@Helwar I recommend re-skinning core races. Their combination of stats is generally balanced against one another.
The biggest risk you run going willy nilly is having a single or couple of races that far outshine any of the others. This can make players role playing one of the "lesser races" feel shorted.
Also, creating a world is a lot of work as it is. Take shortcuts where you can.
I struggle sometimes directing a game. In the spur of the moment I forget to say things, or don't know how to react to the unexpected, so sometimes my carefully laid plains go askew (not that they know :P)
When putting a different veneer on a stat block, altering motivations and modus operandi of individuals can be helpful in making the new race feel different during play.
Rolemaster has High Men, Common Men and Mixed-Men. So "Empire" are High, Hyborea are Mixed and the "Barbarians" are Common. Then limit which Cultures/backgrounds are avaialble to each type
I only like backstories so far as they answer "How did the character come to be here?" and "Why are they traveling with this party?" If they don't do that, I don't like them.
oh well, they are not extensive plans. Just some backgrounds for npcs, with motivations, what do they know, how are they. Just so when something happens I can know what they would do naturally. But sometimes in the heat of the moment I forget x person would be there, or would know to tell what, etc...
@GcL Our GM likes backstories to include Adventure Hooks. Doesn't work for every table, but I enjoy throwing random hooks to see what he coems up with :)
@Helwar Another tool we use is Index Cards for NPCs. Print out a Card for each Important NPC and keep them handy. Have notes on them. Each Scene, you can flick through, and pick out Who Is Here, and What They Want
Oh, up there when I said backstories I meant, for the world. On characters I'm the kind of guy that writes an 8 page backstory, but my character is not some kind of war-god just because the story is extensive. There is just a lot of detail of how he came to be where he is. And like 8000 things my character doesn't know and my DM could take as hooks. The more hooks, the better :)
@Helwar I keep trying to trim my PCs' backstory ... I could just keep adding and adding ... "I met a mysterious man who prophesised at me" ... "I don't know what happened to my parents" ... "I worked in a Market for a while, didn't pan out" ...
@BlackSpike That's what I do, mostly. And I always bring my binder with those and have them in hand. I'm just not as quick witted and sometimes I lose myself in the game and don't wanna stop checking... As said not the best DM ever, but I do try
@BlackSpike I do try to not be overbearing too. I know I said the more the better, but within reason. And only if it really gels with it all.
We also have a System that we call "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly". 3 people that your PC knows. One is 'friendly', one is 'hostile', and one is 'complicated'. Player has full control of who they are. GM has full control of how they appear in the Campaign
As a DM I like any sort of backstory, as long as there is one :P
That system I do not like so much... I try to "push it" if a story is too sparse, making my own questions to the player so to get these interesting tidbits... But don't enforce it if I don't need it.
@Helwar I do tend to steal/subvert 'tropes' for back-story :) my last PC had "Boy named Sue", subservient martial Arts student" .... my next PC has "Cher: Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" and "Road to Damascus"
And convoluted Links (especially names) ... I like Vasquez ("Aliens"), and looked up that it derives from "Crow" ... so @Shalvenay noted that jays are of the Crow family, and Vasquez's forename starts with a "J" ... ta-da! My PC is named "Jay"
Last character I made was a tiefling, none of his parents were, but the mother did something to him while on the womb, and he was born a tiefling. He's grown with his father and all he knows is she said something about a "Star child" (that's as far as I know too), so looked for the word star in basque, wich is Iskara, shortened it one letter and said it was the Infernal word for star: Iskar
it was a convoluted thing I devised to write a story about, but although the premise I found was great, I couldn't get a good story out of it... So i kinda "demoted" it to a RPG pc, wich is good enough in on itself
But as I said, I throw loads of stuff into back Story. My Martial Artist had "Masque of the Red Death" (Edgar Alan Poe) in his .. never came up ... I knew it was there tho
It's convoluted, but... The premise was having a good man, being raised by a devil, to be a good man. THe mother wanted something out of having a "star child", and the father knew nothing about it, but as she made a pact with a devil to have the kid, the father found out and made a pact with another, his soul for it to raise the kid as a good man and protect it.
