RE-SKINNING: Who needs rules to customize?

[HRSegovia]

It seems the days if imagination are dead and players need rules to tell them what to do. If we can break away from that, perhaps we can remember why we played when we were young and reconnect with our characters.

When creating a character, the rules are always about substance. What can your character do? And for the most part this is all players consider. While substance will help you enjoy your adventure and your place in a party, it will never allow you to enjoy your character. So how do we inject style into substance? Re-skinning.

Re-skinning is the idea of changing the way something looks without changing its function.

Re-skinning takes creativity, and not everyone can do it without forgetting the "one rule": re-skinning cannot change the function. This rule can be bent, and you'll learn that later. But for now, lets start with the easiest form of re-skinning: armor.

ARMOR
If you've never re-skinned before then armor is a good place to start. Your armor does not have to look like the picture portrayed in the rulebook. Redesign it! If you don't like the intricate fleurs (or you want more), or perhaps you want a new look altogether, then do it. The function of the armor remains the same. You're not re-skinning yet, but by redesigning a current look you have taken the first step to learning how to re-skin. To small a step? Then lets get to it.

- Your cleric wears chain and carries a shield. But that is not the way you envisioned a cleric in your head.
- You want to play a cleric, but you don't want to look like Eric the Cavalier in the old D&D cartoon.

So, your cleric is wearing armor equivalent to chain, but it's:
- a robe covered in metal prayer beads and trinkets
or
- actual chains woven into his tunic that he carries in penance

As long as it does not change the function (meaning it must follow all the rules of the original item) then your chainmail can look like anything.

But I want spikes and a horned helm. Then your spikes and horns are purely cosmetic and can NEVER be a factor in combat.

As for the shield? How about:
- a piece of oaken wood broken from one of his mead barrels?
or
- a giant holy symbol
or
- flattened roadkill enchanted with barkskin.

WEAPONS
Now your getting the hang of it. The next step is weapons. You've learned the one rule, so it's safe to say you can handle weapons without breaking it. Here you'll learn to bend it. Let's change the function.

But I thought crossing the streams was bad.

The world won't implode. As my old boss used to say, "We have ways to make things conform."

Let's have fun with the artificer.

A thrown weapon from an artificer returns. So why is this not the Glaive from Krull? That thing was cool!

Oh! Oh! Oh! And I want him to use a big-ass wrench as a weapon!

Whoah there Kimosabe. A wrench has a different function as well, it can fix things.

... ... yeah ... ... BUT my artificer did purchase a tool set. As long as he has his tool set, there's no reason to say he can't use his wrench as part of it. Visually, he may be caught using his wrench to repair items or disable devices. But if he loses his tools, then he has his wrench but loses the ability to use it AS a tool. If a mace (or whatever weapon he re-skinned) can't do it, then neither can the wrench.

SPELLS
Now let's have some real fun!

There's no reason:
- Tenser's Floating Disk can't have a tiny pink elephant carrying it.
- Magic Missiles can't look like skulls, rockets, hamsters or 's.
- Melf's Acid Arrow can't be spit from your mouth or look like a Xenomorph head.
- Arcane Lock can't be an illusionary squirrel desperately keeping your device shut with all his might (to which knock responds with a blunderbuss and the squirrel either puts his hands up and surrenders or is shot and dies comically).

MONSTERS
This is for you, GM's. Listen up! Your players have memorized the MM's. Re-skinning is a way of bringing intrigue and fun back into games with experienced players.

Your players have foolishly taken the great open field thinking it to be easier than the dense woods. Besides, the open space makes it easier to spot an ambush. But one of the party trips. Something has caught his leg. -- Oh, he just entwined it in a vine. -- But the vine begins dragging him across the field. An orange glow of a Jack`o Lantern emanates from his destination. The Pumpkin appears to start floating, but closer examination shows that vines are crawling and slithering to form a body. It's a Vine Horror!

Silly GM, vine horrors don't have glowy pumpkin heads.

To that I say a prophetic and resounding... so?

---

Customization is not rules-bound. Rules are modular and limit the number of builds. You are playing a character that is also being played by thousands of others: a cardboard cutout distinguished only by his name until he becomes seasoned with a unique history. Re-skinning makes your character yours now. Get it? Got it? Good.

What are some of your re-skins?

 

[HRSegovia]

Reviving an old post of mine. partly for new members, but mostly because nobody posted any reskins they've done. I wanna hear `em!

 

[Dandu]

Magic Missiles can't look like skulls, rockets, hamsters or 's

I have been tempted to fluff them as winged penises.

 

[HRSegovia]

I have been tempted to fluff them as winged penises.

LOL Add insult to injury?

 

[Dandu]

Just to be a dick.

