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[Let's Read] The Star-Shaman's Song of Planegea: Dungeons & Dragons, Prehistoric Style
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9252005" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HGnJ0IX.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong>Chapter 6: Backgrounds</strong></p><p></p><p>I’m not sure why the backgrounds chapter has someone conducting a magical ritual in the shadow of a kaiju deer or goat, but the artwork’s cool enough that I’ll take it.</p><p></p><p>While most 5e backgrounds can work in Planegea with some minor changes in terms of starting equipment and tool proficiencies, we get 20 new ones fitting a more prehistoric setting. Thirteen of them are related to some kind of trade or general background, while seven indicate a character coming from a certain clan or settlement: for the latter, four of them cover the three major Clans of the Great Valley plus the Whale Clan, while the other three focus on the setting’s largest settlements of Edgegather, Free Citadel, and Seerfall. I found this last part a bit confusing: if a PC wants to be part of the Lion Clan but also a Crafter, are those mutually exclusive? I presume not, but the way the text for the settlements and clans are worded indicates otherwise.</p><p></p><p>Much like their standard versions, all of the new backgrounds are “balanced” in giving out two skill proficiencies, a variety of cheap equipment, either a total of two language and/or tool proficiencies, and a unique Feature. There is one exception with the Caretaker, a background for someone skilled in looking after children or the elderly and infirm as a variant; said background grants three tool proficiencies, albeit the text contradicts itself by giving out 2 in the background table (Cook’s Utensils and Mender’s Tools) but later on the entry itself also adds in one Gaming Set.</p><p></p><p>Naturally some backgrounds are more attractive than others either in giving out useful skills or Features that have explicit benefits rather than generic “your character has a cool NPC mentor or is well-liked in a particular area.” These include Captive (represents someone who was kidnapped as a hostage and/or slave) which grants proficiency in Perception and Stealth; Gatherer (find food in the wild’s that doesn’t involve hunting) has a Feature where you can forage double the normal amount of food and can automatically notice objects within your line of sight if you are familiar with said objects in the past or had them described in detail; Hunter’s feature grants contacts that let you learn general information about an area ranging from common animal life, weather patterns, geographical features, and environmental dangers; Keeper of Beasts lets causes beasts you approach in a non-aggressive fashion to earn that creature’s trust as its first instinct, but other factors can mitigate this; Outcast gets proficiency in Stealth and Survival, and its Feature lets you build concealable shelters that can protect inhabitants from weather conditions that are sized for one by default but can grow room with time and materials.</p><p></p><p>One of the backgrounds has a Feature that I honestly can’t see coming up all that often in Planegea: Edgegatherer represents an inhabitant of Edgegather, the troperific “lawless city” settlement of Planegea. The Feature makes it so that the PC knows their way around large settlements, being able to easily maneuver through crowds and find particular establishments in cities (taverns, resting places, ruler’s dwellings) easily. They can quickly get a contact in newly encountered cities and large settlements who can give broad knowledge about the area.</p><p></p><p>While this background includes “large settlement” in addition to the more explicit definition of a “city,” Planegea isn’t exactly brimming with large population centers. Edgegather, Free Citadel, and Seerfall are the closest, with the rest being territories of the Giant Empires which are pretty dangerous places for PC races to visit. Of course, it can be handy for campaigns centering in such areas, but it’s a lot more situational and won’t come up that often.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/0Svb9HW.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong>Chapter 7: Equipment & Trade</strong></p><p></p><p>This short chapter has a smattering of new gear, but much of its page space is dedicated towards reflavoring existing technology. Planegea’s lack of mass industry and fiat currency means that crafted items are more likely to have sentimental value, with weapons and armor in particular prone to being given names in line with the deeds of their wielders. Metals of all kinds do not exist, so material that would ordinarily be used is given a variety of alternative sources. We get tables for converting currencies, metal types, and even common gear. There’s even a table in back for reflavoring artisan’s tools to be more Stone Age, along with 3 new types: ceremonial supplies for divine rituals, butcher’s tools for harvesting animal parts, and gatherer’s supplies for foraging in the wilds.