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#homebrew handbook
xx-rememberthepast-xx · 10 months
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I get a borderline sexual thrill from the look on my dms face when I say I do something stupid, they roll to humor me/emphasize the stupidity of my action, then they have to let me have it bc they rolled a 1 or I rolled a nat 20
#im creepy and wet and every guard in the ruined city wants to fuck me#vs my serious dm in highschool almost having to let me turn the bossfight into my animal companion#this is the only reason i play dnd#also my brother is letting me create homebrew spells for my zombie nurse (forsaken cleric healer)#bc i asked him if i could explain what an mri is if i could use it as a 3rd level spell provided i had magnets#he said yes if i can make a workable mechanic and im allowed to create real medical spells pending his approval and assignment of#appropriate leveling#it was so dangerous letting me have magic AND gain hp from cannibalism AND homebrew as many spells as i want#i saw what justin did with taako. i know what i want#i also got the entire 5e handbook plus a spell dev guide. im in love#also im just playing myself. my background is as a socially inept hermit who heals people due to empathy for suffering#but is also a little stupid#thats literally just me#i cried in character to an elf in labor that id never delivered a baby before because im an operating room cleric#she did not appreciate it#im chaotic good which. yeah#my behavior is chaotic but i actually want to pitch lawful to my brother sometime#my behavior seems disorganized TO YOU. i have a code which leads to consistency. i just dont feel like sharing it publically 😌#he called it chaotic that i asked the chaotic evil gnome necromancer to bring dead civilians with us for protection/me to snack on#but id established that i only eat people who have died of causes unrelated to me and only if they said it was ok/next of kin approved#and i introduced the concept of restorative cannibalism...kind of badly actually. but it was earlier in the session#i did ask if anyone would be mad if i ate a dying essential npc. which to be fair i dont think you can reasonably have in dnd#unless youre prepared for what to do if they die
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ghostsontelevision · 1 year
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ok this is my tabletop bitching post of the day. i’m allowing myself this.
i really wish that when people defended dnd they would say like, "i like dnd i think it is a fun system" and not "well i paid $70 for the books and none of my friends want to learn something new soooooo i have to play dnd”
like it is FINE to like dnd. i am very much of the belief that a system is only as fun as the people you’re playing it with, so if you settle down with your friends to pretend to be elf wizards and dnd is the medium through which you do that, hell yeah, you can absolutely have a great time doing that. i’m currently playing dnd with friends and we’re having a really good time! we’re having fun! dnd can be fun!
but when your only defense of why you’re playing a system is the sunk cost fallacy, it doesn’t make you look like an adult who has made a reasonable decision, it makes you look like someone with stockholm syndrome. like you understand that if you say “i already spent a ton of cash on dnd!” my thought is going to be “oh! they think other ttrpgs ALSO cost $70! i should point out that most ttrpgs are $15-$30, and you can get a dungeon world pdf for $10″. if you say “my friends and i already spent all our time learning the rules of dnd, we don’t have the time to learn a new ruleset!” i’m going to think “oh! they think other ttrpgs are all at the same complexity level of dnd, i should point out that powered by the apocalypse games have pretty simple rulesets and often include cheat sheets in your purchase!”
but if you just say “i like dnd and i have fun playing it”, my response is “alright, fair enough”, ESPECIALLY if you’ve already played other games. i realized i loved other tabletop games because my friend introduced me to them and i realized things i found to be shortcomings of dnd weren’t inherent to tabletop, so i usually assume people are in the same boat i was, because if you’re not big into the culture, it’s hard to realize dnd isn’t the only game that exists. but when someone says “i’m aware of other games but i am playing dnd because it is fun to play”, then hey, i’m not in a position to tell someone else what makes them happy. i just think saying “well i already put so much time and effort into this thing so i’m going to keep playing it even if it sucks” makes it sound like you’re stuck playing a game you just tolerate instead of one you actually like, which is going to prompt people to try to help you find something you’d like better.
also i looked it up and the players handbook + dm guide + monster manual are $150 total which is an insane price and you should steal dnd like your fucking life depends on it
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radnewworld · 1 year
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Every time I see someone cheerfully toss their 5e homebrew ideas into the shared liminal space of TTRPG creativity with a gleeful declaration of, “check out this new idea I had!”, and it just turns out to be a normal-ass mechanic from third edition, only the laws of the land prevent me from ripping a tear through reality to reach out and beat that person into a coma with a 3.5 player handbook.