So the devil inhabits the dad's body, and teaches him how to be a good man.... With a side dish of bounty hunting, that's what they did until suddenly the father-devil went away and left him to his own devices. And here the story piked up.
She's working the bars to pay off the Mob (boyfriend had a deal go sour) ... she reached out to the Fae, who grant her a Moon Bridge ... not sure how that helps, ... oh, werewolf, and 1/month teleport ... she 'gets out of town', goes WOLF, maybe bring home lootz ... hmmm .. .there's definitely a story there
It's in spanish, as it's in the language we did the writing game, but here I have the document we used... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vKaaHI4sqimjMziG8qh0xJxyS1gW8z9vGW2Krs1Q5Uw/edit?usp=sharing
apparently someone clipped the first few columns sometime
@BlackSpike That would work! Mine was convoluted. She could teleport only once a month during the full moon, when her magic was strongest. (she was in control of her werewolfyness :P) She was on the run for some reason I didn't disclose, and used her wolfy feromones to get easy jobs as a stripper to pay for ther rent
In the comments of this answer it came up that the section on "Group Checks" states:
To make a group ability check, everyone in the group makes the ability check. If at least half the group succeeds, the whole group succeeds. Otherwise, the group fails...
It came up what does "half the grou...
Microscope and Universalis (the two we 'play') are kind of a bridge between RPG and Writing
Similar to what you did, the players put together a "Pallette" of what is IN, what is OUT, and what the Story is based around ... then (to mis-quote a quote) "Make some sh*t up, and hope it's fun!"
i'm making my own life hard here. My world has extreme weather, and I'm trying to put it down on paper, and get some rules for it... Don't know where to start, or if it's even needed
We had some good fun with Weather. The SNOW meant travel (even just across a few City-Blocks) was troublesome. Visibility was down. "mysterious figures" could be seen shadowed across the street ... supplies ran low ...
"You want to walk across to your Contact's Meeting-Place? Ok, make me an Endurance roll! Player A gets +5 as they bought Winter Clothing. Don't hit the DC, and you're COLD and WET"
A fair amount was "just" role-play effects ... my players are good with that ... "I demand Hot Coffee! I know it's rude, but I'm COLD and WET! I'm not even starting the negotiation until they dig into their limited supplies of HOT drinks!"
I don't have anyone to play this world I'm building with, yet. My friend group I told I would not dm anymore for them (conflicting playstyles a lot and I preferred my friendship over fighting for a game)...
Hum... On the beginnig there was nothing, as always, and then there was. Something came out and it was the first goddess, and everything comes from this. She makes the world and some of it's people, and some "others" come out of the nothingness and become gods and create other celestial bodies, etc...
But all this "action" attracts the nothingness, and "it" wants to get everything back.
Where nothingness approach, everything gets more surreal and bizarre (kinda like in the Neverending Story)
in my world there is Fae intervention too... Since gods can't do much, other planes of existance do their bidding as they want. Have whole regions full of Fae Princes... Races I'm making are Satyrs, Faeries, Selkies, etc...
Others are fae-touched, like bipedal animals, or shadow-touched
@BlackSpike I have a group opposing the nothing, that was the first idea. I'm open to everything as I don't have players yet. But politicking would be cooler, I think.
In my next game, there are only 3 race. Humans, in all their forms, Dwarves (all virtually identical, as they are carved from the Living Rock) and Elves, in ALL their forms: sprites, nymphs, Elrond, dryads ... all Elves
@Helwar "We -could- put anti-Nothing measures into place, but how would it affect the Economy? The neighboring Kingdoms will see us as weak if we do not build our Army .."
my goblins, for example, are "spirits". just a bunch of "nothingness" that happens into the world, but gets "conscious" of itself, and starts burning itself to keep himself alive (if it makes any sense to you), they can "bond" themselves to places where people leave or tread, like homes or markets. Then they have some power within this, like some mischief, or clean your dishes
Ray Bradbury wrote a good short-story about house-elves. They bring luck .. .but you mustn't interfere ... a family gets too curious, and the elves leave, and a bunch of "red-neck" elves move in ... dodgy, dirty elves. Still "lucky", but not so pleasant ...