</p><p></p><p>Regarding weapons and armor, material is much more versatile than they would be in most medieval fantasy settings. For example, a shield could be the shell of a large turtle or similar creature, or made out of stone-lined wood taken from a petrified forest. Stone, bone, antler, and wood are common metallic substitutes, while more exotic metals have specific replacements like polished wood replacing silver or adamantine replaced with divine ivory taken from the corpse of a god. Even heavier armor types like chainmail and plate armor can exist albeit reflavored: chainmail can be made from interlocking pieces of bone, antler, or shell; splint armor may be made from wood or chitin, tusks, and other curvy hard body parts taken from monsters and animals; and plate armor might be made of stone and/or dense bones and natural plating of thick-skinned monsters. Swords tend to not be giant knives so much as clubs and blunt weapons studded with lots of smaller sharp objects such as teeth, obsidian, and/or knapped stone.</p><p></p><p>The book is still nice enough to give us tables of Stone Age Armor and Weapons, with the armor being pretty much identical to the PHB but renamed in places, but the weapons include some new entries. The more notable weapons include antlerclaws which are basically daggers that do slashing damage and can’t be thrown, hammerstones which are basically stone spheres that are treated as two-handed heavy weapons which can be thrown, the saw which is also two-handed and heavy but deals 1d6 piercing and 1d6 slashing damage, and bolas which are thrown weapons that have a pretty poor range (10/30 feet) but can automatically restrain Large and smaller creatures it hits. It also does damage unlike nets, which it has going for it. Boomerangs are the other thrown weapon, having the range of javelins at 30/120 feet but deal a respectable 1d8 bludgeoning damage and can return to the thrower’s hand at the end of their turn if they miss with the attack.</p><p></p><p>Some weapons feel underpowered in comparison to existing PHB ones. The clubsword deals 1d8 bludgeoning and has the Versatile property where it deals 1d10 slashing. So like a warhammer but with 2 possible damage types, right? Well, it costs prohibitively more, being the equivalent of 50 gold whereas a warhammer is 15. Similarly, a warclub deals 1d12 bludgeoning and costs the same amount as a maul, but as the maul is 2d6 it has a better floor of minimal damage and more consistent bell curve of average damage, not to mention works better with Great Weapon Fighting rerolls.</p><p></p><p>Moving on to gear that isn’t explicitly for killing and resisting being killed, technology that would’ve been advanced even in a medieval setting is reflavored as magic items. For example, a spyglass becomes a wood or bone hoop enchanted to “zoom in” when one views things through it. As coins and other fiat currency don’t exist in Planegea, barter is the dominant means of economic resolution. As the writers realized many gamers may not want to role-play out every little trade, they came up with a gold piece equivalent: salt portion, or ps for short. A salt portion represents a coin-sized portion of salt, and is more of an abstraction given that salt’s value can be different based on its rarity in regions. It can thus represent various knick-knacks a character has on their person ranging from spare food and tools, handcrafted goods, and hours’ worth of everyday labor and chores. The book also provides a new form of reputation-based currency in the form of names and scars. PCs who commit deeds of note can find their reputation preceding them, which can take the form of “salt portions” from completing quests. Scars are also signs of someone who overcame a dangerous foe, telling people at first glance their possible “worth” in deeds.</p><p></p><p>Sticking out like a sore thumb, we get a half-page article on languages that has nothing to do with equipment. There’s honestly not much to add beyond the fact that almost all the PHB languages exist in Planegea but don’t have written scripts, some are renamed like Thieves’ Cant being the Code, and Abyssal, Celestial, and Infernal aren’t yet separate languages but dialects of the same language known as Divine. Common has four dialects which serve as trade languages based on a region’s resident Giant Empire and are appropriately elemental such as Airspeech or Stonespeech.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/78k498V.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong>Chapter 8: Spells</strong></p><p></p><p>This chapter provides us with 28 new spells along with general information on the understanding and workings of magic in Planegea. Magic is still a relatively new discovered art, so certain kinships and groups have progressed farther in certain schools. For example, the dwarves are creating many common abjuration spells, conjuration was taught by the genies, and saurians made use of their spiritual links to ancestors to gain awareness of necromancy. While this doesn’t have any specific restrictions on what spells can be learned by PCs, the book instead provides guidance instead of restrictions by how a mage character’s kinship and school may be flavored based on spell components. There’s also an optional rule suggesting that all spells of 5th level and higher have yet to be invented and codified, so PCs who “learn” such spells are in fact their original inventors! Spells of this magnitude possessed by NPCs and monsters are instead reflavored workings of great magic that haven’t yet entered common understanding. As for spells with the names of famous mages such as Bigby’s Grasping Hand, they still exist or can exist in Planegea. They are instead rediscovered techniques that have since been lost to prehistory by the time their respective settings become the present day.