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blazingrain · 7 months
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Homebrew Review: Pact of the Archmage Warlock
Hi there! I'm kind of bored, so I decided to write up a quick review for some DnD 5e Homebrew I'm interested in! Today, we're looking at a Warlock subclass from the Ultimate Adventurer's Handbook.
Page 131 of the Ultimate Adventurer’s Handbook introduces us to the Pact of the Archmage Warlock, a spellcaster that gained a mote of magic from a powerful wizard of some kind. As a result, you gain wizard-like abilities to command more spell slots, cast new spells and generally become more wizard-like. This particular flavour of Warlock is one I’m surprised isn’t in the official material yet, and the way it’s executed here is great! Let’s go through the features. Obviously, I’m not going to post them verbatim, but I’ll try to make it clear what a feature is without outright making it pirate-able.
Expanded Spell List: This subclass’ expanded spell list includes some classic wizard spells like Magic Missile and Bigby’s Hand - notably, basically each spell is named after a wizard, which I think is excellent. All of them fit the idea of the subclass and are spells I’d consider picking if I was playing a Warlock.
Arcane Apprentice: New spells, and a change in spellcasting modifier. I think many people would agree that Intelligence makes sense as the default spellcasting stat for a Warlock, but if a subclass had to switch it, it’d be this one. This is a fun habit of the Ultimate Adventurer’s Handbook in general, by the way - when justified, they add a feature that gives a caster a different spellcasting stat! I like that, and it lets you think a lot about flavor.
Archmage’s Excess: The biggest difference between a Warlock and a Wizard is how they handle spell slots. A shotgun versus a machine gun, one might say. Letting you regain a slot occasionally closes that gap, but without making it an easy fall-back.
Eldritch Efficiency: I’ve seen a similar idea in Valda’s Spire of Secrets, but as a feat rather than a subclass feature. And I freaking love to see it here! It makes perfect sense for the subclass and heavily mitigates spell slot problems without making it the same as other classes. It’s super cool, and its bonus action usage makes it viable for in-combat use. It also completely changes how a Warlock might think about spell selection, as they would no longer prioritize upcastable spells like many warlocks tend to do.
Magic Resilience: Once per rest, but an incredibly powerful defense against magical effects. This is going to save you big-time at this level.
Archmage Arcanum: Talk about a capstone! Expanding your Mystic Arcanum options by a significant amount, and making them much more flexible, as well as generally more wizard-esque. It feels like a big change, going from switching them once per level to once per long rest, letting you command this magic much more fluently.
Basically, the Archmage Warlock is a chance to approach a Warlock with a different playstyle, eating a bit from the Wizard’s plate without actually stealing! Each wizard-like feature is approached from a good angle that makes it feel like your character needs to put in work to get this far, and doesn’t take away from the class’ original flavor.
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Mask is the god of luck, “the dice god,” a trickster who belongs to no pantheon. Her followers believe that even if the universe does follow rules, the rules themselves are governed by pure chance. Embodying this infinite chaos, Mask delights in flouting rules and taking risks. He is patron to thieves, gamblers, adventurers, and all else who depend on luck to make their fortune. They are also considered a god of stories, and many travelers invoke her name when telling tales around the fire. Clerics of Mask embrace their god’s upbeat, reckless nature. Often donning masks and making decisions with dice or a coin, they meet success and failure both with a grin. After all, no one ever said Mask is the god of good luck.
To sum up, I made a god to embody what I’m praying to when I ask the dice to roll well, and they’ve become very important to me. So here’s a cleric and paladin subclass for devotees of Mask.
I made the images with the absolutely fantastic Homebrewery. Transcript below the cut.
Dice Domain
Spellcasting
Followers of Mask approach spellcasting differently from other clerics. You cast spells and spend spell slots as normal, but you do not prepare spells. Instead, you always have access to all cleric spells that are of a level for which you have spell slots. However, when you attempt to cast a cleric spell, you must make a luck check.
A luck check is made by rolling your favorite die. If the result is an even number, you cast the spell. If the result is an odd number, you do not. Because a failed spell is not cast, it neither spends a spell slot nor takes up its casting time. You must wait the duration of a failed spell’s casting time before you can attempt to cast it again.
