#it's 5e you barely have a build

[starlightcleric]

I haven't even finished Act 1 of BG3 yet and already my attention span has shifted back to Pathfinder 1e builds.

[utilitycaster]

read through a very long thread on daggerheart (ultimately quite positive) and I think what excites me is something a lot of people are very nervous about, namely, how loose the class system is. I think weaker D&D 5e classes really suffered not because of the vibes of the class (as a Known D&D Rogue Class Hater, I actually love a rogue vibe in media though it's usually not my first choice to play myself), but because so much was hardcoded in to the core class that it hampered the subclass identities. As an illustrative example, one of the most gamechanging things for druids in later supplements was the ability to use wildshape for abilities in which you could still cast, which is why spores/wildfire/stars druids are so ridiculously powerful.

So I think it's good that you can make, for example, a rogue who is basically a shadow sorcerer with good weapons proficiency vs. a rogue who is purely a mundane spymaster; or that seraph can swing from a barely magical paladin type to, well, an angel. There are classes I'm less into, to be fair (I don't have a good answer for the Sorcerer v. Wizard split other than "I don't love it") but even the clear D&D fingerprints allow for much more customization.

I described it elsewhere as allowing for players who build a genre but not mechanics-savvy OC and then need the system to be flexible enough to support that, while still giving mechanics-first players enough to build on, and I think it threads that very challenging needle in a way few games do.

[dice-sociation]

AP Review: Reckless Attack - Main Campaign

Listen Here: https://www.recklessattack.com/episodes/

Quick info:

Audio Quality: High Quality and Edited, Effects, Music. Vibes: Lord of the Rings, Ghibli, Never Ending Story, Avatar the Last Airbender, Frogs Extras: Discord and Patreon rewards. System: 5e DnD Average Episode time: 1 hour Uploads 1 Episode per week. Campaign/ Show Length: Long Term Campaign Platforms: Podcast, Audio Only. Accessibility: Content Warnings Language available: English Diversity: AAPI/BIPOC Number of Episodes Review is based on: 100 (This is my first review so I decided to start with a Podcast I’m already caught up on) ** If you want the TLDR, scroll to the bottom of the post **

Why Reckless Attack?

I honestly believe that part of the draw of listening to people play a TTRPG is not just the story telling but an assurance that adults can somehow actually and consistently come together, in person, to pull off a full long term game. Reckless Attack is one such podcast. They are a small indie podcast with excellent audio quality and editing. 

But, why should you listen to another high fantasy podcast? Well, have you ever wanted to see what a post-apocalyptic High Fantasy world would look like? The deeper you delve into Reckless Attack, the deeper the lore gets, and we have barely scratched the surface a hundred episodes in. You’ll join the players as they explore a world recovering from an apocalyptic event, ripe with magic and unstable artifacts, an undead army, and frogs.

Starting The Pod

Right out the gate, the listeners are greeted by a Lord of the Rings style opening monologue, giving relevant history and context to the kind of place the characters live in. I personally get the feeling a lot of the world was established in a previous game or between the DM and players prior to the start of this campaign. If, as a listener, it feels like you're missing something, don't worry; you'll get a lot more context down the road, especially once the players make it to the city of Agmar (Episode 15). The first 15 episodes are a nice slow build up. 

Conveniently, the first recap episode covers Episode 1-14! (Though I really enjoyed the first 14 episodes, I know not everyone has the amount of listening time I have). If you are so inclined to start from the first episode, you'll get nicely eased into the characters and their relationships with one another before a lot of the bigger world building really starts to soar.

(My one caveat is that I listen to this podcast at 1.3-1.4 speed since the players and Nathan speak with a good amount of pauses, and that can be a little too slow for me.)

About the Team

Nathan, the DM for the main campaign, paints some amazing pictures of his homebrew world. He has a real talent for creating larger than life NPCs and Big Baddies for his players to interact with. They all have clear motivations, flaws, and personalities that truly rounds out the overall story. When it comes to plot, Nathan kept me on my toes with plot twists that would literally snap me out of whatever multitasking I was doing. And I must recognize how often Nathan opens the floor for the players to build parts of the story and describe longer stretches of downtime. Those moments are like the equivalent of cinematic montages to represent the passing of time.

The players, Sophie, Steve, David, and Jonathan, deliver wonderful descriptions and leave plenty of space for each other to speak, balanced with just the right amount of crosstalk. Each character has a very unique voice which is helpful for listeners (especially because David and Jonathan are twins and have similar voices).

Sophie plays Valeska Carter, the Human * Cleric. "Valeska is a young woman in search of answers. Like, compulsively."* I quickly fell in love with Val, an exhausted nerd who can never have enough notes and organization. If you're the kind of person who is always rescuing animals, you will love her too. 

Steve plays Selv Asterlin, the Dragonborn Monk. "Selv’s years at his town’s icy mountain monastery has trained not just his body, but also his mind and emotions. The large dragonborn seeks to be a peacemaker in conflicts, exuding strength, calm and serenity while straying away from violence and lethal force when possible."* But don't be fooled, Selv is often one for the occasional good prank, and I always appreciate Steve's references even when the rest of the group don't understand them. (I got you Steve) 

David plays Kascorin "Kass" Brightmane, the Dwarven Warlock. "Tomorrow (Kass leaves) this city for the Golden Tree adventuring guild, and in leaving this city, (He leaves his) friends, (his) family, and (his) comfortable life behind."* Kass is very grounded, serious, and focused, until he runs into tasty dried meats. Kass has all the charm of a warlock and the grit of a soldier. 

Jonathan plays Checkers, the Gung Druid, with his trusty pals Mango and Junior. "Joining the Golden Tree adventuring guild on a dare, Checkers and his frog pal Mango are here to prove that it’s better to find your own path than to follow someone else’s. After all, where’s the fun in looking before you leap?"* Checkers is a lot like the characters I personally play. Someone who doesn't stand around for too much planning and prefers to "leap" into action. In my very humble opinion, every group needs an instigator. 

I have also come to really admire the level of trust and respect the group has for one another. They handle both wonderful whimsical beats as well as solemn moments with great care (Episode 108 was magnificent.)

*Quoted from the official Reckless Attack website. You can find this and more at their website www.recklessattack.com. (Be aware, reading the available character sheets may contain spoilers)

About the World

Ryxia is built on a world where long ago, the Gods walked among mortals, but one day they left. As if in consequence, magic in this world seems to ebb and flow, and monsters roam the wilds. Until, the "second of Ryxia’s twin suns disappeared from the sky, the Ultragiants appeared, and the Pentarchy’s great capital city of Narhasur was turned into a smoldering crater." *

You can think of the Ultra Giants as the Titans of this world, being elemental and colossal. These Ultra Giants terrorized mortals until one day, the mortals managed to kill one " wielding their city’s Object of Focus… The object was destroyed, as was much of the army. But strangely, within days, the Ultragiants no longer stalked Ryxia."*

As the mortals re-emerged, they started to rebuild despite the incredible amount of monsters who now roam the lands. 

*Quoted from the official Reckless Attack website. You can find this and more at their website www.recklessattack.com. (Be aware, reading the available character sheets may contain spoilers)

Extras

Aside from the main campaign Nathan has his own series called Reckless A-Talk. This series Nathan or others on the team interview incredible people from all over the TTRPG space. Nathan's style of interviewing is mostly allowing his guest to speak more than he does, followed by the wonderful lightning round questions. I highly recommend listening to these (as a little treat) if you are interested in learning other perspectives and other aspects of the industry. 

Bonus one shots are another part of Reckless Attack, allowing the players to take the reigns.  They serve as fun filler for when you just can't wait for the next episode to drop. 

And if that's still not enough content for you, you can always subscribe to their Patreon for even more content, including the very relaxed Reckless A-Snack.

TLDR

High Fantasy world rebuilding the world after mortals were nearly wiped out.

Listeners will get a good feel of the world within the first 14 episodes. (IMO, the pacing starts to pick up after Episode 14)

Here are "Tale Til Now," recap episodes for those who want to catch up faster. (Episodes 1-14, 14-42, 42-66, 67-84)

Non Player Characters are larger than life, with clear motives and personalities.

The Dungeon Master and Players share a lot of world building and you can feel the love and trust they have for each other.

Recommended listening at 1.3x-1.5x speed if you are one of those people (you know who you are).

Find more details about the world and characters at www.recklessattack.com.

Lots of extra content for those who just need more, including; interviews, one-shots run by the players, and patreon bonus content. https://www.patreon.com/recklessattack/home

Do you have ideas or suggestions? Please feel free to comment!

Special thanks to Artax of Who's Taking Watch for helping with editing!

No Context Spoilers:

[greyplainsttrpg]

5e Villain Arc 7

Okay, so I know that I said I would start doing content about The Darkness, however there is one last thing that I need to talk about (for now).

One of the pieces of feedback (positive) that I received as a GM is "you know, your games are based around collecting weird objects to be applied in weird situations." And, yeah, pretty much. Not exclusively, but I absolutely encourage Players to have their Characters pick things up and then figure out how to use them later on. There are numerous reasons why this is the case, but I believe that a central axiom of why Players in my games tend to value and utilize objects is because spellcasting is always more limited. More often than not, Characters do not have a "solve this problem" button stapled to their character sheet. They do, however, have some amount of garbage that they are carrying around that they can use to solve problems en lieu of spellcasting. However, in Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014 and 2024), objects are worse for all sorts of reason unique to that game (unbounded from its history as well).

