin doesn’t get surprised, and this feat will guarantee that you always go first.

Charger - Charger lets you capitalize on your massive mobility and chase someone before managing to strike them with Raast. If you manage to pair it with Blink you can Shadow Step through walls before coming behind the enemy ADC.

Prodigy - Kayn in lore is a Prodigy, and this can help you cover up some of the skills your party might not have. Also more languages! If you’re looking for the most in-character skills to have Expertise in go for Acrobatics, Athletics, Intimidation, or Stealth.

Savage Attacker - Channel your inner Raast to get more damage out.

Lucky - Luck is a tool, just like any other.

You also get access to Land’s Stride which lets you move through non-magical difficult terrain without spending extra movement, further decreasing the usefulness of Mobile. You can also Shadowstep through plants that would otherwise harm you, and have advantage on saving throws against magical plants that might impeed your movement. Build the body.

LEVEL 14 - RANGER 9

9th level Rangers get access to 3rd level spells: take whatever you think is good honestly because you’re going to use all your 3rd level slots on Haste from the Horizon Walker list anyways. Go on; shoot faster! Wait woups sorry wrong Champion.

LEVEL 15 - RANGER 10

10th level Rangers get another terrain for Natural Explorer. Again discuss with your DM on what to take, or use the UA rules.

You also get Hide in Plain Sight which lets you prepare for an ambush at the Noxtoraa. You can spend 1 minute to hide in the shadows for a +10 bonus to stealth as long as you remain still... or you could just take the Pass Without a Trace spell?

LEVEL 16 - RANGER 11

11th level Horizon Walkers get access to Distant Strike. When you make an attack you can bounce between shadows to teleport 10 feet before you attack. In addition if you attack two different creatures you can attack a third with an extra attack.

The damage of Planar Warrior increases to 2d8 at this level for more damage with The Darkin Scythe, and you get another spell so take what you want: probably a 1st level spell since you’ll be spending all your 2nd level spells on Misty Step and 3rd level spells on Haste.

(Artwork by McDobo on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 17 - RANGER 12

12th level Rangers get another Ability Score improvement. Refer to level 8 Ranger for Feat options.

LEVEL 18 - RANGER 13

13th level Rangers get access to 4th level spells: Locate Creature will allow you to find your mark no matter where they might go.

You also get Banishment from the Horizon Walker list which is really useful if any of Raast’s friends come for a visit. "Rhaast..? Why are you trembling?" "It's nothing Kayn. Nothing at all."

LEVEL 19 - RANGER 14

14th level Rangers get another Favored Enemy! Aaah! How many times do I have to say it: ask your DM on what you’ll be facing in the campaign, even though by this point it really doesn’t matter.

You also get the Vanish trait which allows you to Hide as a bonus action to use that stealth score of yours, and makes it impossible to track you unless your enemies are using magic or you’re leading them into an ambush.

LEVEL 20 - RANGER 15

Our capstone is the 15th level of Horizon Walker which gives you access to the Spectral Defense feature. When you take damage you can use your reaction to gain Resistance to it, halving the damage. Remember that you only have one Reaction but this is still a very useful ability to have in case you bite off more than you can chew as you’re known to do.

You also get another spell and again: pick your poison by this point it really doesn’t matter.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

'Cause either way we're dead, oh - With up to 3 attacks every turn, Planar Warrior damage, Hexblade’s Curse, Hunter’s Mark, Haste, and Bestow Curse you can output some extreme damage at close range. You even have Eldritch Blast and the ability to turn Raast into a bow for ranged combat.

Free the body - You have an immense amount of mobility tools between Mobile’s movement increase, Misty Step, Blink, Haste, Ethereal Step, and even Longstrider. I believe we accomplished the goal of walking through walls and then some.

A craftsman never blames his tools - You have a surprising amount of utility under your belt with a lot of proficiencies, an ungodly amount known languages, and a lot of Ranger spells and skills giving you tools to start a fight.

CONS

Death finds fools quickly. - Despite being a melee fighter you aren’t very bulky, with a relatively low AC and a lower Constitution you’re just a few hits away from being in Power Word Kill range. Feel free to invest in some Ruby Crystals, or more particularly an Amulet of Health.