For example, you attempt to cast zone of truth, a 2nd-level spell that has a casting time of 1 action. You roll an odd number, meaning you cannot cast the spell. You do not spend a 2nd-level spell slot, since you did not cast a spell, and your action is still available for you to use this turn. You may attempt to cast another spell, or take a different action, but you cannot attempt to cast zone of truth again until you have passed the duration of 1 action doing something else.
Beginner’s Luck
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you gain proficiency with one gaming set of your choice. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with this set.
Master of None
Also starting at 1st level, when you make an ability check using a skill with which you are not proficient, you can choose to make a luck check. If you roll an even number, add your proficiency bonus to the result of the check. If you roll an odd number, instead subtract your proficiency bonus from the result.
Channel Divinity: A Roll of the Dice
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to embrace pure luck. When you or a creature you can see makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may use your reaction to replace the normal roll with a luck check. Roll for yourself, or in the place of the chosen creature. If you roll an even number, the check is considered a critical success. If you roll an odd number, the check is considered a critical failure.
Weighted Dice
At 6th level, you learn to cheat fate itself. Using your reaction, you can grant yourself or a creature you can see advantage on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. You can also use this ability to grant yourself advantage on a luck check.
You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Exploding Dice
Starting at 8th level, when you deal damage with a cleric spell, your damage dice explode. If you roll the maximum number on any damage die, include that number in the damage total, then roll the die again and add the second result to the damage total. If the result of a rerolled die is also the maximum number on the die, you may repeat rerolling and adding to the damage until no maximum number is rolled.
Thief God’s Fortune
At 17th level, you are blessed with luck enough to, shall we say “borrow” magic from any source. You can make a luck check to cast a spell without using a spell slot. This spell can come from the spell list of any class, including the cleric’s. If you roll an even number, you cast the spell. If you roll an odd number, you do not. Even if the check is a failure, you must finish a long rest before you can use this ability again.
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Oath of Chance
The Oath of Chance is a promise to uphold the rule of pure luck. If fate is a tapestry already woven, paladins of Mask are a pair of scissors. Through their actions, they demonstrate that no rule is eternal, no expectation inevitable. What they sacrifice in stability, they gain in wonder and courage. For paladins of Mask, anything is possible, and even failure can be a gift.
Tenets
It isn’t easy to apply rules to such an oath. The tenets of chance provide a framework in which the final decider is always luck.
Take the chance. Waste no time on caution when the reward is worth the risk. Even a five percent chance is still a chance.
Embrace chaos. The world is governed by arbitrary rules, and nothing happens for a reason. Revel in the strange, unmediated chaos of existence.
Cheat the system. Rules are written by the people in power, but they’re not the only ones who can weight the dice. When the odds are stacked against you, cheat.
Trust the dice. In the end, you don’t get to choose how the dice fall. Don’t fear failure. Instead, follow where fortune leads.
Oath Spells
Choose one spell. It can come from the spell list of any class, including the paladin’s, but it must be of a level for which you have spell slots. After a long rest, you must replace your current oath spell with a different spell.
Channel Divinity: God Plays Dice
When you take this oath at 3rd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to invoke the blessing of chaos. As a bonus action, roll on the table below to determine the effect of your Channel Divinity.
1: You transform into a frog, as if under the effects of the polymorph spell.
2: For the next minute, at the end of each of your turns you teleport 30 to an unoccupied space you can see.
3: The next time you hit with a weapon attack, deal maximum damage on all damage dice instead of rolling. Until you use this ability, you are vulnerable to all damage.
4: For the next minute, you gain a flying speed of 60 feet. If you touch the ground at any point during that minute, the effect immediately ends.
5: Until the end of your next turn, you have advantage on all attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.
6: You immediately regain all your hit points and spell slots.
Aura of Chance
Starting at 7th level, your confidence encourages those around you to push their luck. When you or any friendly creature within 10 feet of you roll less than a 10 on the d20 (before any modifiers are added), you or that creature can choose to reroll the die. You must use the new roll.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.
Soldier of Fortune
Starting at 15th level, when you make an attack roll, you can choose to make the roll with disadvantage. If the attack still hits, it is considered a critical success.
Thief God’s Grace
At 20th level, you embody a shard of Mask’s divinity. Until you willingly introduce yourself, even to those who already know you, your identity cannot be discerned by any means, magical or otherwise.
