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WNNA Flash: Artificer, Revisited

https://wizardsneednotapply.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/wnna-flash-artificer-revisited/

SURPRISE! I’m not entirely dead. The new artificer rework has dropped, and I wanted to cover it here.

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WNNA FLASH: Artificer, Revisited

WNNA FLASH: Artificer, Revisited

AFTER 3000 YEARS WoTC has put out their revised version of the Artificer class from the original Artificer UA. You can find it here. Published at literally the last possible moment, the Revised Artificer aims to fix the problems of the first 5th Edition Artificer, while also recapturing the function of the original 3.5 Artificer from Eberron. I was mostly waiting to revive this blog once the new…

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hm, more of a dnd-ready Trill… haven’t done that in a while, for sure. he’s going into a new campaign where he’ll hopefully be more warmly welcomed!

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WNNA Flash: UA Sidekicks

WNNA Flash: UA Sidekicks

This feels quite weird being away from my native home of Tumblr, having to scream out into the void using other social media outlets to get some attention, rather than having it all on one spot. However, with how much my dash has slowed down following the ban on “female-presenting nipples,” it’s a safe bet that Tumblr is on its death kneels, and do not regret the jump. But now is not the time,…

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Introducing The Witch, a class for 5e! 

I’m finally ready to start my playtest of the class, and I’d love your help to do it! 

The witch brings a new flavor of magic to the 5e ruleset, and while it pushes the complexity of the system just a bit, it creates a rewarding and fun class that hopefully fills a hole in the 5e caster lineup! Not quite wizard, and not quite warlock, the witch fulfills that role of strange outcast with a magical companion that only it could! 

GET THE PLAYTEST HERE, and after you have fun with it, fill out the form that is linked to in the PDF! I wanna hear how it did at your table! Share this with your friends! The more people that play it, the better the feedback! I plan on letting the playtest run until JANUARY 31st, 2019, in which case I will be taking it all down!

Lastly, if you enjoy this, and wanna support me, why not check out my titles on DMs Guild?

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Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica: The Full Dive Part 1

Last week I offered a short, reactionary article on the few things that I have seen from what little scraps I could from /tg/. Now that I have access to the entire book (thanks 5etools), I can give a much more appropriate and full look into this book. I love Ravnica and MTG to bits, and while I don’t like everything in this book, there’s still a lot that I do want to go over. 

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks compiling guesswork off of just the table of contents, so that goes to show you how much I’m invested into this book and the flavor/crunch within. They put a lot of effort into making this book, and again, while I don’t like everything in the book, I still love the fact that it exists. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do one for Tarkir or Kamigawa. A man can hope.

Welcome to Ravnica:

The book opens with a letter from an Azorius Senate member, writing a letter to Jace Beleren, Magic’s most iconic Planeswalker, and also the Living Guildpact that keeps Ravnica up and running. The Senate member chastises Jace on several points in his failure to actually function as the Guildpact, and that the entire book itself is a guidebook, made by her to tell Jace how to do his job. The letter ends with a not too subtle jab at Jace’s need to disappear all the time trying to keep the Gatewatch going, and with a note saying that Jace was too busy to actually read the damn thing. I could not think of a better way to open a book like this, which does more than just introduce the book’s existence. It opens further questions about how this book ended up in your possession, considering that it was meant for Jace. More savvy Magic players can think of any number of reasons for why this all important document is now in the hands of you, and helps immerse you into the world, even before we actually get into any actual world building.

The book then goes on a brief history lesson to help contextualize the city’s formation, the Guildpact, and Jace’s meddling. While it doesn’t go into extensive detail, it does help to give a general overview of things to come. 

The Life in the Big City section, by comparison, goes into extensive detail about this city proper, detailing restaurants, food kitchens, and other functions of the City besides as just a backdrop to adventure in. It even goes so far as to price out the cost of a cup of coffee (10 copper pieces). Little details like this make my heart burst out. I am a sucker for the little things, and there are certainly a lot of little things here!