 

[Sekhmet]

With weapons, it's tough. There is some evidence in history of men wearing non-standard, or altered armor into combat, and it's absolutely fine. If you want to wear "leather armor" that is really just several dozen cured and stiffened leather belts, that's just fine.
However, weapons have been truly designed to be effective in only such a manner as their presented. A wrench is not a combat weapon - it's improvised, and for a reason. It has neither the reach, the balance, or the heft required to be an effective combat tool.
Now, I'm not saying it wouldn't hurt to get hit in the head with a wrench (I know that one first hand), but I'm also saying that it shouldn't be the first thing you go for when you need to defend yourself.

I'm all for slight reskinning of weapons (winged axes instead of bearded axes, spears without metal tips, longknives being used in place of daggers (the difference of 3" and a single edge instead of a double sided blade). It doesn't change the use of the weapon, just the appearance.

With the case of the fantastic throwing weapons, if we examine the caber from Beastmaster, we can find it's really just a discus, which we can equate to a shuriken. Thats fine. Same type of damage, same style of combat, just slightly different look.

 

[HRSegovia]

With weapons, it's tough. There is some evidence in history of men wearing non-standard, or altered armor into combat, and it's absolutely fine. If you want to wear "leather armor" that is really just several dozen cured and stiffened leather belts, that's just fine.
However, weapons have been truly designed to be effective in only such a manner as their presented. A wrench is not a combat weapon - it's improvised, and for a reason. It has neither the reach, the balance, or the heft required to be an effective combat tool.
Now, I'm not saying it wouldn't hurt to get hit in the head with a wrench (I know that one first hand), but I'm also saying that it shouldn't be the first thing you go for when you need to defend yourself.

I'm all for slight reskinning of weapons (winged axes instead of bearded axes, spears without metal tips, longknives being used in place of daggers (the difference of 3" and a single edge instead of a double sided blade). It doesn't change the use of the weapon, just the appearance.

With the case of the fantastic throwing weapons, if we examine the caber from Beastmaster, we can find it's really just a discus, which we can equate to a shuriken. Thats fine. Same type of damage, same style of combat, just slightly different look.

Completely understandable. The only reason I mention wrench is because my Star Wars Sullistan Mechanic uses a gigantic wrench as a club.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How much reskinning is allowed depends upon the DM, of course.

However, i just wanted to point out this:

SPELLS
Now let's have some real fun!

There's no reason:
- Tenser's Floating Disk can't have a tiny pink elephant carrying it.
- Magic Missiles can't look like skulls, rockets, hamsters or 's.
- Melf's Acid Arrow can't be spit from your mouth or look like a Xenomorph head.
- Arcane Lock can't be an illusionary squirrel desperately keeping your device shut with all his might (to which knock responds with a blunderbuss and the squirrel either puts his hands up and surrenders or is shot and dies comically).

There actually is a reason, at least in 3.5Ed: Spellcraft's ability to ID a spell...which is the reason why the Feat Spell Thematics exists. If you're not familiar with it, it boosts the DC of identifying a spell as it is being cast or as its effects become apparent. In fact, the flavor text of the feat mentions things like MM looking like flying laughing skulls, or some such.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Reskin eh? That leather armor I bought is actually bearskin. I am most definitely wearing his head as my helm and using his arms cover mine the same way. Yogi wanted to wade into combat and now's his chance!

Literal and figurative jokes aside (I'm looking at you Dandu. >.> ), a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking D&D is a numbers game thanks to the later editions. Sure it can be crunchy, but crunching numbers often isn't fun (take it from a Computer Science major.)

Instead of just saying the spell grants +4 Strength, say that the subject's limbs surge with power and strength... Yeah, lost the continuation of that thought.

While it's on my mind, new spell: Bigby's Obscene Gesture.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

There actually is a reason, at least in 3.5Ed: Spellcraft's ability to ID a spell...which is the reason why the Feat Spell Thematics exists. If you're not familiar with it, it boosts the DC of identifying a spell as it is being cast or as its effects become apparent. In fact, the flavor text of the feat mentions things like MM looking like flying laughing skulls, or some such.

It is also, hands down, the absolute worst feat in existence. I mean, it's worse than Toughness.

No, in my games (and in the games of all right-thinking folk!), you can flavor your spell effects however you want - just like you could in every previous edition.

I mean, consider the spellcraft DC to identify a magic missile spell as it is being cast. Now consider the spellcraft DC to identify a stilled magic missile as it is being cast.

It has the same DC.

If "This one has fancy movements, and this one doesn't" isn't enough to trigger a change in the spellcraft DC, "This one looks like golden arrows, and this one looks like skulls" isn't either.