Per the horribly worded description:
While you wear these boots, your walking speed becomes 30 feet, unless your walking speed is higher, and your speed isn't reduced if you are encumbered or wearing heavy armor.
But there are multiple ways in which a characters speed can be reduced beyond ...
I'm a new DM. One of the PCs obtained gauntlets of ogre power, which raise the Strength score of the creature wearing and attuned to them to 19. Does this increase the modifier or any of the skill checks or damage rolls as well?
I'm not sure how having higher Strength is helpful if it doesn't.
Night Hags are kinda cool as a concept, I used one of them as a long-term baddie in one of my 5e campaigns with the idea that it'd pester the players until they took the attack to it.
I spent a large part of the weekend reading over my 4e materials and fantasizing about running a game in that. AGAIN.
Random question about Death Knights:
I'm considering True Polymorphing into one for an upcoming fight. Their longswords have an extra 4d8 necrotic damage tied to them. However, their statblocks do not state that their swords are magical nor that their necrotic damage is innate (like a Planetar's...
The highlight of the fight was when one player used thunderwave to push a hag from the top floor through a window (it worked) but at the same time included crates that (they didn't know) contained two live children in the AOE (they died)
@kviiri I did the same with the Naheulbeuk rpg, I think my players are liking D&D all right, but I don't think they're having as much fun as we used to have playing Naheulbeuk
@Nyakouai Not only that, but there are still 2 hags at large, and IIRC they have a nightmare-inducing ability that I'll try to make a pain in the aforementioned lower region
Maybe the hags will use that as leverage to ransom the party or ask a big service
in my game, the Night Hag that tormented the party was especially interested in going after high-profile heroes, was known for patience but also a degree of sloppiness: moving frequently could keep her off your tail for a while.
I had a set of house rules and roll tables to determine if she'd attack on any given night, based largely on the PCs' "visibility" to her.
After thinking about it, I'll probably try the following : first, house-rule that if someone casts "protection against good and evil" while the hag is creating the nightmare, it's interrupted for this night (an npc will be able to tell them if they seek him out). The character will be haunted by dreams tormenting them for killing the hag, and hinting that the npc they are escorting is actually evil and dangerous (she's not)
That way, the hag is in character, trying to get them to do evil acts, the character will have a ticking clock to find a solution and dissention will be born inside the party
The current 5e campaign I'm running uses the encumbrance variance rules and demands a lot of travel and resource management on the part of the players.
This brought up questions about penalties when exploring and traveling while encumbered/heavily encumbered (especially from players of character...
I'd like to ask the following question about what the "standard"/"expected" way to do something in D&D 5e is, but I feel that it'd likely be deemed opinion-based or unclear with regard to the meaning of "expected." Is the question acceptable for the main site, and, if not, how can I modify it so...
It's certainly close. I'm not certain one way or another right now on whether it should be open or closed. Like Xirema said there is at least some info in the module that addresses it.
@ACuriousMind Yeah, seems as good of a guess as any.
@ACuriousMind I would guess they were typing fighter and got that suggestion. On a related note, this is why people distrust rare system tags from new(ish) users
I'd reference my campaign, but I retconned too much to be useful. In my version of the campaign, Nezznar is just a Drow with a lot of Bravado who went searching for the mine, but got lost in Wave Echo Cave (LSS: the cave rearranges itself and you can't navigate it without the Rockseeker map), so all he wants now is to get out safely and go home, but he doesn't trust the adventurers and will attack them on sight.
Question: is the Lost Mines of Phandelver actually part of the 5e SRD? I know it's part of the freely available content that doesn't require you to buy anything, but I'm not sure that's the same as actually being part of the System Reference Document.