Chapter 1: Character Creation

As it turns out my, “What I Got Wrong” article basically covers everything in this chapter, so if you’d like to see the details on that chapter, feel free to check that out.

Chapter 2: Guilds of Ravnica

I’ve already gone through the basic ideas behind the ten guilds in the second part of my Speculation series of articles. This chapter goes into detail about the guilds, including their goals, what it’s like to be in the guild, and the structure of the guild. There are several recommendations for jobs within the guild, and even reintroduces the oft-forgotten Rank and Renown mechanic. Basically, they act as a sort of side EXP for GMs to give out, that grant you specific benefits and perks depending on how high you get your Renown. You can get Renown by completing tasks or donating things to your respective guild, and are granted by a superior. Ranks can even grant items and extra bodies. At the end of each guild, they have a small sidebar detailing how that guild feels about some of the other guilds, to help players come up with their own biases towards other characters.

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DND BIRBS!!! OwO I will have these available in my Etsy soon as a sticker sheet <3 

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This Sorcerer is Moving Out!

Well, I’m sure you are all more than aware of what has been happening on this more than glorious site that we call Tumblr. While Wizards Need Not Apply is very much a SFW blog, and will probably continue to be so, there is a very, very good chance that all of Tumblr will die as a result of this amazing management system. In preparation of this, I have decided to compile a few sites that you can find me at. 

My personal twitter can be found here, and will more than likely be the springboard for where I go from there. Chances are I will have a dedicated twitter just for Wizards Need Not Apply in the future.

I’m also taking the liberty to start importing all of my content from this blog onto Wordpress, which can be found over here. There is a very good chance that I will continue on that site, since it seems to be so similar to this one. They even went so far as to email me how to do a full conversion from Tumblr to Wordpress. While I’m sure it’s mostly just a coincidence, I still find it endlessly amusing.

And of course, if you’d like to contact me through Discord, my username is  Princepon#3957.

Until then though, I will be waving this site goodbye while the servers are still up.

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me at 4.30am: I… really need to sleep…

my brain: cockatiel barbarian

me: 

my brain: no sleep til he screm

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Homebrew Release: The Cartomancer (First Draft)

If you’ve been following my blog for a while now, you should know about my love of card games like Magic the Gathering. I’ve always had a fascination with cards and the people who use them, from tarot card readers, to tricky card throwers, to people who love to shout LIGHTAN BOLT, pointing towards Birds of Paradise. I figured what better way to share this love then by making my own class? Enter: The Cartomancer!

The Cartomancer is a homebrew class, based around Charisma and Dexterity, with three subclasses based upon the above three types of card games:

The Deck of Suits, which is focused around throwing cards to deal damage, while also having some martial prowess.

The Deck of Tarot, which is a support type subclass designed around imperiling foes and emboldening friends.

The Deck of Magic, which is a spell slot-less caster subclass that has to keep an eye on their hands to keep the magic going.

This class is very much a work in progress, with very little playtesting behind it. As such, it is subject to change. However, I feel it is in a decent enough state to be shared with the rest of you! Let me know what you guys think of the class, and if you think you’re interested in using it yourself!

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another flat color comm - a kingfisher aarakocra druid!

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Potion appearances, because rolling tables. The artwork on the second page is a stock image by Frozenstocks.

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Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica Beyond Previews: What I Got Wrong

Some of Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica was put on D&D Beyond recently, and with that, I would like to go over some of the things that I published that I got wrong. This is a short little piece, since I don’t have access to every single thing. That will come after the 20th. 

Chapter 1: Character Creation

They have a section related to choosing a guild, which has you either answer questions on a flowchart, looking at the guild descriptions, or picking out a Magic: the Gathering card from one of the Ravnica sets that speaks to you, and selecting based on that. That last option really tickles my fancy for some odd reason. They also say that Guildless are a playable background, but you can still interact with the guilds. To make a Guildless, simply pick one of the standard backgrounds. You can also join a guild later if you’d like. 