This Post Is About Equipment Being Boring

A long time ago, I heard of a debate from a far-away discord server of a man explaining why the Fighter was, in fact, the best class in the game. As part of their defense, he provided a single-specific use case (reddit build) that had a very specific combination of magic items (that also assumed haste was cast on them). In this case, the Fighter would outperform any other Class in the game. The obvious counter-argument is: "umm, okay, but the Wizard needs to cast haste for this to work, so the Wizard is objectively better than this specific Fighter because the Wizard doesn't need to cast any spell in particular to be good." The other obvious argument is, "well, what if they do not have these exact combination of magic items and are not at the specific level necessary to activate all these abilities and did not pick all these feats?" You don't need me to explain that the average Fighter is worse than the average Wizard, you all know this by now.

However, something fundamental to the situation that I find very interesting is how reliant on magic items martials are in Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014 and 2024). This is actually not a criticism but an observation. This has been true throughout the history of Dungeons and Dragons and, in fact, the history of fantasy media in general. Martials are better users of items, magical or otherwise. Meditate on this yin-yang that I've constructed to illustrate my point:

The point here is that martials, by their very nature, are arbiters of reality. In a fantasy world, there is inherent narrative conflict between the real and the imaginary. That which is real yields to magic, and that which is magic yields to the real. Think of Beowulf and Grendel (maybe not the best example for inventory, cause you know, but we'll get there). Grendel is monstrous (magical) specifically because he is immune to weapons. Beowulf recognizes this and rips Grendel's arms off with his bare hands (in the nude). Magic defeats the real (the warriors of Heorot's mead-hall), and the real defeats the magic (Beowulf's biceps and grabby-fingies).

Wouldn't it be a shame is "stuff" sucked?

Stuff sucks in two primary ways: 1) on their own merits; 2) in comparison to the magic alternative.

1: Stuff sucks on their own merits:

Carrying Capacity: This is perhaps an ironic point, but one of the reasons that stuff sucks so much is that carrying capacity is too high. As the base rule, 15* strength score is an insane amount to be able to carry off the bat. The result of this is that the party will be able to pick up just about anything and everything. Once these things get picked up, it is very easy to lose it all in the ambiguous-volume "pack" aka your inventory sheet. Because so many things are in your inventory, nobody can remember most of the stuff in their inventory. This partly contributes to why Players very rarely use consumables. It is partly because they are thinking "maybe I can use it later." However, most of the time it is simply because they forget that the item is in the inventory at all. Stuff would be better, in that it would actually get used, if Characters could carry fewer total things. Pathfinder 2e has a better system with "Bulk" as opposed simply to "Weight" as a system for measuring things. 5+Strength Bulk makes a decent amount of sense considering the power-level of that system.

Object/Weight Value Nerfing: A good example of this is lantern oil. Lantern oil, when ignited, deals 5 fire damage. It can also be applied to a 5-foot square. However, it weighs 1 pound. This means that an average strength character can carry 150 vials of lantern oil (and buy that much oil for a measly 15 GP). Think about it for a moment. Hint: a skeleton has 10 strength. That is 750 points of damage per 15gp if you ignite the skeleton at once. Right?

Almost certainly not (and probably for good reason). As far as I can tell, more oil would not really increase the damage. The closest thing I can find that might be comparable is "Wading through a lava stream" on page 249 of the DMG. 10d10 at the very most, but this table would almost certainly resolve in a lot less. This situation would be entirely up to the GM to figure out because the game does not account for more than a single vial of oil igniting at once.

Alternatively, one could look at the table for explosives (even though lantern oil does not really explode). For a keg of gunpowder, it deals 7d6 explosive damage; but wait there's less! You can make a DC 12 Dex Save to take 1/2 this. How much is a keg of gunpowder? Well I did the math, and according to Wikipedia, it is 12.34 liters of black powder. I cannot stress enough how much black powder that is.

To get a reference of how much black powder that really is, I did some digging. Consider a cooking pan FULL of black powder (happy thanksgiving).

That is a total of 438.5 in3 of volume. That equals about 7.2 liters of black powder. So take a full pan and 2/3 a pan of black powder and put it right next to you. It is very hard to determine weight from this, to be honest. However, I have this handy dandy table of seed-weights which give us a reference for the density of similar objects.

At the higher end of weight, and I believe this is more accurate considering the dimensions of gunpowder, we end up with about 4.6 kilograms of gunpowder (converting the weight of a cubic foot of rapeseed into 12.34 liters of gunpowder and then converting to kilograms because the next calculator asks for kg). Using this calculation, we get a blast wave of 850 feet. Now, exactly what that means is a bit unclear to me, but we do know that, because the wave is in 3 dimensions, that the effect of the blast wave is cubically more devastating the closer you are to the explosion. At the maximum distance, you would probably be pretty safe. However, this is an explosion that extends 850 feet. Like, holy shit. That's a lot of explosion. How is anyone making a Dex Check at the epicenter? Where are you going? Can you jump 850 feet away from the explosion at once? No. A more accurate way to portray this would be in ranges from the explosion with flat damage, similar to lantern oil. So at the center it does like, idk, 1,000 damage. The Cube root of 850 is about 9.5 feet, so let's say 10 feet (2 squares) is the blast epicenter. There is an ideal math calculation to resolve how much damage is dealt at each 10-foot distance away from the epicenter (no matter what the epicenter damage is), but I'm not immediately able to figure it out, and it is also not entirely the point. The larger point here is that explosions, a very real thing that kills people pretty well, do not do an amount of damage that makes any sense. Also, explosions do not deal "fire" damage. They would deal Thunder damage similar to Thunderwave. It's all about pressure.

Easy inclusion of fall damage. A reasonably high level Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, or Paladin can fall from orbit and be totally fine, RaW. This is at theoretical max damage, but a lower roll than average will result in some pretty silly outcomes/survival rate. 20d6 damage, without modifiers, is really not that much damage. That's an average of 70 damage. You have pretty good odds of living maximum fall damage at level 9 for Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins (assuming 14 or more Constitution) and level 8 as a Barbarian (assuming 14 or more Constitution). This matters because it won't be possible to cheese powerful enemies by pushing them off of things, and it won't be as easy for powerful monsters (the DM) to cheese-kill a PC by throwing them off of something. One could argue that this is a good thing because it makes the game more fair and in-line with developer intentions. I argue, instead, that the developers' intentions are dumb and result in Players not taking advantage of terrain and objects in the environment because it is strictly worse than the alternative (using your character's paper buttons).

2: Stuff sucks compared to magic:

Let's look at weapons: Longbows deal 1d8 damage with 150/600 range. Each longbow costs 50gp. They also have ammunition. If you wanted to arm a platoon of guards with longbows in order to shoot down flying creatures, that will cost a small fortune.

Compare that to the spell fire bolt. 1d10 fire damage, 120 range. Does not cost any money to prepare, does not have ammunition. If you want to hire out a bunch of amateur wizards from the wizard's college, it will be much cheaper and more effective than hiring guards. Now, you might say, "hey Jacob, hiring out wizards is harder than hiring out guards. Also, guards can wear armor and wizards can't." Is that true, though? Is that really true, though? Any human can pick two wizard cantrips and a 1st level spell as a bonus feat, RaW. Yes, they could also pick Weapon Master to be proficient in Longbows (and three other weapons, hot dog!). But like, really? Imagine hiring a fleet of of Level 0 humans who all picked magic initiate for their feat. All of them have fire bolt, and they all get to pick an additional cantrip AND a unique first level spell. Compare that to Level 0 guards with a long bow, a shield and medium armor, and a sword or some other weapon. Which is better? Which is cheaper to field? The magic initiates are better, pretty obviously.

Another counterargument might be that not ALL humans can get a bonus feat, just ADVENTURER HUMANS and well shit--we have arrived at magical people being better than normal people. Cool. Your theoretical argument is now my argument. Sucks to be a normal person, I guess.

Compare the keg of dynamite to the spell, fireball. 8d6 damage, save based on DC of caster (almost certainly better than 12). Costs no money, requires no carry, no chance of premature detonation, and the character can likely cast this multiple times.

Compare lightning to call lightning: natural lighting does 2d10 damage? What the hell? Like, huh? Call lightning does 3d10 damage (with a save) and 4d10 if there is a natural storm. How is real lightning less than this? Again, this is an example of reality being fundamentally weaker than magic despite the fact that magic can be used basically any time while natural lightning will only happen in specific cases. Why plan around using natural lightning when you can oonga-boonga call lightning. Also, this keeps happening with concentration turn after turn after turn. You probably have someone that can cast it. Your party has a moon druid in it. Also, because call lightning keeps casting, it is one of the few spells that are actually worth upcasting.

But what about magic items? Yes, in my opinion, magic items have favored martial characters in every edition of D&D over casters. There is a range to this, of course, but giving a character that is intended to function without spell-like effects magical options is generally better than giving casters items with spell-like effects. The magic items are strictly competing with what the caster can normally do instead of enhancing the features of the martial characters.

