Monster Hunt: Goudslok The Gorger 

The swirling blade glows with flame, imbued with powers of metallic magic powered by the genasi’s ancient ancestors. As she chops the treants to bits with her scorching magical strikes, the smell of bonfire reminds her of home.

I have always loved forge-based subclasses, and really I think only forge domain cleric currently does the theme much justice among official classes. I figured that sorcerer becoming a whirling gish of metal and magic seemed like a good way to start! The updated homebrewery link is here, while the permanent PDF of the above image is here. Hope you all enjoy, and please leave your comments and feedback!

Cursed Jewelry! Remember, canonically Identify doesn’t pick up curses, so have fun tricking your players into getting cursed. <3

Cleric: Domain of Black Powder

“Hoar show no mercy to my enemies, as thy enemies would show no mercy to me.” ~Reverend Colton

For more make sure to join my Patreon, link in the reblog and comments.

If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

Tableskills: The Proactive DM Voice

One of the most fundamental lesions I learned over the course of becoming a great DM was that it was my job to push the story forward, not my players.  When I was younger I was terrified of taking any agency upon myself for fear of railroading my group, thinking that my job was merely to read out prepared text and design a playground for my players to explore as they saw fit. Needless to say, no matter how much planning i did or how big I made my campaign world it never made my party any more energized, instead bleeding out their attention until they became listless and the group/campaign dissolved. 

Once I made the change to DM driven play, things changed almost instantly. My once distracted players became excited collaborators, looking to steer the runaway engine that was my narrative. Where as before they were directionless, having infinite shallow options, they were now focused on the road ahead of them, trying to dodge upcoming hurdles while reacting to the unexpected ones.  

This change took some getting used to, but became most evident in how I narrated my games, cutting down on extraneous calls for rolls,  chaining together scenes until a big finale at the end of the session, using my infinite power as narrator to push receptive players into interesting situations that progressed both the story and their character arc. Over time I began to think of these changes and a bunch of others as “proactive DM voice”, a skill that I think players and dungeonmaters alike could benefit from learning. 

Lets look at an example, lifted from one of the very first modules I ever ran: The party stands at the edge of a tremendously large fissure, and has to lower themselves a hundred or more feet down to a ledge where they’ll be ambushed by direrats.  You could run this in a rules literal sense: reading out the prepared text then waiting for the party to come up with a solution, likely dallying as they ask questions. Have them make athletics checks to descend the ropes, risk the possibility of one of them dying before the adventure ever begins. Then you do it two or three more times as they leapfrog down the side of the canyon, wasting what was perhaps half an hour of session time before you even got to any of the fun stuff. 

Or you could get proactive about it: 

Securing your ropes as best you can, you belay over the side of the fissure, descending down in a measured, careful pace aiming for the most stable looking outcrop of rock, still a hundred or so feet above the canyon’s base. A few minutes and about two thirds of the way through your decent [least athletic PC] looks like they’re struggling, their hands are coated in sweat and they can feel unfamiliar muscles burning in complaint.  I need [PC] to make me an athletics check

Rather than waiting for the players and the dice to make a story for me, I took the extra step in my prep time to think of something interesting that might happen while they’re venturing through this section of the map. I specifically designed things so that happenstance wouldn’t kill off one of my heroes, but they might end up damaged and in a perilous situation should the fates not favour them that particular moment. 

Likewise, this planning has let me prepare a number of different angles that I could use to prepare the next scene: with an injured player ambushed by multiple rats while their allies dangle a few rounds away or with the party saving their friend and descending together, too much of a threat for the rats to tackle all at once, leading them to stalk the party through future encounters.

This is already getting a bit long, but for those interested in more ways you can adopt a proactive DM voice, I’ll give more examples under the cut

Keep reading

Intrigue: Baroness  Magali Turcas, Lady of the Court and Daughter of The King’s justice.

“You know why I brought you here? Because you’re a nobody, and I admire that.  If you were a somebody around this court it invariably means that my father or his father tortured someone very important to you, and that means you’d be to intimidated by me to engage in conversation. Are you intimidated by me? Good, go and fetch us some drinks and I’ll tell you everyone’s dirty little secrets.”

All great courts employ torturers and executioners, but it’s only the cruellest of monarchs who have such need of these grim servants that they’d grant them lands and titles.

Such was the case for the Turcas family, simple but loyal jailers who found themselves elevated when during an attempted palace coup, their patriarch helped prevent the escape of the King’s leading political rival, thereby stifling the nascent rebellion, and preventing a civil war.