The game acknowledges that many of the guild leaders on Ravnica have certain agendas that may put guilds at each other’s throats, but that for a party to keep together, it is important to have some bond that keeps the party. It goes on to say that many of the lower members of guilds often have bonds and friends with people from even opposing guilds. It also warns about keeping inter-party drama due to guild allegiance low to keep things flowing. If nothing else, it has tables for party make up and common causes.

Races: There are actually a couple of differences of note in the races section. Centaurs, Minotaurs and even Loxodons are different from their UA origins.

Centaurs: Ravnica Centaurs are, strangely enough, considered Fey rather than Humanoid. That means that Hold Person and other spells that target Humanoids will not work on them! Charge has been reworked such that when you move 30 ft, you can make a bonus action attack on someone instead of the double damage strike from before. Hooves gets nerfed down to 1d4 + STR damage for some reason, and Equine Build is missing the final bit about being able to be ridden.

Minotaurs: Ravnica Minotaurs have been slightly tweaked to make them better. Goring Rush now only requires you to make a 20 ft move for the Bonus Action attack, Hammering Horns lets you shove people even farther, and Imposing Presence gives you a choice between Intimidation or Persuasion.

Loxodons: Loxodons have given up a bit of their stone working prowess and instead get something a bit more hilarious. Also their Natural Armor got nerfed down to 12 + CON. Loxodon Serenity got buffed, and works on both Frightened and Charmed. Losing their stone working aptitudes, they gain the TRUNK ability. Trunks can be used as a snorkel, can hold objects, and can be used to grapple and make unarmed strikes! You can’t wield a shield or weapon though. Finally, their Keen Smell now also works on Survival checks 

Simic Hybrids: The only notable change is that their Acid Spit adaptation can only be used a number of times equal to your CON mod. So still pretty good.

Vedalken: Already pretty good, they decided that just being the best skill monkey race wasn’t good enough and gave them Partially Amphibious, which lets them breathe for an hour underwater.

Classes and Subclasses

This is where I eat the most wrong things of any section. That whole Classes by guild thing includes Subclasses as well. It also specifically points out there are in fact Clerics in the Azorious, which means I was super wrong. Whoops. For the sake of keeping this short, many of the subclasses can fall under many different guilds. The subclass with the most guild affiliation is the Champion Fighter, which is employed in a staggering 8 out of the 10 Guilds on Ravnica.

No, seriously.

The Order Domain specifically is called out as part of the Azorious and the Orzhov, so there goes another point. The main changes to it is it’s level 6 feature, Embodiment of the Law, instead changes the casting time of a spell that takes an action to cast into a bonus action, WIS mod times per long rest. Also their Divine Strike and Order’s Wrath abilities now do Psychic instead of Force.

The Spores Circle, against all odds, manages to be much worse than the original. Halo of Spores, while it can now trigger out of your turn, now does 1d4 Poison damage on CON save. In addition, it now scales even less. Why. Besides that, Fungal Infection now triggers upon death of any creature, regardless if you killed it with Halo of Spores, and Spreading Spores also has an additional hoop to go through: you have to have Symbiotic Entity on as well, and it ends when that does. All I can say is Why.

There is one final thing that I was wrong about, that I have access to: Guild Spells. Like an absolute buffoon, I guessed that Guild Spells was just a list of recommended spells that you can pick up to match flavorwise. Instead, Guild Spells are FREE SPELLS that you get if you join that guild, added straight to your spell list as long as you have Spellcasting. This is. Really dumb and really powerful, but thankfully it’s contained to only Ravnica. Strangely, it actually enforces you to be even more out of tune with your guild in order to access a wider range of spells.

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WNNA Speculates Part 2: Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica

Hello and welcome to the second iteration of my speculation into Ravnica! n this week, I’ll be going over the ten different guilds from Ravnica. The guilds are featured prominently on cardboard, and each bears something unique and flavorful. Each guild has their own agenda, their own claim to power, and a legion of loyal followers to help make those goals a reality.