HOWEVER

Magic weapons providing baselines + to hit and damage are pretty lame because of bounded accuracy and unbounded HP in Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014 & 2024). Also, magic weapons are funneled by the character's number of hands, and this is untrue in earlier editions of the game. In AD&D, it is assumed that characters WILL have men at arms to carry all the other magic items that the character cannot use at once. This is enhanced, in my opinion, in 2nd Edition because of weapon proficiencies. A -2 to hit (for warriors) with weapons they are not proficient with is not a major penalty in practice, however it still incentivizes the player to spread out the loot that does not directly work with their character to their henchman, followers, and hirelings. Classes are balanced around getting followers, and Charisma is a good ability score because it determines how efficiently you can use magic items via your access to henchmen. For example: Fighters get men at arms at level 9, but Paladins do not. However, Paladins have to have at least 17 Charisma, meaning that they have a maximum of 10 henchmen at 17 CHA. Fighters get more dudes of lower power level (followers), but the Paladin inherently has access to more powerful allies (henchmen). This provides an interesting balance of managing magic item efficiency when navigating problems. It is not uncommon in AD&D to pick units for a mission solely because of the combination of which magic items the Players have assigned their various followers and henchmen. Notably, Wizards do not get any followers. All this nuance is lost in post TSR D&D, and this means that magic items are nerfed compared to spellcasting because players have less access to using the magic items that they have collected. In other words, getting "another" +1 longsword is awesome in TSR D&D, all the time, because hey that is a guy in your posse that just got substantially better then they were before. A +1 longsword is pretty useless to a WotC D&D character at all but the lowest levels of play.

Additionally, because martials inherently take better advantage of magic items than casters, attunement uniquely effects martials more than casters. In pre-attunement systems, each piece of armor was interchangeable, meaning that a warrior (who can wear armor) can equip a large number magic items (boots, greaves, cuisse, gauntlet, helmet, cuirass, etc.) as well as their weapon and shield. This means at medium and higher levels, martial characters are much more diverse and powerful than they would appear simply by reading the class description. Additionally, each of their followers and henchmen could be decked out like this to varying degrees. This means that martials: a) benefit more from magical equipment than casters per item and b) can equip more magical items than casters (per character and per character-posse). In Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014 and 2024), martials are throttled to the same level as casters, but casters are not throttled to the same level as martials.

Also, AD&D is more of a Rogue-like game because a huge amount of character advancement is dictated by whatever junk the characters find by getting loot. People like Rogue-likes, right? Oh, you want an optimal build? Well then, you'd better go into that dungeon, idiot, and pray you get what you want. Or, you know. Be more flexible and be happy with what you get.

Back to weapons. Spells, by their nature, have all sorts of effects and interactions that weapons and armor cannot replicate. This is not an inherent problem, however it makes it far more clear how lame weapons are in contrast. What does a longsword do: 1d8/1d10 slashing damage (add strength to damage). Cool.

"BUT WAIT," you might say. "HARK, FOR WotC HATH ADD'TH WEAPON MASTERY!"

Toil, Naive. For 2024 Weapon Mastery is but an asinine attempt to reference the majesty that is AD&D 2nd Attack Options (but poorly).

Okay; Cleave, Graze, and Nick have no direct alternative, but those are just shit compared the standard AD&D 2nd offerings of more attacks and more to-hit. You know what's better than doing damage on a miss? Doing damage on a hit. You know what's better than attacking another creature within 5 feet of you hit (no ability modifier lmao)? Attacking again (no drawback, also you have like 120 yards of movement--base). You know what's better than attacking using a bonus action? Attacking again (no drawback) (and initiative works off of smaller weapons, so that is the reason to use "light weapons.") Also you can kick whenever you want as part of your attack action, and there is nothing stopping you from wearing spiked boots if you want. These are also all debatably covered by Heroic Fray, which gives PCs that are substantially higher levels than their foes a whole bunch more attacks, allowing medium-level martials to carve their way through weak enemies without much issue (speeding up gameplay).

Push: This can be accomplished either through Pull/Trip or overbear. Lots of weapons can attempt a Pull/Trip, and one or several creatures can attempt an overbear. You can also push the enemy like normally, which is surprisingly not defined in AD&D 2nd. As mentioned previously, the opportunity to engage with terrain means that automatically succeeding a push in Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2024) is fundamentally not as good as just pushing a paper button in all but the most specific of cases, in which case you could just, you know, push them.

Sap: In AD&D 2nd, Sap is a bit of a silly rule in execution, but it does allow PCs to just straight up KO enemies in one shot, completely bypassing their HP. All weapons with a pummel can attempt a Sap. It's actually great for Thieves in particular because, as per the math of the Sap, you are much more likely to succeed a sneak-attack Sap than you are to get a kill against most enemies with the game's admittedly shit backstab rules. The best users of Sap, however, are Rangers.

Slow: This can be accomplished with the much more adaptable Called Shot by pinning enemies in place (rather than just slow them down). The Called Shot also allows Characters to convert their to-hit advantage into auto-crits (similar in practice to the Great Weapon Master feat) that can just kill or severely cripple enemies immediately.

Topple: Again, Trip/Overbear (and now Unhorse if the situation calls for it) will also accomplish this without being locked to a particular weapon.

Vex: Called Shot accomplishes this but better (because it works on THAT round instead of next round, and Critical Hits are usually much better in AD&D 2nd), but the idea of outskilling the opponent to get an edge can also be applied to Disarm (both on your turn AND on the enemies turn), Trap, Trap/Break, etc. An example of a Called Shot Vex that is in spirit of the concept and not the limited execution of the game is the Character can use a Called shot to cut off the armor piece of an enemy with the intention of forcing a Morale Check (which they could fail and then flee, thus circumventing all their HP AND not kill them if you want to say, follow them or question them, etc.).

Weapon Mastery, while it seems to be a buff to weapons, is actually a nerf to martials in general because it takes potential actions out of the creative commons of play and isolates them to specific weapons that only certain characters can take advantage of. It is also more complicated, weirdly enough, because now each weapon has unique things to keep track of. These Weapon Mastery features should have just been a part of actions that anyone can do, by and large. I'm not here to balance their game, so I will not give them suggestions of what I would do.

I want to pivot here to money: the stuff that determines stuff. Isn't money kind of ass in Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014 and 2024)? Like, what are you supposed to do with money? The answer is pretty funny: make magic items. LMAO. So, let me get this right: you want me to use the money I collect and turn it into items that I cannot take full advantage of? Epic. What a great game.

In a real game (AD&D), money is the critical resource that drives the game forward. Each Character basically becomes a feudal lord, except they got to their position by amassing treasure instead of the usual way of conquering land and possessing dominion. This means that an AD&D character has to use gold to do basically everything that a conventional feudal lord does with taxes. Need farmland developed? Gold. Need food for men at arms? Gold. Need a castle built? Gold. Need iron to manufacture weapons, armors, and tools? Gold. Need the forest cleared to get wood to build siege equipment? Gold. How do you get gold? By going into dungeons! Why do you need gold? To go inti bigger and deeper dungeons! Gameplay loop justified, and gold is the central mechanic that drives it. In AD&D, EXP was determined by how much Gold the characters get. Gold is the advancement system and a resource to spend on advancing more. Gary wants you to get gold. Gary want you to go into the dungeon.

In 5e, money is just kind of there. Like carrying capacity, it is a vestigial organ growing out of Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014 and 2024) that serves little to no purpose in gameplay. What are you going to do with gold? Buy stuff? Why would you have stuff when you can just use magic? The best thing to do with gold is to turn it into scrolls so that Casters can cast even more spells. For some reason (I know why), WotC has instructed DMs to be stingy with their treasure allowance to PCs. So the entire gameplay loop built into dungeons and dragons is severed. What do they replace it with? Apparently with narrative gameplay.

EXP? Get rid of it: level by story beats.

Gold? Ignore it: focus on story beats.

Magic Items? Limit it: the magic items are the story beats we made along the way.

And what does WotC give us in exchange for all these material losses? How do they better accommodate storytelling in their mechanics? No, seriously. How? How is 5e any better than any other edition of D&D (besides 4e in this case) at facilitating narrative gameplay? It's not. I would argue that older games actually had MORE mechanics for this being morale, reaction, etc. Narrative gameplay is not the structural focus of the game.

Casting spells and mashing your character's paper buttons is the focus of the game. That's it. It is an incredibly shallow experience that strips players of meaningful access to creativity and gives them a repetitive, WoW-inspired slog-fest in its place. Playing Hasbro's: Wizards of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014 and 2024) at the table feels identical to that World of Warcraft South Park episode.

soulless.

Previous Villain Arc:

Villain Arc 6:

Next Villain Arc:

[blackjackkent]

OK, I've never had to fight Gerringothe before so this is scary. She's kind of terrifying.

She has roughly 600 health; the vast majority of it comes from the six pieces of armor she is wearing:

Gee, game, that's a good question.

The fight opens in a very frightening manner, because Gerringothe has an attack which does damage proportional to the amount of gold the target is carrying - and Rakha has all our party's gold at the moment.

Holy shit. (I believe by 5e rules Rakha should be straight up DEAD dead given this much damage, but the game is merciful and just downs her instead.)

The bright side here is that no one else in the party can be hurt by this attack at all, although I don't expect it's the only thing in Lady G's arsenal.

The secret to this fight appears to be those weird talking skulls scattered around the place, as killing each of them removes one piece of Gerringothe's armor. They're vulnerable to psychic damage, which Lae'zel's sword does, and which Minthara can do with Wrathful Smite, so we're not out of options here.

------

AFTER ACTION REPORT:

This actually didn't go as badly as I thought it was going to.

It didn't go WELL, mind you. I had Lae'zel help Rakha back up with Action Surge and Rakha immediately got downed again by Jealous Avarice on the next turn, so it seemed reasonable to assume she just didn't get to participate in this fight. (I'm sure her companions were thrilled that she basically picked this fight and then napped through it. XD )

THe thing that I was most worried about was the fact that the skulls were all scattered around the building and would have to be chased down, but they helpfully converged on the group immediately which made it easier for Lae'zel and Minthara to clean them up.

Gerringothe started looking real goofy as all her pieces came off:

Reminds me of the "peeled statues" in The Forgotten City.

Her final form, after all of the skulls were gone, looks like this and has six hit points:

Which Rakha promptly finished off by beating her with her offhand staff.

