Adventuring Options!
This is perfect, I'm in the midst of writing up a standardized doc for my games' house rules. I wonder if there'll be anything here to add? I am tempted by the Called Shots from earlier, but I'm not sure how I'd factor it into A5E with its maneuvers... maybe add a saving throw to the hits?
Anyway...
Curses, Diseases, Hazards, and Traps
Several pages of Curses! That's cool.
A few pages of diseases, not all curable by low level magic.
Hazards seem cool. Sort of like A5E's exploration challenges, except these aren't resolved by a group skill challenge-type thing, it's just flat "make saves, leave, survive long enough," etc. Interesting... I'd like a big ol' easy-to-access list of this stuff.
Oh man, more fun art:
Why do I like seeing PCs seriously threatened in art? I want them to win but I want them to be seriously endangered doing so :'D
TRAPS! Oh boy, let's see: oh there's one cool thing that I hadn't thought of, Lightning Floor! A big part of traps being great is, IMO, making them a part of a combat encounter... another good suggestion I've heard is active, easily-visible traps as a barrier and/or to spice up an encounter. Think about leading draugr into those swinging axes in Skyrim.
Crafting Magic Items
They gate rarities craftable by PC level. Rare items require a level 7 PC. I don't mind that level gate, though it might be a little game-ey for some... but characters have levels and can in some manner gauge CR/level/power in the world. So this can be similarly explained.
Also, everything here starts with "If the GM allows it..." I like that.
As far as the actual rules go, I want to take a closer look at them another time... The crafting times seem pretty solid though, weeks to months or more!
Dread
Rules for horror-heavy games. They seem the Insanity-equivalent.
Firearms
Always contentious! I'm running a Saltmarsh+Pirates based game but I wasn't comfortable bringing firearms into the setting for it, but I always appreciate rules like this in case it comes up. Or for Spelljammer
This includes rules for gunpowder stuff- no lasers.
Magic Items Expanded
Huh, what could this be?
OK, artifacts and sentient magic items. Ohhh, ToV's magic items are in the PLAYER book.. I forgot that!
6 or so artifacts, including a metal as f Mirror of Life Trapping. Isn't 5e's Very Rare? I wonder why this one's an artifact... OH HOLY HECK THAT IS AMAZING. No wonder it has such a metal asf piece of art. Too spoilery to include here. I love it, though.
OK so each of these artifacts have a feature that one might consider a "curse," to varying degrees. I love this.
The sentient items are cool, they're provided a good amount of personality and motivation.
Poisons Expanded
A dozen or so poisons all fit into a page.
Rewards
Oh, I wonder if they have alternate XP tracks? 5e's DMG was supposed to have multiple XP tracks for leveling (according to the designers during development), for faster or slower-leveling games, but that must've ended up on the cutting room floor.
Downtime! Downtime's an award, apparently. Makes sense, "it's free time to breathe and pursue mundane interests," to paraphrase.
Treasure rewards here. Of note:
All useful info!
Siege Weapons
... Ok! Stats for siege weapons.
Vehicles Expanded
As one might expect, stats for vehicles from carriages to zeppelins to .. some weird and interesting vehicles that fit KP's Midgard setting. Cool cool.
MORE VARIANT RULES
Ho boy... 10 pages of variant rules.
Chase Rules! Better than 5e's. Can't speak for Revised 5e's ofc.
Monster Harvesting! Delicious in Dungeon, Monster Hunter, players want to harvest stuff from their kills. All the time. I like it, generally speaking!
Generally uses Survival or trapper tools, with some listed exception examples for Arcana etc. Uses Wisdom, hm. I wonder why? I usually say dexterity to actually harvest, and intelligence for knowhow.
Ha, there's a sidebar on Harvesting Humanoids and how by default it's not permitted.
Skill Challenges
Oh wow, hey look they're making a comeback!
It uses the # Successes v # Failures like 4e. 2.5 pages of rules for them.
And that's the end of the chapter!