Talk, talk, talk. All you ever do is talk! - You’ve got an immense amount of Concentration spells and not a lot of Constitution to concentrate with. With a mere +1 to CON saves and no Warcaster or other such feat you’ll end up losing Concentration often. Hm maybe that’s why Kayn drops Shadowstep if he gets hit?

Shadows touch all - Excluding Charisma you have almost no investment in your stats, and while your class makes up for your low Strength and Dexterity saves you can easily be hit by any Intelligence or Wisdom saving throw.

But that only matters if you get hit: keep to the shadows, strike your enemies when they least expect it and then meld back into the darkness for your next kill. And be sure to focus the ranged enemies unless you want to swap characters mid-campaign.

(Artwork by amatey on DeviantArt)

On Raast

As I said previously this build is built much more around Shadow Assassin Kayn than Raast. I may make a Raast build at some point but it would require a far different level progression, including the fact that you’d be playing a Tiefling instead of a Human. Chances are if I ever make an Aatrox build that would be a far better analogy to Raast.

If you’re planning on potentially turning into Raast at some point discuss it with your DM. You’d essentially be changing characters completely at that point.

#dnd 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #dnd multiclass #league of legends #league of legends kayn

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bookshelfpassageway · 4 years ago

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Hello yes I would like the full rundown on It's A Wonderful Life a la Eugene Riverworth (I once helped my DM spec out alignment-reversed versions of our entire party, alt universe characters are near and dear to my heart)

ALRIGHT SO IT'S CATASTROPHIC AMOUNTS OF CONTEXT TIME

Sorry I took so long, I've just spent most of my week trying not to turn into a puddle of goo. I accidentally listened to Mr Blue Sky today, however, and the last verse sucker-punched me into finishing this.

...At some point, I'm going to take my google doc of garbage notes with no filter and turn them into a coherent campaign recap to hand out to people. But for now, here's this definitely-more-than-a-snippet-snippet.

Alright so, to start with, we have an NPC friend named Rothwin. He's a goth wood-elf wizard with a deep, deep set guilt complex about how many people he's known that have died. His mother, due to a dragon attack, and he recently discovered, his little sister, due to the mafia said dragon runs. His twin brother was recently thralled by Mind Flayers, and we've been trying to track him down. He also had a particular bond (I don't have all the details, but he gave him an enchanted knife and a letter) with our halfling assassin, Tasher, who was disintegrated back at lv 8 by a possessed Eugene. He let the possession happen on purpose, to try to get the upper hand in a fight with our warlock's patron, but the thing he gave himself over to was not at all inclined to give Eugene's body back. This chain of events also led to the kidnapping of Rothwin's brother. There's a reason we call him the "trashwizard".

Anyway, Rothwin. Rothwin is the hero child that wants to fix everything. Guilt complex from here to the moon. He's also a slightly higher level wizard than us, a lv 14 party, and he's recently spent a LOT of time scribing studiously in his spellbook. Because Eugene is a nosy little man, he actually got a glimpse at the spell he was working on: Wish.

So, the night after Rothwin's brother is captured, we hang around and try to comfort him. He seems oddly alright, and tells us that he thinks things will be looking up, soon.

When we awake, the world is different, none of us know any of the others, we remember nothing of the world before, and Rothwin has erased the dragon that tore his family apart, over 200 years ago. In the process, the circumstances did not arise where Tasher died.

The original Eugene left home at 17 to seek his fortune, and, finding that to be a very hard task, gradually lowered his standards over the course of a decade until he became the glitzy mountebank in the pointy hat we all know and love.

This new Eugene never had that chance to be a con man. If he did swindle, it would have only been a brief stint of the minor, hunger-induced infractions of the very beginning of his career. He had a pretty similar childhood and departure. Instead, he was recruited by this universe's much more prosperous version of the Mage's Guild (run by Rothwin's mother), an agent of whom saw some element of talent in him. So for the past ten years, he's made his name as an Illusionist of mild note, a full wizard rather than a rogue multiclass, and slowly moving up the Guild's ranks. He'd just been promoted, even. He's Neutral-Good-aligned, as opposed to the original True Neutral, and though his base traits remain the same (including: sociable, vain, ambitious, indulgent, a bit foolish), they're dialed up to different degrees. This Eugene is a genuinely sweet person, in a slightly fussy and oblivious kind of way, and actually allows himself to get attached to people. Which happens easily, and strongly. He hasn't had any need to shut that part of himself down. He has a Simulacrum named Snowy, and understands what birds are (running joke in the campaign, his familiar is exactly one pint of screech owl and summoning medium-sized birds has never been successful).