At this point, several "Combustible Coin" bombs that Gerringothe had sent went off, which promptly downed Rakha again. She fell over with a weird sighing noise like it was honestly just the biggest drag on her day at this point.

But hey, at least everyone survived!

-----

Rakha lays face down next to Gerringothe's fallen body, barely breathing. The creature did, after all, have blood, and the scent of it fills her with the beast's gleeful eagerness - but she can barely move, let alone relish the victory.

She feels a gentle hand on her shoulder. Wyll is crouched at her side, pulling her to her feet. For a moment she allows herself to lean heavily into him.

"You're all right..." he murmurs. "We got her."

She doesn't answer, but stays there for a moment, her cheek resting against the top of his head, carefully between the horns. Then she straightens up and turns away. "We should keep moving. This isn't the place we need."

[tarithenurse]

I see fire - 20

Fandom: D&D 5E/homebrew campaign. Word count: 2638. Contents: Arrivals, curiosity, discoveries. A/N: Any questions are welcome. Please comment and like and reblog. Let me know if you want a tag. Divider by @firefly-graphics

XX

Thankfully, they can get moving again the next day. Led by Claude under a cloudy sky, the group makes quick pace thanks to changing of horses now and then and Morella’s shape shifting too – the men still find it weird but they are quick to appreciate the practicality of it.

By the late afternoon they all pass through an invisible barrier, impossible to feel or smell but evident because suddenly the landscape before them changes including the appearance of a tower on the horizon. Tall and foreboding with a light on the top that flickers between purples and blues. Taking a step back, the trio sees it disappear once more only to be revealed again when they cross an unseen threshold.

“How does it work? It’s illusion magic, right?” Zilvra asks.

“Some sort of illusion dome but...” Claude explains, “we can’t quite figure it out what with the grand scale of it.”

“Gavin found this?” Morella gapes. “How?”

The leader smiles. “He was exploring and came across it quite by accident.” Then his smile fades. “Gavin...don’t expect to see much of him. He’s not doing well and requires rest.”

Concerned although they hardly know the man, the trio asks what ails him. “Can we do anything to help?”

“Sadly, no...but thank you.” Claude sighs and a glance over at Harris shows how worried he is too. “He was granted the use of the Eye but only by making a deal for it. Each time he uses it, it takes of his life.”

“What?”

“He’d trained with the shaman who had it, mastering the magic of lightning. The shaman offered him the Eye, warning him of the cost but Gavin decided it was worth it although he eventually would lose himself.”

With that, the conversation ends as Claude spurs his horse on ahead, leaving the walking trio behind.

The older and grander trees stop, making room for saplings and tombstones of indeterminable but ancient date. For close to two hours, the group makes way between the graves, giving the trio plenty of time to study them which reveals that the still barely visible engravings aren’t in common or any other language they know although it is familiar to Zilvra.

“It’s a form of Undercommon. I recognize it from my mother’s work,” she explains.

Harris nods. “But old.”

“Well can’t you read it, then?” Morella asks the drow.

“We only learn Elvish and Common in basic school,” she admits with annoyance at the system, “for me to learn Undercommon I’d have to go to university.”

Eventually, the seemingly endless rows of gravestones come to an end near the foot of the tower which stands near the shore of a lake. The light shining from atop is visible now as a constant burning flame which serves less to illuminate in the early evening hours and more as a symbol of the people who have made this place their home.

“Welcome to the Masons’ Alliance Hideout,” Claude says, making a grand gesture with the hand to encompass both old and new elements in the area.

Several barracks have been erected and out on the lake are a lot of ships and boats, all of different make and size but sort of gathered around one central ship that’s bigger than the rest – and more are being built. Many are battle ships but Claude admits that it’s not for naval warfare but rather to form a blockade.

“The plan is to block the Stouvanian access to Welles which holds much of the farmland and the still functional mines,” Claude explains. “We’ll have to destroy bridges but also physically block for the passage of ships and that will disrupt the iron deliveries further.”

Most of the buildings the Masons have made here are wooden but there are some with stone foundations too. They are very different in make from the tower which is built in an architectural style that Zilvra and the others never have seen before. But it must be old because it’s weathered and mosses and ivies are trying to claim the base of it.

Claude barks out a few orders and soon the cart is being off loaded and Elmer’s body carried away.

“Ooh!” Morella squeaks.

Somehow in the busy mingling of people, the big guy has managed to sidle his way over to the eladrin and is now petting her on the head – but not for long as Claude tells him to quit it before guiding the guy away.

”Glad you’re here,” Harris voice catches their attention, “welcome...to the Masons’ home.”

“What’s with the big guy?” Morella asks bluntly.

Their friend seems worried as he looks after the retreating figure. “I’m not entirely sure, Claude is the one who really knows him but it’s some sort of brain damage. Can’t talk, really. Acts a bit like a puppet but rather specific about who he gets orders from.” There’s a sigh. “Don’t underestimate him though...he once killed a guy by petting him. Don’t let him pet you.”

The trio exchange glances, wondering how close they might have gotten already.

“No petting...right.”

Looking up, Zilvra can barely see the flame atop the tower. There’s something arcane in its nature and it reminds her...suddenly she remembers: in the testing facility that fateful day when she and Filandrin got caught, there had been a holding cell – nothing more than a cage really – but instead of trusting in the bars, there had also been a low flickering fire. It had been redder in its hue but still eerily similar in nature to what she now sees on top of this tall building.

“Harris,” Anvindr is saying, “I can see the arcane field around the tower and uhm...the dome is cracking?”

Zilvra sees the new figure before he joins the conversation.

“Ah the illusion magic?” he says without preamble.

He’s a neat guy with a greying ponytail that used to be blond and maybe once sported more volume too. Dressed differently from the Masons and considerably less muscular he could be someone who had supported his life through books or at least not physical labour.

“Mister Reed?” Anvindr asks.

“Goodness, no,” the man smiles, pointedly ignoring Harris’ laugh, “my name’s Gideon.”

The Mason pats Gideon on the shoulder. “He’s our residence magician.”

“We’ve tried to open the door but the abjuration magic that holds it sealed is strong,” he explains, distractedly toying with his sleeve.

“Can we try?” Morella immediately asks, surprisingly backed up by Anvindr.

It doesn’t take them long to get Claude and Harris to agree with the idea. Standing back and watching her friends is Zilvra who is more intrigued by the flame atop. Still, though, she keeps half an eye on her friends’ effort.

The door is solid cork, it seems like. No handles or hinges it’s as though it has been pressed into the frame. Keen on getting in, Morella transforms into an ant and tries to squeeze through any gap available but to no avail...what she does discover, however, is a steady stream of air being sucked in past the microscopic seams around the door. But there is a seam. Clever as always, Anvindr procures his pitons and starts to insert them all the way around, hammering them in slowly but thoroughly and when he’s halfway, there is a steady sound of air whistling through the increasing gap.

Stepping back, Zilvra watches the flame. “Has it ever been different? More red?” she asks no one in particular.

“No. Why?” Claude joins her.

“I’ve seen something similar once...not on a tower, of course, but to keep prisoners in.”

There’s a second’s delay before Anvindr stops the hammering and Claude turns to regard the drow.

“Are you saying it’s a prison?” the Masons’ leader demands.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s just...the way it moves and such...the colour was slightly different but it does remind me of it.”

“Want us to stop?” Anvindr checks.

Claude deliberates, hand on the chin as he looks at the tower as if he could wrest an answer from it. He can’t, though, and eventually he is the one to make the decision to carry on – curiosity winning.

A few more pitons driven deep is all it takes before the door lets go with whoop and a pop, falling outwards and welcoming in fresh air.

“Oh!” Zilvra points to the top where the flame has turned blue and shrunk.

The others stay by the door opening, peering in, hands on their weapons as if ready for an assault by a long imprisoned foe. But nothing except musty air comes out. Joining them, the drow also sees that the base of the tower is just the entrance and a spiral staircase leading up into the darkness.

Carefully, the trio enter, noting how they are the first to disturb the thick layer of dust. Up and up, checking for traps as they go but finding none, the trio continues until they reach a door almost at the very top. Opening that one easily, they take in the view of a simple room with a large circle with sigils around it.

“I’ve seen something like this,” Morella startles her friends, “when I left the Fey Wild...someone placed me in a circle like this before activating it at sending me off to an in-between sort of place.”

“Like this?”

“Well...this one is bigger so maybe it can send more people at once?”

There is nothing else than the circle, made of metal inlay in the stone floor, so the trio dares to step closer even as anything metallic they carry begins to pull towards the circle – not uncontrollably so, but enough to tug gently.

Claude and Gideon arrive just then, wanting to know what is going on and soon equally intrigued by the circle and its implications.

“We could toss something in,” Claude suggests, echoing the secret want of the trio.

Zilvra rummages through her stuff, finding a glowstone on a stick from the mine in Heartwell Shire.

“Ready?”

Everyone agrees, watching it sail through the air and land with a clatter and to no effect on the floor in the circle. Well...the stone begins to glow, but that’s it. It stays.

“Perhaps it has to be something living to be transported?” Anvindr suggests.

“Or of a different material.” Morella pulls out a coin.

Laying it outside the circle, it slowly slides over the floor towards the etched lines but before it gets that far she plucks it up again and lobs it into the circle proper where it lands heavily without rolling about.

It’s uncertain what comes first, the change in the air or the glow from the inscriptions and lines on the floor. Either way, even as the five people turn to exit the room as a safety precaution, the runes and the entire design glows bright and the door closes. The pull of the magnetism increases, forcing them all to hold on to their belongings as they stand, trapped.