Chapter 2: Guilds of Ravnica

Even after all that, we still need to get to know the Guild of Ravnica proper. As the most important part of Ravnican life, it’s big enough to get it’s own chapter just to get things right. To supplement, I will provide my own summary of the Guilds alongside some fun little tidbits because I’m a nerd.

In this chapter, they introduce something notable: Guild Spells. While we only have the ToC to go off of, there are a few things that we can speculate upon thanks to context clues. Based on what we have, I can conclude that there are not going to be many new spells listed in the Guild Spells list. Rather, the Guild Spells list is a list of PHB spells that would be very common for members of that Guild to cast. We know this because in the ToC, they single out two specific spells: Chaos Bolt and Encode Thoughts. Chaos Bolt is a spell from Xanthar’s Guide that is the ONLY Sorcerer exclusive spell in the entire game. Meanwhile, Encode Thoughts is a completely new spell, made specifically for this book. From these two spells, I think it is reasonable to assume that Guild Spells will not have many new spells in them, and is more of a roleplaying guide than anything else.

But aside from that tangent, every single guild has a guild specific Background and a bit describing what adventurers of that guild would be like.

Why the Azorious is the most powerful Guild: They make and control the laws of Ravnica, including the Guildpact that binds the peace of Ravnica, using the magic of bureaucracy to subdue upstarts.

Why the Azorious will not take over Ravnica: Pretty much every guild has a way to ignore the law (often in spectacular fashion), and they are too focused on stasis to bring about any change. As such, they react very badly to change (Evidenced by this card.)

Guild Spells: Counterspell, Hold Person, Geas

Guild Classes: Wizards, Fighters

Why the Boros is the most powerful Guild: They are a very proactive guild, taking action where others would prefer to sit back and mull over books.

Why the Boros will not take over Ravnica: Their one track mentality often leads to them getting confused and befuddled easily by those who know that they’re about to come knocking. (Evidenced by this card.)

Guild Spells: Branding Smite, Compelled Duel, Wall of Fire

Guild Classes: Paladins, Clerics

Why the Dimir is the most powerful Guild: They hold the power of secrets, and the biggest secret that they hold in their halls is so horrifying, all who learn it fade from existence.

Why the Dimir will not take over Ravnica: For all of their scheming, they don’t actually get a lot done. They are so wrapped up in secrets, that they forget to take actions other than hiding and erasing secrets. OR MAYBE THAT’S JUST WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK.

Guild Spells: Feeblemind, Scrying, Detect Thoughts

Guild Classes: Wizards, Rogues

Why the Golgari is the most powerful Guild: Anyone who dies will be turned into a zombie, allowing their numbers to be ever constant and ever growing. They have also recently killed the leader of the Azorius with minimal effort, with plans to do that to every other Guildleader.

Why the Golgari will not take over Ravnica: They are blinded by a sense of pride, and in their lust for revenge, they have caught the attention of the Boros and pretty much every other guild (Evidenced by this card.)

Guild Spells: Raise Dead, Blight, Giant Insect

Guild Classes: Druids, Warlocks

Why the Gruul is the most powerful Guild: Chaotic and loose, it is hard to stamp out, just like nature itself. Even if you stomp one clan into dust, the others will rise up and push you into the dirt!

Why the Gruul will not take over Ravnica: They have zero structure, and even fewer ideas as to what they do after they accomplish their goal, which is near impossible due to all nine other guilds wanting to have a city to live in.

Guild Spells: Ensnaring Strike, Earthquake, Spike Growth

Guild Classes: Rangers, Barbarians

Why the Izzet is the most powerful Guild: Niv-Mizzet. We’re talking about a dragon who decided on a whim to kill all other sentient dragons on Ravnica “because he felt like it”. He also has access to the Firemind, a dragon founded form of the internet that helps to pool ideas and information among all league members, which has the side effect of making all connected to it into geniuses.

Why the Izzet will not take over Ravnica: Niv-Mizzet. It is stated in lore that Niv-Mizzet could probably take over Ravnica if he wanted to, but he really does not want to. He finds the prospect of running an entire city to be boring, and would rather experiment on his own.