Additionally, you can use your action to sever the threads of fate. For a moment, the world around you is governed by luck and luck alone. For 1 minute, you gain the following benefits:
When a creature that you can see, including yourself, makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can choose to replace the normal roll with a luck check. A luck check is made by rolling your favorite die. If you roll an even number, the check is considered a critical success. If you roll an odd number, the check is considered a critical failure.
When a creature that you can see, including yourself, rolls either a natural 20 or a natural 1, you can use your reaction to make them reroll the d20. They must use the second roll.
You can cast dispel magic at will, without spending a spell slot.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
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tomthefanboy · 1 year
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D&D Movie Follows the Rules
I want to make it very clear that this was not a criteria for me to enjoy D&D Honor Among Thieves. I would not have blamed the actors, crew, or writers if this had not been the case…
I was unable to find anything that would interfere with the Rules as Written.
There are things that go beyond the rules included in the Player's Handbook, yes. But everything is well within the realm of feats, magic items, and background abilities that needn't be specifically called out or even have visible evidence. Everything in the film is BALANCED. ESPECIALLY for high level characters.
In every fight scene I compulsively counted 6 second rounds and saw no damage dealt that would be beyond the normal number of attacks for the character. Weapons drawn fell within the range of bonus actions. No spells cast too quick. No simultaneous concentration spells. Spells stayed in keeping with saving throws, durations, ranges, and areas of effect. Creature abilities and attacks matched their statistic entries. Class abilities like rage or wild magic even stayed in their framework.
One possible issue would be wildshape going beyond the usual "twice per day"and shows 6 uses in one encounter. But a feat to trade spell slots for shapes fixes that! Even the owlbear of it all is easy enough to dismiss with Polymorph, a magic item, or simply replacing the Circle of the Moon's Elemental form with 4 Monstrosities (more than fair since it's a drop from CR5 to CR3). But even if you had to bend the capabilities, the uses of wildshape are still utilized as actions and bonus actions within their rounds and don't grant any abilities not in keeping with rules.
Bigger nerds than me can cry homebrew all they want but the DMG provides framework for changes in keeping with game balance and Tasha's Cauldron laid the groundwork for even more customization. And if you let player characters craft magic items then you might as well just log off mad about it.
It's all there on the page! (It's even more rules compliant if you don't restrict yourself to 5th edition. I can show you all SORTS of nonsense you can get away with if you turn back the clock!)
D&D Honor Among Thieves is more than a great movie! The diverse cast, the detailed production design, the writing that mixes high fantasy with the hi-jinks that INEVITABLY happen at the game table, and the unnecessarily accurate choreography make it a MASTERPIECE in adaptation!
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soupthecoolest · 3 months
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CnD!
alright! so CnD, or "Creation and Destruction" is my homebrew "dnd" campaign!! i have dnd in quotes just cause. well my autism got too strong and i made an entire handbook with my own mechanics LMAO so it's really it's own Thing at this point. which is super cool n fun. after everything's been wrapped up i might publish that handbook but WE SHALL SEE.
anyway CnD is my own personal excuse to make my friends rp with me and my crazy ocs. SO.
it all started when the 11 party members crashed on the beach in a town they'd never seen before. looked totally normal until at the end of the first session they found a portal!
jumping in, that just... kept happening. small adventure, portal, repeat. with no end in sight. as the party began questioning why all this was happening, they met these two little FREAKS named mayhem and maelstrom. (i'll add all refs i have below!!)
anyway mae n may mentioned an elusive “She” that they’re working for, which led my players down an insane conspiracy rabbit hole in which they guessed 90% of hullabaloo’s vibe based on a PRONOUN. ONE PRONOUN I DROPPED I CAN’T TELL THESE MFS ANYTHING
next, they met pandemonium, (@weedsmokingbfs's oc!!! owe you my life muppy) who told them that: these portals aren't taking them place to place, it's transporting them around purgatory. and they've all died.
since then it's been up to the party to navigate their purpose, how to escape, all of it.
then they met bedlam, who explained to them this crazy prophecy and the reason they're all trapped there, which connects to a decision he made 800 years earlier.
enter callie.
my god this is so much to explain IM CRAZY ok. so callie and dee (@percexe) had been meeting in the void for centuries. he'd see callie there when he died and never knew why. 2 idiots had an unspoken pact to not talk about their pasts, but boy they should've!
it would've revealed that callie is actually named chaos, and directly related to all the other crazy clowns they'd meet across the campaign.