Thankfully, it’s only for a while: the magnetism fades away as quickly as it had escalated and the door opens once more. But now there also is a large sphere within the circle, seemingly holding nothing but a dark void.

“Everyone fine?” Claude checks, earning affirmations all around.

Calling upon her magic, Zilvra sends in orbs of Dancing Light to illuminate the darkness in the sphere but as soon as they enter, she can feel the magic fading as the lights are snuffed.

Anvindr, working from the theory that it might be an anti-magic sphere, lights a torch and pokes it in...but it too is snuffed.

“Wait!” Morella suddenly says, eyes fixed on the orb.

“I saw it too,” Zilvra warns. “Out!”

On the way through the door opening, the two females explain that they’d seen something move, something that also was round but clearly coming closer. Through the door, the pull it almost fully closed, just leaving a slight gap big enough to hear what’s going on inside the room.

“So, something round?” Claude asks.

“Yes and -” Morella is about to explain when they hear a voice from the room they’ve just abandoned.

None of them understand what is being said but at least Zilvra recognizes it as Undercommon, a language spoken in the Underdark and taught as an elective during the higher educations as opposed to Common and Elvish which are mandatory in basic school.

Interestingly, the voice calling out sounds confused rather than aggressive.

Cracking the door open a smidgen further, Zilvra looks in and sees a being that very much resembles a floating orb with a big mouth and eye at the centre and many tentacles with smaller eyes at the centre of it. She has no clue what it is and neither do the others as she describes it.

Looking back in, she sees how the creature is feeling the edges of the sphere it’s in, apparently unable to pass through the barrier.

Wiggling the door a bit, elicits a clear response even when its “back” was turned, meaning that all the little eyes are just as important as the big eye. Then the trio try speaking to it but they are met with confusion and questioning sounds until Anvindr tries with Gith, a language spoken by a different race from another plane of existence, and while the eyed orb does not respond verbally in the same language, a means of communication is established through yes and no questions where the negative or positive answer is given through a blink or two.

“Are you trapped?” Anvindr asks for the group, earning a positive answer – which for the being probably is negative but let that be what it is.

“Have you been trapped for long?”

Another double blink, meaning yes, and it flails its tentacles excitedly.

Warily, the entire group moves inside the room once more but all that happens is a seemingly happy bounce from the being when it can see them.

“Very long?”

Yes. Through a lot of trial and error they manage to establish that it at least has been 700 years.

“Who trapped you...oh never mind,” Anvindr pauses to rephrase the question but notices that all tentacles are pointing towards Zilvra. “Drow trapped you?”

Yes.

Anvindr has been translating back and forth and now he repeats Zilvra’s promise that she knew nothing of it and is sorry it has been trapped for so long. It seems to accept the statement.

“But...my kin doesn’t belong to these lands,” Zilvra points out although the memory of the graves beyond the tower is fresh in her mind. The writing on them had been eerily similar to Undercommon.

“Are you alone?”

Again the double blink for yes.

“Ask him about the glowstick,” Morella suggests, apparently having decided that the entity is a male of some sort.

Anvindr does and for a moment the being disappears out of view beneath where the floor should be only to return moments later with the stick balanced in its tentacles and a satisfied grin on its face. It can’t pass the stick through when it tries though, but Anvindr can pass an unlit torch in, balance the glowstone stick on it and get it out that way.

“Weird,” Zilvra mumbles, but gladly accepts her stick where the stone is glowing softly now it’s out of the orb once more.

“We have to go,” Anvindr explains, causing the being to droop with its tentacles, “but we’ll be back and maybe we can figure out how to free you.”

That makes it very excited, causing it to vibrate almost and smiles broadly (which shows a set of very sharp teeth).

On the way out, Claude is sure that the door is closed properly and as soon as they all have exited the tower, he orders the cork-door put back in place.

[shenanigans-and-imagines]

Thoughts on a tav from our world with at least some working knowledge of what’s going on? (Can be yourself or an OC)

I can’t speak for other people, so I will answer this as myself; I wouldn’t last five minutes.

First of all, pure stats wise, I would be a commoner. So that means 10s in everything and, like, 4hp. I’m dead before we even start.

If, however, we’re going with the idea I’m starting with point by stats, I’m not what anyone would call an “optimal build”. I’d be starting human. Idk what the Baldur’s Gate rules are for that, but for D&D 5e that means I magically know a different language which is wild because I can barely understand my own and +1 in all stats. So, let’s be generous and say my staring stats are: str 14, dex 9, con 13, int 15, wis 13, chr 15.

Not bad, but not great either and considering I don’t have magic powers, a terrible build for any of the martial classes. Then of course I’d have to deal with the ramifications of being a real person who must suddenly abide by video game logic and the knowledge that nobody around me is really real. So that is some existential horror and I just don’t have the mental capacity to deal with.

That’s of course assuming I’d have character stats at all.

If we’re skipping that and treating it like I genuinely got teleported to a different dimension and all the characters are really, real and I’m not “in the game” as it were, then we’re again faced with the existential horror that every story we’ve ever told is likely playing out in their own reality. But I’d be too dead from the opening to really worry about that for long.

I could go on, but I think you get my point. It’s gonna be a bad time all around.

[therockymarrow]

Into the Mossley Gardens - General Layout

Hello, this is part 2 of the Into the Mossley Gardens 5e campaign I'm currently drafting up. It will go over sections of the gardens, and subcategorize the areas to then go more in-depth in later posts. Sorry this is such a weird way to format it. I'm kind of just going with how my brain works. When it's all completed I'll try assembling a pdf in a more book-ish layout.

See the main post here, or other sections listed at the bottom of the post.

First, let's start with a basic map of the garden, I'm drawing it in dungeon scrawl to start, but would like to replace it with an in-game, more fleshed out illustration to give my players at the table. I'll add it here if I ever have time to sketch it out. The areas will be numbered with their location on the map:

Here is a breakdown of each section of the Garden's. Feel free to play with the dimensions, and what you think should be there. For example - I don't really think every area needs to be so equally sized as it looks on the map. In hindsight I'd also like to add at least one building into the community garden's zone. I tried to consolidate what each area is, but you can click the name of each zone to further explore it as they become avaible.

Sections: 1. Main Gate - Just barely inside the main entrance to the gardens, this functions as the main walkway through the grounds and holds 2 statues of the properties previous owners - Vinoth and Juniper Mossley. These statues are not Stone Cursed, but feel free to add a spell like Magic Mouth to add spice or clarify lore. Such as the characters finding a code-phrase that will unlock information from the statues. Otherwise this area can act as a base-camp until characters further explore the grounds. They can also meet up with Hyacinth (see: NPCS) here, before he locks them in.

2. Front Garden/Exhibition Zone - To the right of the main path is a garden littered with various flowering plants, trees, and miscellaneous foliage. A simple-enough walking trail, statues look down at visitors from beside the path. Roll 1+1D4 to determine how many of these statues are Stone Cursed* (see: Combat Stats/Monsters). If you're characters are into herbology and want to forage from the plants, have them roll either a Nature or Survival check. 1-5: 1 plant that they think are safe to consume. 6-10: 3 plants that they think are safe. 11-15: 3 plants and they are sure of it's purpose. 16-20: 5 plants and they are sure of it's purpose. I would then use a table (like this or your own) to determine what plants they can identify. Have them roll a 1D4 for how much of each plant they able to collect. If I think of it maybe I'll draft one to put below.

3. Community Cultivation Center (Community Garden) - This are is a gated field, further divided by smaller fences. Each section contains a name plaque, as well as a list of the plants being grown there. Some plaques also contain a serial number pertaining to a filed experiment of the college's lab. Still others contain family's names, simply growing fruits, vegetables or patches of flowers. An off building sits on the far side of the field, large windows and a small greenhouse are attached to the old brick structure. Scarecrows are propped up idly along the gates and within the field, consider making one or two living scarecrows if you'd prefer an action oriented encounter here.

4. Oldtown Cemetery - As the name implies, this is one-of if not the oldest cemetery in the city of Mosswood. Not particularly large, it is full of old headstones, benches and wistful trees. a few small mausoleums are held here, as well as one of considerably larger size towards the back of the property.

5. Hedge Maze - A hedge maze designed simply for the fun of visitors to the gardens. Relatively easy to pass through, the other side holds an arena for students to practice their spell craft as well as give presentations for guests. 1D4 caged Cockatrice (or another creature of your preference) have gotten out of containment since the grounds were closed and now prowl this area.

6. The Mossley Estate - The estate proper. This large building casts a considerable shadow on the property. Built in a gothic style it is decorated in pointed archways, flying buttresses and sharp spires. Large cold looking stones make up it's body. The structure is an stable as it is imposing. Thin windows look out over the property like narrowed eyes gazing down at you. Players can feel a general sense of unease when examining at the building for to long.

7. The Atrium and Greenhouse - The newest structure to be added to the gardens, the atrium and greenhouse encapsulate the interior gardens. Similar to the front gardens this area contains paths stretching through it, with loops around various plants and displays. a pond is held at it's center. More tropical and seasonal plants can be found here than outside on the grounds. However, this is also where more dangerous plants are located. So if your players have wanted to fight a Needle Blight, Awakened Tree, Myconid, or even a Shambling Mound now is your chance. These creatures may have become present in the unsupervised gardens.

*Contains Homebrew elements. How I use them may not accurately reflect how they're intended in DND cannon.

Main Post │NPCs │Antagonist(s)│Combat Stats/Monsters │Loot

Find more quests/idea on my page here

[lancer-elvis]

Woah mama could you IMAGINE, no seriously IMAGINE, reducing the beautiful intricacies of Lancer combat, to the absolute BS of a DnD 5e turn???