Magail Turcas grew up the beneficiary of her father’s windfall, educated along with the children of the court as befitted a young lady of nobility, but was continually excluded due to her family’s infamous reputation. Ever the outsider, Magali became a gossip and rumormonger, exposing the secret weaknesses of her rivals and dismantling reputations with the same vicious practicality that her forebears used to dismantle bodies.

Adventure Hooks

With the old king dying and an executioner sized ax to grind, Magali looks to cement her position as an indispensable fixture of the court, leveraging her web of informants and proxies into an actual spy network. Becoming master of whispers isn’t going to be easy, and she seeks competent agents who don’t mind digging up dirt or slinging mud on her behalf.

Having earned an enemy among the member of nobility, the party is approached by Baroness Magali after they’ve been backed into a corner: Bounties on their head, thrown into prison, assassins out for their blood. Magali offers to remove these obstructions, along with promises of financial and social assistance, provided they’re willing to help her destroy the antagonistic noble, and take public credit for their downfall.

Investigating a crime, the party comes across evidence that an otherwise inconspicuous servant was observing the proceedings and sending coded messages to an unknown benefactor. Breaking the code could provide vital information, but the servant is one of Magali’s loyal spies, and will not betray his mistress, even under threat of violence. IF the party wants this shortcut in their cimesolving escapades, they’ll need to broker a meeting with the would-be spymaster, and perhaps put themselves in her debt in exchange for some much needed clues.

Keep reading

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NO ONE knows how to use thou/thee/thy/thine and i need to see that change if ur going to keep making “talking like a medieval peasant” jokes. /lh

They play the same roles as I/me/my/mine. In modern english, we use “you” for both the subject and the direct object/object of preposition/etc, so it’s difficult to compare “thou” to “you”.

So the trick is this: if you are trying to turn something Olde, first turn every “you” into first-person and then replace it like so:

“I” →  “thou”

“Me” →  “thee”

“My” →  “thy”

“Mine” →  “thine”

Let’s suppose we had the sentences “You have a cow. He gave it to you. It is your cow. The cow is yours”.

We could first imagine it in the first person-

“I have a cow. He gave it to me. It is my cow. The cow is mine”.

And then replace it-

“Thou hast a cow. He gave it to thee. It is thy cow. The cow is thine.”

So i wanna do homebrew content but i fundamentally don't understand how to hand make a character sheet??? Like how do i make it w/o using dnd beyond???

So I figure i’ll use this opportunity to explain character making/character sheets in general.This will be more in depth than you need but i’ll call it a resource and add it to my blog in a link. 

Buckle up guys this is going to be a LONG one we’ll call this

DUNGEONS AND KOBOLDS’S LONG GUIDE TO MAKING CHARACTER SHEETS

1.     Character Sheet

First step is getting the character sheet itself. Below is a link to where you can download them on Wizards of the Coast’s website:

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets

This should download a file – the sheet that people use most often is called CharacterSheet_3Pgs_Complete.pdf

It’s well laid out and easily editable on your computer.

2.     Class/Race/Background Combination

Second, choose your class/race/background combination. It’s also important to understand a basic idea of where these appear/what they effect

Race: Ability Scores, Skills, Proficiencies, Features & Traits

Background: Skills, Proficiencies, Features & Traits, Equipment

Class: Basically everything but Ability Scores – although it does determine how you’ll want to arrange your Scores.

3.     Ability Scores

Ability Scores are on the far left hand side of the sheet. These determine your base Strength, Dexterity, etc. bonuses (ie. What you add to your rolls).

There are 3 basic ways of determining these scores: rolling, point buy, and standard array.

https://thekindgm.wordpress.com/2017/12/16/determining-ability-scores/

Above is a link to a post that explains these better than I could which I refer to often. (consult your DM as to which way you are using for your campaign)

For every 2 points your Ability Score goes up/down by, your bonus will go/down by 1. Ie. A Strength of 10 will give me 0 or no bonus a 12 +1, a 14 +2, etc. Whereas an 8 will give me -1, a 6 -2.

Arrange these scores as you wish – a good rule of thumb is you want your primary attacking ability to be your highest (normally the Quick Build section of your class will have good suggestions on how to arrange these statistics). I’ll go through what each of these scores effects in my explanation which should give you some options on how to arrange them.

To these base scores you’ve figured out, you then add the bonuses given to you by your Race.

