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Good questions regarding the technology... let's say Star Trek level for the sake of argument. A typical civilization can: * build starships with crew complements ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred people * build artifical habitats the size of cities * efficiently mine sterile planets...

TL;DR: This thread is asking you to contribute new reasons for mutiple alien species to come into conflict with each other in a hard science fiction setting. I'm juggling ideas in my head for a new hard science fiction campaign. I want the PCs to be protagonists of a story involving multiple...

I've been able to ambush my PCs. Here's how I run it: A group of 4 wolves (stealth +4) tries to sneak up through the woods to the range of a single move. The highest passive perception in the party is 15. The wolves roll a group stealth check and get 8, 13, 17, 22. Half beat the target number...

Good question! Some players are interested in integrating with a homebrew session, others just want to play a generic PC or something far out. The way I deal with this is: (1) Before I even start to flesh out the setting, I share my sketchy ideas with the players and ask them if they're...

Cool ideas, Reynard. It reminds me a bit of Thundarr... transhumanist technomancers go bonkers and become indistinguishable from evil wizards. And if the aether is still around, then even the new generation could learn to manipulate it with salvaged tech. I've been mulling over what to do with...

There are lots of vestiges in the Amber Temple that could be spun into a hermit's background. Maybe the "secret" they uncovered is really a message from one of them, or an insight into their nature. Especially if that hermit is a warlock... just sayin! <evil grin> "The voice of your patron has...

The only one that really grabs me is Circle of Shepherd, which dovetails nicely with the totem barbarian. Dreams is meh, and the necro-druid just doesn't make sense thematically. Just give a Land druid spells the defend against undead/necrotic and you're good to go.

The blank dice are genius. I just added those to my December wishlist. :-)

Sneak attack is only once per turn, right? So Extra Attack at 17th or even 13th isn't actually a very powerful ability. I like Flamestrike's suggestions that key off the frightened condition, and motivate the Thug to try to frighten people in combat. It could also be a good chassis for a...

I think this is a key point, and one of the reasons that D&D works so well. For a SF game, consider putting the players on a smaller ship like the Millennium Falcon. The ship is in poor repair and understaffed, so you actually need two PCs minimum to fly the ship in a challenging environment...

Good stuff overall. The College of Whispers is a very interesting take on the Bard, but I agree that the Venomous Blade ability doesn't feel right for the class. Rather, give them a proficiency in using mundane poisons/drugs, and let then use Inspiration to demoralize opponents in combat. Ben

Thanks for the thoughtful, interesting, and well-written post. Any creative work is a melting pot, but respect shows itself if you try to create something of value to a wide audience. That means you're not just playing to your own cultural group and its stereotypes, you're trying to make...

Thanks for the tip, Roseweave, I found Alif the Unseen on Amazon. I wrestled a bit over whether to allow sorcerers in my campaign, and decided against it since neither origin in the PH seemed to mesh well with the source material. I'd be interested to see how you designed a jinn-touched...

A few of the vestiges made it into Curse of Strahd... that made me happy. :-) I think a warlock is already a pretty good model for the Binder class. Maybe you could introduce a new Warlock subclass that can has to learn specific Patrons like wizards learn spells, but can change its patron after...

Looks fun and balanced, and I really like the "Common Phrases" line for each god. Even the "evil" gods of this pantheon have a clear role in society. Do you also want to have an adversary power, someone who just wants to tear Creation down? Contrary to Jhaelen, I think any old-world god name...

Interesting read, thanks for posting. I'm running an Arabian Nights-style campaign right now, and when designing it I was also concerned that monotheism and determinism are central themes of the source folklore, which would be lost if we defaulted to fantasy polytheism. However, at the same...

It's mainly a question of atmosphere, isn't it? Unlike fantasy, science fantasy is likely to: involve travel through space or to other dimensions favor "magical" effects that play on the fringes of what is scientifically plausible (psionics, hacking) avoid "magical" effects that completely...

This week I received a couple of PMs from JorgeWar inviting me to an adult services website. Does that count? I'm happy to ban the bot, if you give me the hammer. I swear not to use it in ill faith. :-) Ben

I forget how 2nd edition handled it. But in AD&D, your average PC schmuck sneaking up on some orcs had a base 33% chance to surprise (1-2 on a d6). Some classes had a bonus penalty to the surprise chance. If you manage to surprise your opponent you get the concrete benefit of a partial round...

Co-opting a fraction of the human population actually sounds like the only realistic strategy for a minority demihuman/nonhuman power to rise in the rankings.