they're called the Story, the main 6 pantheon of gods i've set up in this universe! so we've got (in order of like. "hierarchy")
mayhem and maelstrom: gods of war and balance (he/they)
pandemonium: trickster god of illusion (he/it)
bedlam: god of magic and prophecy (he/him)
hullabaloo: goddess of joy, day, and spontaneity (she/her)
chaos: goddess of narration, night, and tradition (she/he)
the Story are basically the worlds most fucked up family, all considering each other brother and sister. in the beginning they were fine, but as time went on things just naturally got more and more messed, and now everything is just a nightmare
chaos and hullabaloo are kinda a tier above the rest of the story, part of their own subset called the Storytellers.
hullabaloo wanted more power and betrayed chaos, trapping her in the void for eternity, as she wanted to rule the universe herself. which all circles back to how callie met dee.
in the void, chaos didn't feel like himself and took on the name calypso, which is how she introduced herself to dee once they met.
and nobody found out anything out of a series of insane miscommunications and lack of info! what fun!
but now in the campaign timeline, everyone's basically caught up. we've finished the first season and are heading into the second in a couple weeks!!! also excuse if this feels rushed at all it's because it is <3 LMFAO there's just so much with CnD, this barely scratches the surface.
there's so much i couldn't cover here like the prophecy binding the party to purgatory, bedlam's entire role in that, the mages, etc. we're like 25 sessions in and so far i've planned 40 more. i am SO normal!!!!
PLEASEEE ask about it if you're curious!! im so insane about my campaign it is my pride and joy :]]
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in order there: hullabaloo, chaos, bedlam, pandemonium, and mayhem and maelstrom! ART CREDS for pandemonium and may&mae refs @weedsmokingbfs !!! once more muppy i owe u all my beans
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If you've ever wanted to homebrew, don't want to host your stuff on DnDBeyond.com, but still want an easy way to mimic the format of the 5e handbook you're familiar with--
Have I got the resource for you
HOMEBREWERY DOT NATURALCRIT DOT COM
It looks like it requires you to know how to code! It doesn't! It's free! It connects to Google Drive and allows you to save as pdf! It's so easy and I love it.
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fangswbenefits · 3 months
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In regards to the spawn vs lesser vampire - Larian played fast and loose with some 5e rules for the sake of the game. Similar to homebrew in some aspects. The Player's Handbook even has a note that what the DM says is law, even if it doesn't necessarily match what the books say, so because they address Astarion as a spawn even after Cazador dies if he doesn't ascend then I'll go with that. In the journal entry after, it also says that he'll be a spawn the rest of his days.
Bless you 🙏 I already knew he was still being referred as spawn after killing Cazador, but that ask really did a number on me and I started panicking lol
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The Lost Boys and DnD
First of all, Sam and the Frog brothers are huge freaking nerds. You KNOW they get into DnD at some point. Maybe there's a local group of DnD-ers that use the backroom of the comic store to host their games that gets them into it. Maybe Sam discovers the Players/Monsters/DMs handbooks being sold in the store one day and gets curious.
Maybe the Frog brothers market it as a way for vampire hunters to mentally prepare themselves for the strategies and horror of war. (The Curse of Strahd campaign wasn't released until like 2016, but we can pretend it was released 20 years earlier, lmao...Or it's just a Homebrew campaign, maybe even set in Santa Carla...)
I honestly feel like Edgar would be a really good DM because he would get so into storytelling and character voices. (He also gets frustrated as hell when Sam does something stupid/clever and completely bypasses a big battle or event that he had planned)
They tried having Sam DM, but his campaigns included more puzzles and diplomacy than battle, and having the Frogs just brute force their way through every session was disheartening.
"We clearly need at least one person with a functioning brain in the party," says Sam, retiring from DMing permanently.
But they're only three people so Sam begs Michael to join them. And listen, Michael is VERY aware of how people might perceive him, and he is not about to join his little brother and his dweeb friends in nerdom.
But Lucy, because she's wonderful, lets the boys run their campaign in the kitchen on Saturdays, and Michael, despite his best efforts, finds himself lingering in the doorway. He keeps stopping to look at the board, being drawn into Edgar's storytelling, and Sam's overly complicated plans (plans that fail and inevitably end up with him rolling for bluff, AGAIN), and Alan's insistence that they ignore diplomacy in favor of just killing everyone. (Don't get it twisted though, Alan is a master of the dice, he knows exactly how to stack his advantages and buffs for the maximum amount of damage/success.)