That is, like, the first selling point I make for Lancer "None of your turns will ever be the same." Even if you build your mech to do one thing, even if it only has one super heavy gun, you definitely won't just be firing it every turn. Because the combat is sit-rep based, and you have a team, and you'll have to constantly adjust to the changing battlefield.

And as you level up, it's not just an increase in numbers, not just one ability you saw coming as soon as you made the character. It's an opportunity to rework your whole damn build, and it gives you MORE OPTIONS. First and foremost, leveling up gives you a horizontal increase in power, lets you be more different, more unique, more YOU.

Unlike 5e, where unless you're a spellcaster, each turn will play out roughly the same. Unlike 5e, where you are almost expected to have your level 1-20 progression all planned out. Unlike 5e, whose progression is almost purely linear, and taking the unique customisation options means you miss out on direct power upgrades and lag behind. Unlike 5e, which does everything it can to simplify you.

Ok no, this was a rant post, but I have a point to make

I would rather start someone new to TTRPGs on Lancer than 5e. You heard me.

And I have. The rules are hard, yes. There's a lot more of them, and they all struggle through the first combat of Solstice Rain. But by the time they make it to the first boss, they are a TEAM. By their second encounter, every group I had knew how to fight together. They had figured out, without my input, that this was a game about synergy. They strategised, they planned their turns, and they won.

And they felt like mech pilots. Many told me so afterwards. The rules made the characters come to life, literally. People who never played a TTRPG before began to RP with more confidence than I've seen in DnD players you've played for years. Because their sniper took a more cautious approach to combat, because they often ended up stealing kills, because they were the first one to get out of dodge when trouble called. So the player acted like that outside of combat too, developed a character from a sticky note with 'Mercenary' on it, to a cocky sly bastard who'd brag about all the battles they were in but would hide behind their big berserker friend as soon as they were called out.

The rules made the character. They gave the player a reference, a base to build off of. A unique base, one they built themselves from a variety of options. That base helped the player to come out of their shell. It got them immersed, then got them thinking. It got them to connect to the character.

And if they were playing DnD, all the rules would do is let them play a generic fighter. In DnD, all the uniqueness about a character has to be inserted by the player, and if that player is new, inexperienced, or just not comfortable enough with the concept yet, then that character will always and forever be a 'Mercenary' sticky note.

Don't get me wrong, it is the GMs responsibility to help those players. And I have. And they got better.

But I love that I don't have to do that in Lancer. That it's fine to let a player make some mercenary that Union picked up somewhere, barely any backstory, if at all. Because by the time they end their first mission, that character will already have built up so much depth, inside jokes with the team, little eccentricities, even goals.

This doesn't come from a place of laziness. It's just that I really enjoy seeing the comprehension dawning on their faces, the kind of "oh, so that's what it's all about" feeling. Understanding, belonging, enjoyment. The massive walls of text I suddenly start to receive in the middle of their night cause they had a new idea about the character they'd like to run by me. In a new 5e player, that can take months, a year even, in one case.

In Lancer? It takes 1 combat. Reddit can go fuck itself.

I think we may need to get rid of Reddit once and for all.

[its-avernus]

GET THAT AVERNUSSY

A blog documenting my foolish decision to run two Descent in to Avernus 5e games, concurrently! And the mistakes and wins along the way.

This blog will include spoilers for -

D&D 5E adventure - Balders Gate : Descent in to Avernus

Balders Gate 3

D&D homebrew campaign Fall of Elturel

໒(⊙ᴗ⊙)७✎▤—---—---—---—---—---—---—---—

I've always had a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew; getting overexcited, overestimating myself, working myself to burn out, and then either barely scraping through or crashing out completely. Would you believe it turned out I had ADHD? It's taken a lot of personal growth to pace myself when it comes to creative projects, to try and practice a bit of self control and not punish myself so harshly for failure. Only time will tell if this intro is foreshadowing.

I got in to D&D just before lockdown, as a lifetime looser nerd it's shocking it didn't happen sooner, and I've been playing with a group consistintly for a few years now. I myself have only run two one shot sessions of D&D/D&D adjacent games for my friends. My usual group, the Nat 1s (it's based on our group chat name), currently have an ongoing pathfinder game and season 2 of a homebrew 5E campaign on the horizon. It's a lot of fun and two games is more than enough really, but I had a hankering for more. A yearning. A NEED for some meaty, lore packed, Faerun based, canon complaint Dungeons and Dragons. I love making up fantasy worlds but I also love playing with pre-existing story and lore. I'm a fandom child at heart, raised on fanfic, and I've been farming plenty of dopamine from Balders Gate 3 recently. I floated the idea of running a good ol' Forgotten Realms game with a group of artist friends, who I'll call the Goblins (named after our art collective), but was clear that I didn't want to DM. I really wanted to be a player and I had some characters I was excited to play. That idea hung in the air for a bit, and I was pleased knowing I had put things in motion.

Then, one fateful day, I was scrolling through dndbeyond giddily looking for some good Fey'ri homebrew. I decided to check out the Adventures tab and the first one on the list was Balders Gate : Descent in to Avernus and the stars aligned! It was based where I wanted, full of meaty lore, AND is a sort of prequel to BG3! I got way too excited and almost imedietly posed the idea to the Nat 1s, I figured that if I was going to chose the campaign I really needed to be the Dungeon Master too. I was ready to buy the book and set it up to run at my house, we've finally painted the dining room so me and my partner have been looking to host things here. All but one were up for it (the one who couldn't was due to time constraints) which made four players. My mind was already whirling with ideas - I was going to put a monitor on the table to show art and backgrounds on for the mood, I was going to build some cool set pieces, it was going to be amazing! Then I remembered, I'd also talked to the Goblins about having a game, and I'd been really excited about it. After much soul searching and pacing, I decided that if I was going to be doing so much work for one campaign would it be that much morr work to run two campaigns? Right? It made fiscal sense if I was going to spend money on the book and DM material I should run it at least twice. I was not biting off more than I can chew at all, this was a smart well reasoned decision.

Four of the Goblins were in, and they've been really excited to start. With the Nat 1s one of them asked if their partner can come along, and she's really nice and I know she's been wanting to play D&D, so I said yes. I also invited my brother because we'd discussed playing together before but it had never happened. So I now had one group of four and another group of six.

As of starting this blog I have a session 0 (which will possibly roll in to session 1) with the Goblins next week. I'm not going to document everything happening in the sessions here, mostly the things I write and create for the campaigns.

⋆͛*͛ ͙͛ ⁑͛⋆͛*͛ ͙͛ ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊˚⋆͛*͛ ͙͛ ⁑͛⋆͛*͛ ͙͛—---—---—---—---

The groups -

The Goblins - session 0

Alex

B (instagram)

Slowedmountains (tumblr)

Kaiser (instagram)

Purapea (instagram)

The Nat 1s - (TBA)

Adam

Alex (different Alex)

Andy

Dan (my partner)

James

Lois

[tarithenurse]

I see fire - 10

Fandom: D&D 5E/homebrew campaign. Word count: 1714. Contents: All the tea and some gore. A/N: I know no one reads this story but I want to share something and this lives in my head anyways - so there you go. Any questions are welcome. Please comment and like and reblog. Let me know if you want a tag. Divider by @firefly-graphics

X

Reaching the Lion’s Pride Inn the small town, the trio is greeted right away by Malikka. Showing her the new tags, they are promised a real room and a decent meal.

“But before that,” Anvindr stops her as she’s about to bustle off, “maybe you can tell us where we can find Paul Davis?”

What was a slight frown becomes a bright smile at the simplicity of the question. “Oh, he’s always near the forge at the centre of town. Easy to find! You going there now?” The three odd friends nod. “Can you bring him some food then for me? He’s always so busy working and forgets to come in for lunch and dinner.”

Agreeing, the trio is soon laden with both food for the marshal and themselves as they head out the door, looking for a man with a visible emblem on his official armour.

The forge is just on the other side of the square and the man is indeed easy to pick out despite the dusk that’s already settling – thankfully the light from inside the building spills on to the people still milling about and Paul Davis does indeed look busy, barely taking time to stop what he’s doing before he greets the newcomers.

“What do you want?”

Morella holds up the tray. “Got food for you from Malikka.”

It seems to soften his mood and he comes over to take it and even manages to brush some stuff off the nearby crates for all of them to sit on so they can eat together while they talk. Decent food although not as refined as Zilvra is used to from home but it’s so different that it hardly matters anyways.

“So...adventurers,” marshal Paul Davis concludes quickly.

“Yeah,” Anvindr admits. “Tio sent us, told us to see you about some mines?”

Davis nods. “The Skan Mine. Northeast of here but not that far, really.” He sighs, a deep furrow between his brows. “Let me make it very clear, though. I just want you to investigate, don’t actually do anything apart from looking around. I’ve already sent one group off, a copper group...but they haven’t returned.” It seems apparent looking at his morose gaze that he doesn’t expect them to either and the trio nods silently. “It would be better if the damn place caved in.”

“That can be arranged,” Morella shrugs.

“Don’t take any risks but I’m fine with it if you have the chance.”

They all eat for a moment. The food is leagues better than last time they stopped by in Oldgarde.

“We also need to have a look at something about a tanner...” Zilvra gently mentions.

“The only ones are out by the Lockett Logging Camp. Southeast from the mine,” Davis explains.

He turns out to be a chatty man once he’s been fed and he gladly explains about the adventuring system – a fairly new concept that enlists people: they get food and lodging on their way and the state gets taken care of its problems. Davis finds it harsh, though, as there’s no training and minimal introduction, minimizing the chances of survival.