Guild Spells: Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Chaos Bolt

Guild Classes: Sorcerers, Wizards/Artificers

Why the Orzhov is the most powerful Guild: They hold powers from beyond the grave, and anyone they can get their fingertips under becomes their plaything. They are also quite skilled in the art of killing masses of people like they were nothing.

Why the Orzhov will not take over Ravnica: They are way too lazy, and rely upon guilt to get their power. They are also trying to play the extreme long game in a game that ramps up dramatically and suddenly.

Guild Spells: Bane, Compulsion, Spirit Guardians

Guild Classes: Clerics, Wizards

Why the Rakdos is the most powerful Guild: Rakdos himself could level the entirety of Ravnica if the Cult stops slaughtering people. Also, the cult is really good at killing people, just fyi.

Why the Rakdos will not take over Ravnica: They are too busy catering to the whims of Rakdos to advance anything that isn’t the Slaughter Games. Also too chaotic to consider the future of Ravnica.

Guild Spells: Cloud of Daggers, Otto’s Irresistible Dance, Bestow Curse

Guild Classes: Bards, Barbarians

Why the Selesnya is the most powerful Guild: Attacking the Selesnya is like attacking a homogeneous tidal wave. All of them share the same ideals, and all of them are willing to do whatever it takes to enforce and protect those ideals.

Why the Selesnya will not take over Ravnica: Their hivemind allows for little to no independent thought, which means there are no new ideas that can spawn. There are also too worried about their own defenses to make an offensive effort.

Guild Spells: Wall of Thorns, Entangle, Bless, Awaken

Guild Classes: Druids, Rangers

Why the Simic is the most powerful Guild: They have the means and abilities to bend the nature of life itself, and they are constantly on the cusp of a discovery that can change life as we know it. If something big comes their way, they will adapt and make something even bigger!

Why the Simic will not take over Ravnica: You can’t really improve upon something without any subjects, and there are plenty of guilds waiting to take away their toys.

Guild Spells: Polymorph, Alter Self, Regenerate

Guild Classes: Druids, Wizards

Chapter 3: The Tenth District

As a way to promote Ravnica, WoTC introduced the concept of the Tenth District. Ravnica is divided into many different Districts, the Tenth of which has never been alluded to in the past. Since then, it has been used in all sorts of promotional material. Magic the Gathering Arena has a playboard dedicated to the Tenth District, and the details of the Tenth District are to be filled out in this chapter. The District exists near the center of the City, and may act as some sort of neutral ground, if the Arena board is to be trusted. The Tenth District has only been mentioned explicitly in one card to my knowledge: Tenth District Guard. Housing is cheap, citizens scurry about their lives, and it is a place of business and commerce. According to the ToC, the District is further divided into six precincts, which suggests some level of police control.

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WNNA Speculates: Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica Part 1

For those of you not quite in the know, someone leaked the Table of Contents for WoTC’s upcoming book: Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. You can find an image of it here for your convenience. As a big Magic buff and a big D&D buff, I’ve been largely excited for this upcoming book! With the leaking of this ToC, we can glean a surprising amount of information and what will be and what will not be coming when D&D and MtG collide. I am not a designer for WoTC, and therefore my speculation is exactly that: speculation. However, it’s fun to think about this sort of thing on your own, and that’s why I’m doing it.

In addition to the ToC, I'll provide a less-than official summary of several of the things about Ravnica that make the plane special and unique among planes in Magic. This is split into parts, because I realized after I had started that it was getting too damn big. So expect the other parts to come online later.

Welcome to Ravnica:

The first section of the book is a 3-5 page summary of the plane of Ravnica. In effect, the City of Ravnica is a massive cityscape shaped by the influence of ten Guilds. Bound by a magical, living document known as the Guildpact, the Guilds operated to try and keep Ravnica up and running with minimal interruption of life. Then the Guildpact got broken, a new one was made that no one took seriously, and then the guilds had a minor scuffle trying to dominate one another. Eventually, a contest was made between the Guilds to try and reestablish some semblance of balance: The Dragon’s Maze. In the end, everyone’s favorite Planeswalker, Jace Beleren becomes the new new Guildpact, forming the Living Guildpact and has been ever since.