For example, if I have a 14 Dexterity (+2) but I’m playing a Kobold (which has an increase of 2 for Dexterity as one of its traits) my Dexterity is then brought up to 16 (+3)

4.     Proficiency Bonus/Saving Throws

Proficiency bonus has a separate column in the levelling table of your class. At level 1 it is generally +2. This means that if you are proficient in a Saving Throw, Skill, Attack, or Tool you add your Proficiency Bonus and the bonus from your associated Ability Score to the Roll.

For example, if my Kobold is a barbarian, they have proficiency in Strength and Constitution Saving Throws. This means if my Kobold has a Strength of 14 (+2) and I am rolling a Saving Throw, I add another +2 to the roll (bringing it up to a total of +4). On the left hand side of the Saving Throws (and skills) there are little circles, fill in the circles of the Saving Throws you are proficient in to remind yourself why you have that score (but write next to them what you’ll actually be adding, ie. +4 Strength Saving Throw for my Kobold).

5.     Skills

This sheet actually makes skills relatively easy to fill out. Again fill in the circles of the skills you are proficient in (these can come from your class, race, and background so be sure to check all three). On the right hand side of each skill is the associated Ability – if you are not proficient you write down your base Ability Score bonus. If you are proficient be sure to add the +2 (at first level)

6.     Other Proficiencies

In Other Proficiencies and Languages write down the languages, tools, weapons, and armour you are proficient in – this is more to remind yourself of what you can and can’t easily use.

7.     Armour

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Armor#content

Here is a link to all of the armour scores you’ll need. Generally, armour is a base score (say 11 for leather armour) plus your Dexterity (just the base Ability Score bonus). Some armour gives you just a base score that you don’t add anything to. Some will have a strength requirement for you to be able to use it. The link divides the amour into light, medium and heavy amour – whether or not you can use them is determined by your proficiencies (found in your other proficiencies section)

If you’re wielding a shield you add another 2 to your armour score.

Unlike weapons your generally can’t use armour that you are not proficient in.

 8.     Initiative

Unless you have a Feat or a special class based bonus your Initiative is your Dexterity Ability Score Bonus

9.     Weapon Attacks

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Weapons#content

This link again divides the weapon up neatly into the proficiencies (simple and martial weapons).

There are 2 main scores to worry about with weapon attacks – Dexterity and Strength.

Dexterity based weapons are Ranged or Finesse weapons. Strength is everything else. Your attack bonus will be either your Strength or Dexterity Score (depending on the weapon) plus your proficiency bonus (although you can use weapons you are not proficient in, you just lose this bonus).

Your damage is the listed damage (see link above) plus either your Strength or Dexterity (again depending on the associated score).

(I’m not going to go into dual wielding here but feel free to ask if interested)

10. Equipment

Equipment will be listed in class and background – all you have to do is write it down in this section.

11. Gold

Gold normally appears in your background and class, but have a chat to your DM to see if they have a preference for staring gold.

12. Features/Traits

In the Features/Traits column you write down basically the things you can do (though people will use this column differently).

This includes things such as Darkvision, the ability you gain from your background and general abilities granted by your class (that are not spells or attacks). For instance a Cleric’s Channel Divinity might be written in this column.

 13. Spell Casting Ability

Your spell casting ability will be listed in your class – either Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom. 

14. Spell Save DC

Your Spell Save DC will be your Spell Casting Ability Score’s bonus + your proficiency + 8. Ie. If my kobold is now a bard with a Charisma of 18 (+4) and is 1st level their Spell Save DC will be 4+2+8 for a total of 14.

 15. Spell Attack Bonus

Your spell attack bonus is your Spell Casting Ability Score’s bonus + your proficiency – for my previously mentioned kobold this would be 4+2 for a total of +6

16. Choosing Spells

There are 2 main ways classes determine what spells you have. The first method is, you choose new spells as you level up and those are the only spells you have (for example a Bard uses this method). The number of spells you have for classes such as this will be determined by the Spells Known column in your levelling up table. The second method is preparing spells. This means you can potentially cast any of the spells for your class, but each morning you choose certain ones for the day. The number of spells you can prepare will most likely be your Spell Casting Ability Score Bonus + your level (unless you’re a paladin).

17. The Other Stuff (alignment/personality)

The other stuff you can write or not write as your wish – this stuff is more for RP. Personally I will write my alignment and that is it – but you can plan as much or as little as you want! 

As usual feel free to ask for any clarifications/more information.

Hope this was helpful! (sorry of the length)

Web Spinner Conclave: Ranger

Time to become your local neighbourhood, web-swinging hero.

[G Drive Link]