“It was introduced just after the Mason uprising and honestly since then, our forces have grown thin which means that the outer shires are left undefended,” he mutters, “and that’s why the adventurers are like an extended arm for the military.”

Zilvra frowns. “So if Stouvania gets back on track so to speak -” she ignores the uptick of a brow at the choice of words – “presumably the system will become superfluous.”

“Right,” Davis nods, “but it goes further than the military.”

“How so?” Anvindr wants to know.

The marshal sighs. “It’s also the trades and transportation of goods that’s affected – that’s where a lot of the adventurers come from, having given up on their old ways of life.” Scraping the plate with a piece of bread, he allows the silence to last for all of five seconds. “It’s not being handled well, the whole thing,” he grumbles, “and the insecurity is making the northern orcs bold.”

“We’ve heard about some orcs, yeah,” Morella fishes for more information.

“It’s not the first time Stouvania has faced them. We were at war with them. They even killed the previous king, father of our curr- well, you know what I mean.” Finally having to admit the plate is cleared of any morsel, Davis puts it aside and grabs the mug of beer. “Not that the new king didn’t try his best but it was a difficult situation. The war got won, the city rebuilt...and then the rug got pulled out from under the Masons, I say.”

“And so the uprising happened,” Anvindr deduces.

“Hm. Makes no sense to me why’d they’d kill the king. Now mind you-” he takes a deep swig - “I wasn’t there when it happened but for all intents and purposes he and the queen were on their side!”

Zilvra cocks her head. “The queen too?”

“Yeah! Until he got killed. She at least is clear in her intentions...”

Davis drains the beer, staring into the empty mug sadly but Anvindr is quick to get a new and better one for him, ensuring that the well of information doesn’t run dry.

“One of the nobles,” the marshal admits in a hush, “he’s...getting out of hand, so to say. Gotten real close with the queen and rumour has it he might be whispering a bit much in her ear, if you catch my meaning.”

The trio makes sure to look appalled. “Who?” one of them asks.

“Wayland. Writes her speeches, always by her side.” Then Davis explains how the queen, supposedly, has implemented many of the new laws since then, like roof-walking and the conscription of adventurers. “And you’d think they’d have something to go by what with the Clairvoyance Towers.”

“The what?” Zilvra asks, unsure if it’s a typical Topside thing.

The marshal drinks. Burps. Then fixes her with kind eyes. “They are like watchtowers, keeping an eye out for anything unnatural. Arcane. But clearly they should be seeing something with the mines getting active and still they report nothing?”

“Where are they?” Anvindr wants to know.

“There’s one to the east of here.”

Morella is fiddling with a strand of hair. “So they should have seen there were duergar in the northern mine?”

“I...think so. Duergar?”

It’s clear he doesn’t ask because of ignorance but rather incredulity and so the trio briefly explains about the quest to clear the mine and even mention the theft of grapes but at least that doesn’t sound like anything happening in Oldgarde.

“Either way...what I’m saying is that you should be on your guard. Not just in mines or outside of the borders of Stouvania.”

“Sounds like you should too,” Zilvra points out.

“You’re probably right. Now, thanks for bringing me food and the beer...duty calls again.”

Thanking him for the time, the three new friends head back to the inn and find that with the new rank as Silver Adventurers comes better accommodations in the form of a proper room, simple as it may be.

---

There’s something familiar about the next day’s journey towards the mine: once the road has come to an end, becoming nothing more than parallel overgrown dirt trails, the discoveries of little stone bunkers are hardly a surprise. Thankfully, these shelters seem abandoned but the trio makes sure to move quietly ahead.

Reaching the mine, they find the entrance demolished and there are signs of a great fire having ravaged the site, charring stone and drying spilled blood alike. Maybe from duergar, maybe not because there are no corpses of the Underdark dwarves...but Morella does find three other corpses, burned and decapitated.

“This is fairly new,” Zilvra mumbles, fingertips raking through the ash on the ground near the caved in mouth of the mine.

“We better take these,” the druid sighs, yanking the dog-tags off the corpses, causing them to crumble.

The girls converge by the corpses, partially wanting to do something for them, but mainly noticing how nothing else has been left: no weapons or armours, no backpacks with rations or anything.

“Do you guys hear that?” Anvindr asks quietly.

Straining their ears all they might, it’s only the genasi that is able to make out the sounds he is referring to: the beating on an anvil and the faint roar of a furnace from deep within the mine, still.

Not wanting to go back without more intel, the trio decides to stay the night so they retreat to the edge of the woods and the handy genasi creates a shelter before settling down and starting to whittle away on the branch he’s found.

They don’t have to wait long.

Only within the first hour of the night’s watch, as Zilvra is admiring the stars above the canopy, does she notice a different light like firelight spilling out through the crack between the boulders blocking the mine’s entrance. Silently, she wakes the others and they all watch as something seems to squeeze out partially between the stones.

A warped face with dark eyes, ever shifting as it scans the surroundings carefully. Like made of fire and smoke, intangible yet threatening. It never emerges fully but it must be of a considerable size. It remains on watch, unaware of its own audience, for an hour roughly before retreating into the darkness, taking with it the light.

“Nnnng,” Morella wines quietly, causing her friends to worry, “it doesn’t belong here...it’s...it’s...it’s from the Plane of Fire.” She gasps, rubbing her temples as if remembering hurts her. “I had a dream before, when we were at the wolves’. I remembered home, the Fey Wild, and the Planes of the Elements like fire where Phaana rules.”

The other two share a glance of their friend’s bend back which they are stroking soothingly.

“Alright,” Zilvra nods contemplatively, “so this is one of Phaana’s people and it has come here...like you did?”

“How did you come here, Morella?” the genasi wants to know.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe if we find out about you then we can figure out about them too?”

Morella nods miserably.

Nothing much is said after that as they settle down to resume the night’s rest but they are each thinking their own.

[awakenednorker]

The Dungeon is Open!

The dungeon doors open, the spell is cast, and the small, vacant-eyed goblinoid wanders free into the world at last.

This page is the tumblr access point to my commissions for custom D&D 5e statblocks (and possibly other homebrew in time). Though I may have many years of experience crafting unique and sometimes terrifying monsters for my players, this is my first time getting it monetised (despite their insistence I do) and I hear Tumblr is a good place to find folks who may have need of my talents? In time, we shall see.

The current idea for the process is to message this account and open a discussion on what kind of statblock you are looking for, including what you want out of it flavour or mechanic-wise. Below are the listings for content available, including their costs:

£2 - Single statblock. This will be a relatively normal statblock, but with the signature unique mechanic or two one can expect from this service.

£4 - Single legendary statblock. For the big creatures you want to give legendary actions to. Expect the same level of uniqueness, but with a larger scale or increased complexity.

£6 - Single Mythic statblock. For the big set piece bosses. See above, but ramp it all up to 11.

£8 - Synergy deal. Three non-legendary, non-mythic statblocks that are linked together in theme and mechanics to interact off one-another in your D&D game.

£10 - Hand of the Creator! Struggling to figure out how a particular creature fits into your world? Have an aesthetic you want bringing to life for your setting in more than just looks? This is the tier for that. You give me the bones, I make the statblock AND the lore/ecology. I can build off whatever you provide, no matter how bare-bones or complex. This tier may take longer but updates will be consistent.

[mrfrunky]

Is always strange because i’ve only had the strangest thing. I feel like I’ve never infantilised people during a game. But one of the lowest points in my gaming career was with a player that insisted to go 3 lvls in sorcerer and 2 in monk. Not only becoming someone who can barely do combat (as someone with a whopping 10 con and 30 hp at lvl 5) but as someone who also cant do shit for damage because they think they can just stick their fingers in both pies and expect to be equal to people that already have extra attack and 3rd level spells. Whenever we tried to give her advice she always accused us of being dismissive towards her even though we just wanted her to have fun in the game like the rest of us. And i even remember one of the solutions for her shit build problem was to essentially create a better version of my character (a bear druid variant human totem barbarian) and then getting mad at me when I try to tell her that half the backstory and ideas she cooked up for this character is intrusive to me personally (and the backstory that I worked with the DM with) and doesnt even make sense within the setting.

She always pulled the “you are patronizing me” card whenever my friend and I would try to help her with her build without blatantly saying “you are correct, heres how we can make you more strong without you having to change anything”, as if D&D 5e isn’t a game that still sometimes relies on good character building, that kind of stuff addled my mind for a good while because she made me feel like I was a dick just for trying to help her have a better experience in D&D (without ruining other peoples experiences).

As someone who is two of those things, the assertion that femmes, POC and queer people will be gatekept from games via the expectation that they make an effort to learn the rules is extremely infantilising. There have historically been unfair barriers placed in front of those people within the TTRPG hobby as a whole, including a culture that has been casually sexist, racist and queerphobic which I feel is still an ongoing issue even though things are slowly getting better, but to claim that expecting people to make an effort to learn the rules is in any way gatekeeping is bizarre. To conflate asking people to learn the rules with actual gatekeeping diminishes actual barriers to entry in this hobby while also being super infantilising.

[wiserodin032402]

Kobeni from Chainsaw Man is a D&D Fighter

Okay yeah crazy people make dumb shit in D&D all the fuckin’ time, you can just say what the fuck on the internet. Some idiot made an article on how to play Cyberpunk Edgerunners characters in D&D what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that the D&D Fighter isn’t really...well represented in actual fiction. Controversial take, I know, but most uh...most mundane characters in fiction don’t really fit the bill of ‘Only good at combat but in a mostly superficial way that’s completely outclassed by the real shit of the setting’.