Michael probably can't help but chime in on occasion, "Did it occur to you idiots that the mysterious key that you found in your tavern room has a purpose and that it might go to the padlock that lets you into the Mayor's house?"
"Well, let's see you do better, Mikey!"
So Michael inevitably joins and now it's the four of them. Slaying Vampires and solving mysteries. But then...
"Hey, Michael, me and the Boys are going to a party at the abandoned cannery on Saturday, you in?" asks David one day.
"I, uh, already have plans with my family on Saturday, man, sorry," answers Michael, desperately trying to keep images of miniatures and dice out of his head.
Except, this is the fifth Saturday in a row that Mikey has begged off of hanging out with the gang, and now they're getting a little suspicious...
...
Anyway, time skip and give me Bard Paul trying to fuck the dragon.
Sam: "It would literally kill you."
Paul: "But what a way to go!"
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keplercryptids · 1 year
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A Quick Breakdown of a Few Non-D&D TTRPGs (and how they compare to D&D)
hi it's me, your local ttrpg player and forever-GM, encouraging y'all to play something other than d&d. i wanted to share about a few ttrpgs in particular and how they compare to the d&d experience. this might be useful to some who want to try a non-d&d system with a little more guidance than "all of these look cool." i'm focusing on the three systems i have the most experience with, and i'm not going to delve into the game mechanics, but rather focus on the game experience.
also, hey!! if you learned to play d&d, i promise you, you can learn another system. d&d is complicated and often expensive, but other ttrpgs aren't necessarily like that! most ttrpgs, in fact, are much simpler than d&d and easier to learn. so don't let the barriers you may have faced with d&d discourage you from trying a new system.
Savage Worlds
experience: player in a homebrewed setting for about a year.
overview: savage worlds is a setting-neutral system, so it really lends itself to homebrewed worlds. character creation is looser and more flexible in some ways than d&d. you piece together the character you want rather than using a set class/race. i would say the biggest difference between savage worlds and d&d is what the name itself implies. the world can be savage! the dice are swingy in this game. you might be great at a skill, but it doesn't guarantee success the way it pretty much does in d&d. wins and losses tend to be bigger and more dramatic.
what i love: your "class" feels more customized to what you want. savage worlds rules can be implemented in all kinds of settings and worlds which is cool. "balance" isn't really an issue the way it is in d&d (but be prepared for those swingy dice!). combat can be deadlier in some ways, but the system doesn't rely on combat the way d&d does.
Blades in the Dark
experience: GM of a campaign for several months.
overview: blades in the dark is about a group of scoundrels, being scoundrel-y. my favorite line from the player's handbook is that you should play your character like you're driving a stolen car, and i just love that metaphor so much. blades is a game where you play bad people doing bad things (crime). you roll a number of d6s and if you get a 1-3, you fail; a 4-5, you succeed with a complication; a 6 is a total success. what this means in-game is that almost every roll you make results in something bad happening. this leads to a chaotic game experience where the pressure is constantly building until something explodes.
what i love: as a GM, i never prepped for more than 15 minutes before a session. you don't need to prep at all as a GM (either way, be prepared to improv your ass off!). the mechanics are also a delight and i know i will use some of them in most of my games moving forward (clocks! clocks are genius). it also has more of a collaborative feel than d&d. you and your players are making it up as you go and it FEELS that way, which is so fun.
Pathfinder Second Edition
experience: GM of a published adventure for just a few weeks!
overview: this is probably the system most similar to d&d. a lot of the skills, dice mechanics, spells etc will be familiar to you. if you like d&d mechanically but want more crunch and more balance, pf2e is a great option. it's definitely more complicated than d&d, but i don't think it's too complicated, if that makes sense. combat is easier to balance from the GM side and feels more dynamic in many ways at level 1 than d&d at any level. also pf2e has a sense of humor??? it's hard to describe but so many of the feats, spells and monster abilities are FUN in a way that's lacking in d&d. i plan to run my next campaign in pf2e and am excited to delve into using it for a homebrew setting.
what i love: character customization is off the fucking charts. if you're a 5e player, you'll be astounded at just how many skills and abilities you get every level-up. also, it's a game that's balanced, which as a GM i've noticed right away. combat is fun to run (i have NEVER said that about 5e lmao) and feels like you're actually playing a game, rather than giving a presentation the way a lot of 5e combat feels as a dm. every monster stat block is interesting and unique. and there's a rule for everything, which i personally like.
anyway, i hope this was useful! get out there and try a new ttrpg system, okay??
