Search results

I always liked Earthdawn's way of recreating Vancian magic (which is unsurprisingly similar to Shadowrun) 1) Magic is damaging - a caster can kill themselves by casting spells. 2) magic involves spells - mostly true.... 3) the faster you cast, the more likey you are to die and/or be possessed...

Honestly, I'd give Battle Master Maneuvers & superiority dice to all martials. Be a Champion who crits on a 19 while using a maneuver and double the superiority damage dice. If someone wanted to be a Battle Expert, give them twice as many superiority dice that are 1 size larger. (E.g. 8x d10...

Prince of darkness is my favorite, rewarch horror movie. The pacing is slow but it just cranks up the dread. The final scene is an awesome twist. Poltergeist and The Fog did a number on me as a kid. A wall of unseasonal fog rolling out of the forest while I was watching the Fog home alone...

On the homebrew/published front, I know several gms who buy adventure to cannibalize. The game I'm in now is a synthesis of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Princes of Apocalypse, and Courts of the Shadowfey. The maps and most of the npc names/titles are the same, though I understand a lot of them got...

While I find the bastion-based quests focused around one PC a little irritating as presented in the article, the notion of running bastion-based quests as a built in alt-game isn't bad. There will always be days where somebody isn't there and as long as it's low stakes enough, it's an...

I am generally pro-crafting in my games, but I do think there needs to be some more refinement. We use the "sane item prices" from Saidoro, which puts the wand of Magic Missiles at 2,700gp. And we happily pay to get magic zots that work at range. At 400gp every PC would want a pair (and...

The video highlighted a few changes. Wand of Magic Missiles now limits to 3 charges per casting (no more 8 missile volleys) but it's still an unattuned usable by anyone so quite worth the 200gp & 10 days to make. The spell staff, sorry, Enspelled Staff, allows an attuned person to cast a spell...

One thing that drives me nuts about it is poisons are consumed, diseases are infectious. Ignoring all biological origin, diseases spread from person to person. It makes them scary. You can't "catch" poisoned from someone who is poisoned. Natural language fail.

I do like this plot. I had kobolds be immune to common dysentery. They'd kidnap some people, infect them then set them in a camp upstream of towns that relied on rivers for water. Wait a week or two and attack. An entire region can be impacted as the disease heads downstream. A paladin...

Two levels later at 5th it is 3 skills with +2 over JoaT. That's not nothing. It's much easier to get a point of AC...but Lore bards should know enough to avoid getting hit most of the time. Lore bards are amazing hecklers and can literally heckle people to death. Cutting words applies to...

If the players are wrong it is because the DM has not succeeded at making a non-humanocentric setting. If they had, the assumption would be the dominant non-human species. If no one knows the funny head prosthetics are there, then the funny head prosthetics aren't really there.

The bechdel test equivalent is that only non-human races are specified. e.g. The party is shipwrecked on an uncharted island and the DM says "six warriors carrying spears and tall shields approach in a hostile fashion". If most of the players assume the locals are humans, it is a...

I am working on a post-apocalyptic Shadowrun setting, 100yrs later. Each city has like 3 humans who were alive to remember "the event", then a plethora of dwarves and elves who dominate the discussions. It highlighted some dangerous aspects. They were there, no one else was. Some of the...

Two of casters have it our 5e campaign (sort of). My bard took the Ritual Wizard Caster feat and the Warlock took Pact of the Tome, which includes a greater version of ritual caster feat for all classes. It drastically ups the number of spells available to a "learned spell" class that can't...

Saltmarsh is a tier 4 location in Keoland (Niola Dra -> Gradsul -> Seaton -> Saltmarsh). I mean, size-wise, Seaton & Saltmarsh are both in the same class of 2k-5k community, but Seaton is the military and political seat. Saltmarsh could be a tier 3 as it is located on a border, doesn't suffer...

Not OP but according to Geyhawk Online ....In 576 CY the population was approximately 2,000.[1] By 591 CY it was estimated to have grown to 3,000,[8] and by 595 CY to 3,850.[4]..... 1. U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, p3. ..... 4.↑ Dungeon Master's Guide II, p.119-152 .... 8. Living...

Go to the original source: H. R. Giger. His Necronomicon IV was the inspiration for Ridley Scott's Aliens to the point Giger was hired to work on Alien, which is very clearly also the inspiration for Tyranids and Zerg (Blizzard actually mentioned Alien and Starship Troopers as inspiration for...

I know. I can't believe they didn't call it a Covert Operation or Spy Ring or something much less "pub".

The 5th level storehouse is a way to buy/sell goods and earn 10% of the investment each Turn. It could be a tavern. Prior to 5th level it should earn less than 10%. Maybe 2% per level. So a 1st level character put in 50gp and make back 51gp. 2nd 52gp, 3rd 53gp, 4th 54gp, at 5th as their...

Is it more or less time than getting to 8th in 5e? I mean, posts above say that most games end before 7. So that implies that 5e 8th is longer than 1e 5th. I will note, my logic also ,wans a 5th level 5e character getting a bastion is akin to a 1e character getting a house at 3rd level.