The last chapter is Homebrewer's Toolbox
This is perfect, I'm in the midst of writing up a standardized doc for my games' house rules. I wonder if there'll be anything here to add? I am tempted by the Called Shots from earlier, but I'm not sure how I'd factor it into A5E with its maneuvers... maybe add a saving throw to the hits?
Anyway...
Curses, Diseases, Hazards, and Traps
Several pages of Curses! That's cool.
A few pages of diseases, not all curable by low level magic.
Hazards seem cool. Sort of like A5E's exploration challenges, except these aren't resolved by a group skill challenge-type thing, it's just flat "make saves, leave, survive long enough," etc. Interesting... I'd like a big ol' easy-to-access list of this stuff.
Oh man, more fun art:
Why do I like seeing PCs seriously threatened in art? I want them to win but I want them to be seriously endangered doing so :'D
TRAPS! Oh boy, let's see: oh there's one cool thing that I hadn't thought of, Lightning Floor! A big part of traps being great is, IMO, making them a part of a combat encounter... another good suggestion I've heard is active, easily-visible traps as a barrier and/or to spice up an encounter. Think about leading draugr into those swinging axes in Skyrim.
Crafting Magic Items
They gate rarities craftable by PC level. Rare items require a level 7 PC. I don't mind that level gate, though it might be a little game-ey for some... but characters have levels and can in some manner gauge CR/level/power in the world. So this can be similarly explained.
Also, everything here starts with "If the GM allows it..." I like that.
As far as the actual rules go, I want to take a closer look at them another time... The crafting times seem pretty solid though, weeks to months or more!
Dread
Rules for horror-heavy games. They seem the Insanity-equivalent.
Firearms
Always contentious! I'm running a Saltmarsh+Pirates based game but I wasn't comfortable bringing firearms into the setting for it, but I always appreciate rules like this in case it comes up. Or for Spelljammer
This includes rules for gunpowder stuff- no lasers.
Magic Items Expanded
Huh, what could this be?
OK, artifacts and sentient magic items. Ohhh, ToV's magic items are in the PLAYER book.. I forgot that!
6 or so artifacts, including a metal as f Mirror of Life Trapping. Isn't 5e's Very Rare? I wonder why this one's an artifact... OH HOLY HECK THAT IS AMAZING. No wonder it has such a metal asf piece of art. Too spoilery to include here. I love it, though.
OK so each of these artifacts have a feature that one might consider a "curse," to varying degrees. I love this.
The sentient items are cool, they're provided a good amount of personality and motivation.
Poisons Expanded
A dozen or so poisons all fit into a page.
Rewards
Oh, I wonder if they have alternate XP tracks? 5e's DMG was supposed to have multiple XP tracks for leveling (according to the designers during development), for faster or slower-leveling games, but that must've ended up on the cutting room floor.
Downtime! Downtime's an award, apparently. Makes sense, "it's free time to breathe and pursue mundane interests," to paraphrase.
Treasure rewards here. Of note:
All useful info!
Siege Weapons
... Ok! Stats for siege weapons.
Vehicles Expanded
As one might expect, stats for vehicles from carriages to zeppelins to .. some weird and interesting vehicles that fit KP's Midgard setting. Cool cool.
MORE VARIANT RULES
Ho boy... 10 pages of variant rules.
Chase Rules! Better than 5e's. Can't speak for Revised 5e's ofc.
Monster Harvesting! Delicious in Dungeon, Monster Hunter, players want to harvest stuff from their kills. All the time. I like it, generally speaking!
Generally uses Survival or trapper tools, with some listed exception examples for Arcana etc. Uses Wisdom, hm. I wonder why? I usually say dexterity to actually harvest, and intelligence for knowhow.
Ha, there's a sidebar on Harvesting Humanoids and how by default it's not permitted.
Skill Challenges
Oh wow, hey look they're making a comeback!
It uses the # Successes v # Failures like 4e. 2.5 pages of rules for them.
And that's the end of the chapter!
The last chapter is Homebrewer's Toolbox