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honourablejester · 9 months
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5e Homebrew Spelljammer Background
While I’m talking about strange and terrifying god corpses in the Astral Sea, have a homebrew background for the Luminous Order, a homebrew organisation of mine, an almost paladin-like order of lighthouse keepers who set up lighthouses and lightbuoys in the Astral Sea to warn ships away from dangers like, well, mind-warping god corpses and sundry other dangers.
LIGHTKEEPER OF THE LUMINOUS ORDER
The Astral Sea is vast and dangerous, full of unexpected peril, and no one knows that better than the Lightkeepers of the Luminous Order, those brave and resilient souls who man the lightbuoys and lighthouses that the Order erects to warn those nearing the deadliest of those perils. You’ve spent untold years out in the silver, perhaps manning the tiniest and most isolated of tiny lightbuoys, perhaps more secure in one of the larger installations of the Order. Either way you have developed a sense for danger, a keen eye and a watchful mind. The Sea is vast and treacherous, and so the Lights of the Luminous Order keep watch, not only for their own sakes, but for the sakes of all who sail the Silver Sea. For whatever reason, perhaps simple loneliness, you have left the Order, but you will carry their lessons and the things you experienced out on the lights with you always.
Skill Proficiencies: Perception, and your choice of one of the following: Arcana, History, Religion
Languages: Two of your choice
Equipment: a set of common clothes, a spyglass, a belt-pouch with 10gp, and an enamelled pin of the tower-and-light which the Luminous Order gives to all who have served with them. These pins, worn honestly, invite respect from travellers and voyagers across the Astral Sea.
FEATURE: EVER WATCHFUL
The Luminous Order trains its keepers to be ever alert, and to always maintain the light. As a result of this training, you gain the Alert feat from the Player’s Handbook, and you learn the light cantrip. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it (choose when you select this background).
PERILOUS STATION
All members of the Luminous Order, no matter their station or function, serve time out on the lights, manning one of the Order’s lighthouses or lightbuoys. Some of these are tiny rickety buoys, two or three-roomed stations floating in the void of the Astral Sea, while others are more well-established, perhaps full towers and lighthouses built on firm asteroids or even gardened mini-worlds, courtesy of some of the Order’s druids and mages.
Where did you serve? Did you man a tiny buoy in some poorly-mapped region of the Sea that barely saw traffic (or resupply), or one of the larger lighthouses near well-known and well-trafficked dangers, or something in between? The table below suggests some locations your character might have served at, or you can work with your DM to come with one more suited to your character and campaign:
d6          Station
Buoy Nine Zero Azimuth (‘Last Stop’), a tiny, recently-established buoy guarding the edge of a newly-discovered (by the Order) section of the Sea that no vessel has yet successfully returned from. And there have been no shortage of attempts. Far flung as it is, the Order has had some difficulty in getting supplies and shift changes out to B90-A in timely fashion.
Sector Eight Great Light (‘Greengarden’), one of the Order’s larger regional hub-lights, standing guard over a well-travelled section of the Sea known for strange eddies and sudden colour pools, often to the Feywild or Limbo. An order of druids who pass often through the area have put their efforts into growing a small habitat and air envelope on Greengarden’s asteroid base.
Installation Five Four One Nadir (‘Station Dark’). One of the least desired posts in the Order, I541-N keeps watch over the approach to a dark mass of strangely-glistening rock that drifts erratically, and perhaps purposely, through the Sea, the remnants of a dead dark god that seeds madness into those who stray too close. The lightkeepers are not immune to the rock’s effects, despite many efforts to shield the station, and so keepers are rotated off the station considerably more often than at other posts, in an effort to keep the long-term effects to a minimum.