RIght, but isn't homebrewing utilizing the adjust this monster rules? Maybe there is only way way to go get CR27, but if there'smore than one, then it's PoB. I think i'mgoing to VTC as a homebrew this for me.
@NautArch I suppose. Colloquially, I don't usually think of "modifying a creature, but according to the strict supervision of the DMG/MM rules for modifying a creature" as homebrew, even if the changes become quite substantial. Not saying it literally isn't; I'm just saying I don't usually think of it like that.
I figured there'd be discussion on that question. I threw a bit of a frame challenge its way. Does it need more support for why its more important to create dynamic encounters in the later tiers?
> I spotted him across the restaurant. There he was, eating his salad with a dessert fork. The nerve of some people! I was so aghast that I dropped my handful of mashed potatoes.
My question is about the basic ogre CR calculation in the monster manual, which doesn't make senses to me. I tried to make a concept of an "armored ogre" with chain mail and pikes (AC 16 and 15 (2d10+4) damage).
The problem comes when I recalculate its CR and it's exactly 2, just like the ogre. ...
@NautArch I did. Do I need to show my work more? I said the MM and the DMG disagree. Not saying its wrong per se. RAW it is CR 24 but the DM Workshop model puts it at 27
So, using the workshop can differ from the MM. But the MM is the 'actual'. We just don't know why it's different.
No, the question is asking how to get it to CR 27. You still need to start with either the assumption that the MM is right and go from there or from the MM is wrong. But the calculation alone is not enough.
Because we know there can be a difference as seen in the ogre question.
THey've run the calculations and are confused because of whatever WoTC is using in the background when determining CR outside of the calculations rules they provide.
I don't think you can just throw out the written CR value because it's different.
@NautArch I'm not throwing it out. But any other analysis is anti-RAW. If I modify the monster in some way there is no way to know if that affects their back-door calculations too. We have to work with what they've given us, which says that any buff from here will put the dragon past CR 27
I am not saying the MM rules are wrong. I'm saying that we can't use the DMG rules to do what the OP wants
Isn't step 1 "pick the expected challenge rating"? If you're starting with an existing monster, wouldn't that be it's CR?
I'm showing my lack of knowledge here, but when you're modifying an existing monster, I don't understand why you wouldn'ts tart with the rating it has.
@NautArch No. It does actually. The Dungeon Master's Workshop rules give that monster a CR of 27. They just don't reflect CR that is used in the Monster Manual perfectly
We start with the expected only for determining proficiency bonus and hit dice
@NautArch No. But the first step of modifying a monster is calculating its offensive and defensive CR so you can find out what your changes do to the challenge, which gives us different numbers than the expected.
So your recommendation is actual "throw out the existing Ancient Gold. Pretend you are building a new monster and use the workshop. You can use the existing stats to help you start."
> However, once you change the creature’s offensive or defensive ability, such as its hit points or damage, its challenge rating might need to change, as shown later.
TBH, the logic for calculating CR is a little bit circular.
Like, when using AC to determine how to adjust the Defensive CR, you're supposed to compare the AC against what you'd expect the AC to be for a creature of the CR you expect the final creature to be.
So if you wildly overestimate or underestimate the expected CR of your homebrew creature, it causes the calculated final CR of the creature to be lower or higher, respectively.
The way I handle it is to use the max HP and Damage as baselines for the "expected" CR, and then fill in the AC/+HIT values to adjust from there—but the DMG doesn't suggest that (or anything, for that matter).
@Xirema Honestly, I think the rules in that section are completely useless. They are very very difficult to understand. In an extremely non-useful order (having to flip back and fourth constantly to reference tables that are all over the place), and they completely fail to account for a wide range of traits, abilities, and combinations.
Okay, not completely useless (they can be useful for getting ballpark estimates), but should be taken with a bunch of salt
@Xirema They're overlapping sets in hard to categorize ways. SRD goes levels 1-20 and has all classes (though only one archetype each), while basic only has the 4 classes up to level 5 (?). But some of the basic DM content is outside of the SRD, IIRC?