They’re not this:

This unique blend of...hell on earth that just isn’t present in actual fiction. One could say completely fucking unplayable. For those not in the know, this is D&D 3.5′s iteration of Fighter. For those who play 5e, this is basically the widely-mocked Champion Fighter subclass.

They’re proficient with all simple weapons, all martial weapons, all armor, and all shields including tower shields. They also have the following class skills: Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str)...with a grand total of 2 + Intelligence bonus skill points per level. That’s right, if you’re a Fighter of Average intelligence, you get to be okay in...2 skills.

And their saves are atrocious. If something even slightly scary shows up, the average Fighter is shitting themselves and running for the fucking hills.

This is obviously wildly fucking unrepresentative of any character in fantasy fiction. Too many demonstrate the ability to do more than just fight, and the characters who are famous for focusing on fighting are in series where being good at fighting means you can cut mountains in half or blow up the moon. And they’re all so...brave. Immune to fear even.

Enter God’s Chosen Failwoman

She’s a Public Safety Devil Hunter from the hit manga Chainsaw Man. She does this because her family made her, and it was either killing devils or prostitution.

Kobeni is a massive coward and in the first arc she’s introduced in with The Eternity Devil, she’s all too willing to simply kill Denji and give his heart up. When something scary is happening, Kobeni is the first to coward out.

Kobeni also isn’t very skilled. She quits public safety to go work fast food, and she can barely do that. Fast Food, considered entry-level work in this hellish economy due to how easy it is to teach someone to do it.

And yet, something curious.

When it comes to completely normal, completely mundane, completely comprehensible violence, Kobeni is unphased, and is insanely good at it. Sure, her partner got shot, but her reaction was to simply kill the shooter

and then go find the perpetrators

And when confronted by a frankly mundane demon attack, it doesn’t even touch her:

She’s also good enough with that knife, which for all intents and purposes is a completely mundane kitchen knife to slice clean through bone:

It’s groundbreaking. I’ve searched far and wide, but I’ve never found a character in fiction who perfectly lines up with everything that D&D 3.5 and even core Pathfinder 1e Fighter sets out to emulate. Someone who’s only good at violence, who’s insanely good with only one weapon, but can never break out of being completely mundane with their violence. Who, no matter how strong they get, how hard they work, is only human, with entirely human limits.

Here’s how you build Kobeni.

You need a high Strength and Dex. You need to be a Human. You need Weapon Finesse. You need to take Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization, the full featline, with whatever knife of your choice (Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, Melee Weapon Mastery). Take Lighting Reflexes. Take Light Armor Specialization.

Hell, if you want to more closely emulate how Kobeni functions, take the Combat Focus featline, which puts you into a sort of battle trance once you make a successful attack that lasts for about 10 rounds, which gives a bonus to will saves and other effects. Effects you can only get in Combat.

And guess what? You’ll be getting the genuine Kobeni experience. Being only good at completely mundane violence in a world that dramatically ramps up in stakes and moves past you.

[littjara-mirrorlake]

Plane Shift: New Phyrexia - Human Subraces

For the past 2-3 years, I've been working on a homebrew D&D 5e supplement for New Phyrexia, and it occurred to me that I could publish/share it in installments here on Tumblr! Today, I'll put up human subraces. Core-born Phyrexians and playable myr (among other things) to come! PS:NP was written to take place during Scars of Mirrodin block or earlier, since that's when my campaign is, but its contents--including these subraces--are forward compatible with other points in the timeline.

--

Like their relatives on other planes, the humans of Mirrodin are ingenious, ambitious folk who strive to leave their mark on the world. They are divided into five distinct ethnic groups: the Auriok of the Razor Fields, the Neurok of the Quicksilver Sea, the Moriok of the Mephidross, the Vulshok of the Oxidda Chain, and the Sylvok of the Tangle. Your Mirran human character has the following traits.

Type. You are a Humanoid. You are also considered a human for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be a human.

Ability Score Increase. One ability score of your choice increases by 2, and another increases by 1.

Age. Humans reach adulthood in their late teens and live about a century.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice (except  Phyrexian).

Size. Humans vary widely in height and build, from barely 5 feet to well over 6 feet tall. Regardless of your position in that range, your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Ethnic group. Choose one of the five Mirran human ethnic groups for your character to belong to.

Auriok

The Auriok are a nomadic people, specializing as warriors, spellcasters, and diplomats who form alliances between tribes and with the other races of the Razor Fields. Each Auriok tribe is led by a champion who is responsible for their people's well-being. Auriok skin is bronze-colored and embedded with gold, and their hair is bleached white by the constant light of the suns.

Auriok Combat Training. You are proficient with the longsword and shortsword.

Diplomatic. You have proficiency with Insight and Persuasion.

Neurok

Having thrown off the yoke of slavery under vedalken masters, the Neurok have risen to a dominant position in the chrome-spire settlements on the Quicksilver Sea, based in their capital at Lumengrid. They are scientists and inventors, among the first to notice and study the increasing amounts of glistening oil on Mirrodin's surface. Silvery, chrome-like metal adorns Neurok skin, and their hair, often hidden under elaborate, multi-eyed headdresses, is brown, red, or blond.

Breadth of Knowledge. You gain proficiency with any combination of three skills or tools of your choice.

Cantrip. You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard spell list. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it (choose when you select this race).

Moriok

Carving out a living in the inhospitable swamp of the Mephidross, the Moriok endure constant exposure to its necrogen gas and battle the harsh urges its fell magic draws out. Lead-like metal emerges from underneath their skin, often forming visors over their eyes. They are tall and pale, decorating their bodies with dark leather and ornaments of tooth and bone.

Inured to Necrogen. You are resistant to poison damage, and you have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned.

Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can choose to drop to 1 hit point instead. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Vulshok

Renowned blacksmiths, warriors, and geomancers, the Vulshok people create armor and weapons of the best quality that can be found on Mirrodin. They are divided into six tribes based on their smithing specialization: Anvil, Blade, Hammer, Helm, Shield, and Spear. The iron spikes on their skin afford them a degree of natural armor. Vulshok are heavyset and sturdily built, and ember cores are embedded in their chests, glowing red-hot in moments of strong emotion.

Expertise of the Forge. You have proficiency with smith's tools.

Heart of Flame. You have resistance to fire damage. In addition, you know the produce flame cantrip. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it (choose when you select this race).

Iron Skin. You gain a +1 bonus to your AC when you aren't wearing heavy armor.

Sylvok

The most insular of Mirrodin's humans, the Sylvok are druidic hunter-gatherers who place emphasis on tradition, nature, and harmony. Unlike the canopy-dwelling elves, Sylvok inhabit the undergrowth of the Tangle, subsisting off gelfruit and the meat they hunt. They view artifice as a form of worship, using their skills to venerate the natural world through imitation. Their skin is decorated with intricate patterns of copper that imitate the look of plant growth.

Expert Navigator. A lifetime spent in the twisted growths of the Tangle has made you sure-footed and adept in tough travelling conditions. You ignore nonmagical difficult terrain.

Sylvok Magic. You know the druidcraft cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the animal friendship spell once per day; you must finish a long rest in order to cast the spell again using this trait. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells (choose when you select this race).

Tangle's Lore. You gain proficiency in a skill of your choice from among Animal Handling, History, Nature, Religion, and Survival.

[dm-clockwork-dragon]

Hi! I've been playing the necroficer class, but I'm having an incredibly hard time keeping up with my party members while playing it. We just hit level 4, and my DM is concerned that this class just moves way too slow and feels so weak compared to everyone else. Is there an updated version I should be using (I downloaded it before covid) or do you have any advice for how we can modify the class to be more useful? We just barely hit level 4.

If you downloaded before COVID, definitely check out the Dropbox to see if your version is old. I am fairly certain I did do some updates during COVID, as I got a lot of playtesting done during that period.

That said, the power of the necroficer very much comes down to the horrors you are making. 5e monster manuals are sortof shit, and CR can be a really inconsistent gauge of how powerful a creature is. So sifting through the monster manuals (or even 3rd party MMs like those published by Kobold Press) to find undead that synergize well with your build can make a huge difference. At 5th level, for example, you get access to the CR2 Shadow, which is objectively broken, and I know most DMs will dissalow. But if you are struggling to keep up, your DM may let you. Also don't forget that you canp equip any humanoid horrors you make with weapons, beyond just the ones that come with the stat block. A skeleton archer is a different kind of threat than a skeleton with a short sword.

Also look at how you are playing the class. Are you trying to go for full DPS? Just trying to tank as much damage as possible for the party? Maybe you are focussed on making horrors that have a lot of utility, or fill gaps for skills or abilities your party is missing. Most of my classes work best when you specialize.

Beyond that, it's hard to give advice without knowing more about how you are playing. If anything, my playtesting always leaned towards the necroficer being too powerful, so It's hard to know where you are running into issues. It could be that you and your DM are reading a rule or ability differently from what I intended, but I wouldn't be able to tell without more information.

The simplest way to increase the power if you really need to is to just increase the CR level of the creatures you can make. But from my playtesting, you shouldn't need to. You are getting several monsters with a CR comparable to what the Druid can wildshape into, so it should be pretty viable to keep up with core classes, as long as you aren't consistently running into enemies with "turn undead" or similar abilities.

If your party is made up of a lot of powerful homebrew tho, then yeah, you may need to adjust the maximum CR of creatures you can make up a point or two. You could also bolster your character with some bonus feats. I found that the necroficer synergizes well with arcane initiate, or with the familliar feats from my familiar supplement.