Eugene's youngest sister, in the original timeline, was a warlock of the Raven Queen. She quickly began having visions of the way fate was originally supposed to play out, and together they were able to research what might have happened and start to contact the old partymembers. Everyone arrived, and started getting flashbacks of the events of the campaign. We fought some old enemies who were defeated in the original world, including the devil that set off so much catastrophe, and a mad wizard who here had managed to imprison the guy who can fix this.

We managed to short out this wizard's magical abilities with a Counterspell, triggering the source of his stolen power to take over his body to see what the hell was going on. The Whispered One, known more commonly (though not in this campaign. His name is a pricey secret after all) as Vecna. We met him once in the original timeline too, he's how Rothwin found out his sister was dead, and was responsible for the warlockifying of an artificer. (it was almost the original Eugene, but the depressed cat got in there first, also, selfishly, a warlock multiclass would have screwed over his spell slot situation too much)

Between people starting to get flashbacks (flashsidewayses?), logical deductions, and a free trial of information from the Whispered One, we realize IC what's happened and what we'd be going back to, and how to set things back to exactly square one.

Everyone gets... Maybe a little too into the RP at this point. There's a lot of philosophy and metaphysics. There's also a lot of upset when we realize who doesn't survive the original course of fate. We try to figure out if it's possible to put it back the same but just a little different, and realize that someone is here with the power to do so, but the Whispered One is not going to budge unless we give him a secret as payment. Changing fate to save a life (possibly more), would likely require a more costly secret than average. Also, we as players aren't just going to shortchange VECNA. We like being alive (Sure we will piss off the Raven Queen, but that's fine, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it). Also dramatic gestures are more narratively satisfying. Eugene's mental state is a fascinating concoction of self-loathing, existential dread, cunning bastard, hero wannabe, "hey I've known this party longer than anyone except my family and former business partner" + "I will admit I care about people". Some solutions are proposed, the Dragonborn Paladin has a book from her backstory, the Assassin has god secrets...

And Eugene, filled with guilt and distaste for tragedy and fondness for Tasher and a complicated infatuation towards Rothwin and all the trappings of a moral person, realizing for absolute certainty that all that he's become, worked for, and hoped for in this life, MUST be overwritten by someone he can't stand, and knows won't be able to stand him... Suggests that what is more secret than a life that could have been, and never could have been, lived? His own existence could not only amount to something, but actually be preserved in some capacity in the Whispered One's library.

This is immediately, though with some surprise, accepted by the Whispered One. "In all my years and years, I've never had a whole person a secret before..." A portal into a dark room with pinpoints of green light inside opens, and all he has to do is step through, and Rothwin will be given the power to re-cast Wish to bend the world back to the way it was-... While having fixed that which can be fixed. There's a bit of devolving back into Philosophy here, people trying to stop him or suggest simpler secrets, but knowing this might lead anywhere except causing more stress and the risk of him chickening out, Eugene steps through the portal.

Cassie, who had been watching him intently since the deal was proposed, gives the world's smallest "...wait" at the exact moment it's too late. Rothwin is given a green glowing rune, and casts Wish again.

The party wakes up right where they left off before all this happened, with no memory of what transpired. Eugene seems no worse for wear, and has gone back to accidentally persecuting the local introverts. Tasher washes up on the beach where we scattered his ashes, remembering only the other world and feeling a compulsion to seek out the place where we might be going next, and the devil we fought... Is present on the material plane again, somewhere.

So yeah. The man can’t go one timeline without yeeting himself headfirst into shady eldritch nonsense in a bid to find a Third Option. But this time having fixed the problems he created by all the previous times he’s done it. RIP good!Eugene, you were too pure to exist without the universe breaking. This is absolutely going to come back to bite me in the ass and I have no idea how my DM will have it do so.

#hey why did the readmore screw up? the readmore should be lower #damn it tumblr #it refuses to let me change this #anyway long post ahead #my posts #anonymous #answered #Eugene Riverworth #should tag the campaign at some point

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