Life inside the city is a constant struggle, held by a tenebrous peace because of the Guildpact. There is quite a lot of open fighting on the streets, with every single one of the Guilds having some beef with every single other guild in some way, shape, or form. Depending on where you end up though, you may have a better fare of life than others. 

Chapter 1: Character Creation

Now we get into the meat and potatoes of the book. The ToC implies that every single person on Ravnica belongs to a guild, and that is part of creating a Ravnican character. It even goes so far as to suggest classes that the different guilds are associated with. As for how this fits in with the fluff this is... actually pretty much true, since the Guildless of Ravnica barely get any mention at all. Pretty much everyone is part of a guild and it’s not uncommon for members of different Guilds to have love interests with each other.

The Races section seems to be mostly lifted from the Races of Ravnica UA, back in August. There is one notable difference though: The Viashino are completely absent from this release. In their stead, we get Goblins and Minotaurs. Minotaurs have three different flavors to them, one from Waterborne Adventurers UA, one from Planeshift: Amonkhet, and one from the Centaurs and Minotaurs UA. Chances are they will go with the third adaptation, with some minor tweeks. Goblins have no less than five different flavors of them (six if you count hobgoblin), three of which came from Planeshift: Zendikar. This one has no real indication for it’s future, so it could mean literally anything. Goblin lovers, keep your eyes looking towards the future.

Subclasses: 

This is what people were probably most excited for with Guildmaster’s Guide. While we are not getting 10 different subclasses for every single guild like I hoped, we are seeing two strange cases for different reasons. Guildmaster’s Guide includes two new subclasses, taken from UA of the past: the Order Domain for Clerics and the Circle of Spores Druid.

The Circle of Spores Druid was introduced in the Three Subclasses UA. Many people thought that all three of the subclasses would get the official treatment, but it looks like the Golgari win out this one. The Circle of Spores is mostly concerned with throwing spores around to deal damage. Their signature ability, Halo of Spores, lets you deal an unconditional 3 damage using your reaction, and many of the Subclass’s features revolve around throwing bigger spores and making clouds of spores. It is a very interesting concept with plenty of fluff to mull over, but it is maligned by crunch. Three free damage of the most easily resisted damage type will begin to fall off really, really hard even by the “late early game”. It does thankfully scale, but I wish that it scaled a bit harder. Hopefully, they will have tweaked it for this book.

The Order Domain for Clerics, meanwhile, is solid crunchy goodness. It’s like you rolled a Paladin, a Purple Dragon Knight, and a Cleric together into one big powderkeg of THE LAW. While Paladins uphold the law (usually), Order Domain Clerics worship THE LAW and believe that people should be obedient to THE LAW whenever possible, especially if it pushes forth their ideals. All of their crunch pertains to THE LAW, whether it’s shouting at foes to make them pause, outfitting themselves with the biggest pieces of armor THE LAW will let them have, or letting a particular individual feel the full force of THE LAW beaten into them repeatedly. The weirdness comes from a bit of Crunch/Fluff incompatibility. The Order Domain can be interpreted as either a nod to the Azorius or the Boros. Fluffwise, the Domain leans towards the Azorius, but the crunch does not fit, because the Azorius notably does not have any Clerics to speak of. In fact, they rank among the more agnostic Guilds on Ravnica. The Boros employ many Clerics in their ranks, but that comes at odds with the Fluff, which sounds weird, considering the Boros is pretty much the police force of Ravnica. However, above THE LAW, the Boros worship Justice, and are willing to bend and ignore the rules if they are not just. 

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I’m so excited to finally reveal this token now available on my Cardamajigs store :D

MY SON MOTHMAN

You can order it here!!!!

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Kobold ranger for /tg/