Light Four Two Helix (‘Wreckship’), an ancient lighthouse that warns vessels away from the Stargasst Eddy, a well-known yet still utterly unexplained mass of wrecked spelljammers and astral vessels that no one knows the cause of. Ships who enter the Eddy hoping to salvage their predecessors all-too-often follow in their footsteps, but the prospect of so much salvage still lures ships in. There has been a longstanding debate within the Luminous Order on whether they have any further responsibility to ward off or even forcibly stop ships from entering, but the Order exists to warn, not to quarantine, and so ships venture into the Eddy even still. A different question, and perhaps one that comes down to individual lightkeepers, is whether the crew of L42-H have any responsibility to try and rescue anyone who makes it most of the way out again …
Buoy One Six Intersect (‘Rickety Town’), a buoy in a very turbulent area of the Sea where several nearby Wildspace systems weirdly overlap onto more or less the same area, leading to a disturbed section of the Sea where one can traverse unexpectedly and without warning into Wildspace. Or where Wildspace can traverse unexpectedly and without warning onto you. Rickety Town, proudly named by some of its long-term keepers, is manned exclusively by autognomes and warforged, in case of sudden intrusions of vacuum and the passage of time.
Sector Thirty One Watch Light (‘Sentinel 31’). Some areas of the Astral Sea contain more colour pools, links to the other planes, than others, and some contain darker pools than others, links to more dangerous planes. Sector 31 is one of those. For whatever reason, colour pools to the Abyss and the Far Realms are common in this area of the Sea, and those who man the watch light, Sentinel 31, have hair-raising stories of things they have seen traversing the Sea beyond the reach of the light’s great beam.
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wonderinc-sonic · 6 days
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I was drawing my new DnD character, who I'm thinking will be a homebrew Gauntlets + Axe Barbarian, and I always do those characters wearing not very much covering clothes because that's what fire emblem and the DnD handbook does, so I thought I'd try it differently this time - giving them a full headscarf. She's cool, she's on the other page.
Anywise, I remembered I have only drawn headscarfs 2ice before: once for a mage character in a oneshot, and once years ago and that was Blaze. I saw someone else draw her in a hijab once, that I now can't find either. I know I binned hundreds of my teenage drawings, and to be fair they were terrible, but I am sad about that now. Here you are, Blaze in a headscarf, looking snug in the snow. It's not the best work, but next time I think of this I'll have something to look back on and improve on.
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petite-sami · 7 months
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Warforged Commission Third of the four portraits batch commissioned to me by a client who is working on a homebrew ttrpg handbook. There is more to come later. I hope you get more interested in their product for when it finally comes out~!
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mmeveronica · 1 year
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Okay poison in dnd kinda sucks, but not for the reasons you think.
Yes the most common damage immunity is poison, but if you're in a campaign fighting Fey, Monstrosities, Aberrations, Beasts, and most Humanoids, instead of Constructs, Elementals, Fiends, and Undead, it actually isn't that common. (This reddit post has the stats)
No, poison kinda sucks because it is so expensive and takes so long to craft. Let's just look at the basic poison given in the Player's Handbook. It costs 100gp, so using the crafting rules in the PHB it would take 50gp of materials, and then a number of days equal to its market value divided by 5, which is 20. It takes most of a month to craft a basic vial of poison that adds the possibility of an extra 1d4 damage to attacks for 1 minute.
Now the rules in Xanathars Guide shorten the crafting time to two weeks, as they let you craft 50gp of market value during one week, but it's still not great.
Trying to expand this to the more interesting poisons like burnt othur fumes, malice, and oil of Taggit would have you take months to craft a single dose of a poison. These poisons can be incredibly useful, but the cost is just too much and the crafting time too long.
So, I propose the following homebrew rule to make crafting poisons take less time in DnD 5e. Base the crafting time of a poison off the crafting time of a spell scroll in Xanathar's Guide with a similar cost to the materials needed to craft it. Both poisons and spell scrolls are consumable items that let a character deal more damage or apply a unique status effect so I don't think it's a big leap to allow.
Returning to the basic poison, it requires 50gp of raw materials to craft and the closest spell scroll to that cost is a 1st level spell scroll with 25gp. Double the cost of materials means that double the time to craft isn't unreasonable so it would take 2 days to craft this basic poison. An example of a more advanced poison is burnt othur fumes, the material cost is 250gp for crafting which is the cost to craft a 2nd level spell scroll. A 2nd level spell scroll takes 3 days to craft so burnt othur fumes would as well.
These new crafting times would allow players much more opportunity to actually use these frankly somewhat overpriced poisons. If you as a DM feel these are too fast, you could always slow them down or limit the use of these crafting times to characters with the Poisoner feat. which already lets them craft mutliple doses of a unique potent poison using 50gp of materials in an hour.
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