</p><p></p><p>But while Planegea provides open options, it does have some restrictions and changes to spells to work within setting parameters. Heat Metal is renamed to Heat Stone and instead effects stone, while Plane Shift is a more limited form of teleportation that transports people to broadly named regions. This is due to the fact that each “plane” is geographically linked and thus can be traversed the regular way rather than being counted as entirely separate realities. In this case, the “Material Plane” is considered to be the Great Valley, Wintersouth, and the four Giant Empire regions, with the Elemental Wastes, Sea of Stars, Nod, and Kingdom of the Dead to be other specific “planes” for the purposes of this spell. There are new creatures in this book that have two unique tags, God and Defiant, that limit how existing spells can interface with them. Creatures with the God tag cannot be transformed into by any magic, including Wish, while creatures with the Defiant tag are similarly limited in terms of transformation but also can’t be affected by Animal Friendship or Dominate Beasts unless they are cast with higher level slots. Defiant is a tag most typically applied to Beasts, as Planegea is home to quite a bit of high-CR dinosaurs and other animals that I feel the authors didn’t want to place in the laps of players.</p><p></p><p>Regarding material components that have explicit costs in gold pieces, an alternative in paying the cost is known as Blood Magic. A mage who has access to liquid blood can substitute it for material components, where 1 hit point worth of shed blood substitutes for one gold piece/salt portion’s worth. For non-consumable components that specify objects, the blood is smeared on an appropriate object which then serves as the component. Blood shed this way doesn’t have to come from the caster and can be stored for later use, but blood that is “spent” to use on an object cannot be repurposed for another object. While I like this in terms of concept, it is easy prey for Bag of Rats style tactics such as using Conjure Animals to slaughter and thus gain “free gold” in order to gain pricy material components.</p><p></p><p>On the flavor side of things, spells that bring the dead back to life work as normal, but its practitioners are prone to being hunted by Nazh-Agaa who is one of the setting’s major villains and seeks to make all dead souls his subjects.</p><p></p><p>Now we get to the 28 new <strong>Spell Descriptions.</strong> 18 of these spells fit within the “4th level or lower” parameters as set up in the optional rule for invented spells, and in regards to class the ones that get the most include the Druid and Sorcerer who both get 13 of the spells. The Cleric and Wizard are next up in having access to 12 of them, while the Bard and Warlock have access to 11 and 10 respectively. The Paladin and Ranger predictably get the least at 7 and 8. When it comes to new spell schools a good portion are Transmutation (7), followed up by Conjuration (6) and Enchantment (5). The remaining schools have middling to low representation, with only a mere 1 Abjuration spell and 3 Evocation spells, the rest being 2 each. Due to the volume I won’t cover every spell in detail, instead highlighting the ones I find most interesting or worthy of note.</p><p></p><p><em>Aggravate Wounds</em> is a 3rd level necromancy spell where should the target fail a Constitution save, they take 1d6 additional necrotic damage whenever they’d take bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. When cast at higher level slots this bonus damage increases. Due to its nature it’s competing with Hex, as since it’s concentration it can’t stack with that spell, and Hex’s bonus damage isn’t so limited by damage type. But it can apply multiple times per round rather than once, so it is of great use in a party that has a lot of physical attackers. Otherwise Hex is better in most circumstances.</p><p></p><p><em>Bite Back</em> is a 1st level spell cast as a reaction to being damaged by a melee attack. It summons a spirit beast that bites the attacker, forcing them to make a Dexterity save or take 2d8 damage (half on success) and be restrained until the end of the caster’s next turn if they’re no more than one size category larger. The spell’s competing with Shield as a 1st level reaction spell: as Shield can also apply to ranged attacks and outright negates damage, Bite Back is best used by a caster who has hit points to spare and wants to lock down an attacking enemy. Fortunately the designers realized this, as Bite Back is learnable by Druids, Paladins, and Rangers, whereas Shield is typically learnable only by squishy arcane casters, so this spell works out for the classes that have access to it.</p><p></p><p><em>Bolt of Ush</em> is an 8th level spell that is basically a damaging version of Teleport that transports the casters and willing targets via lightning strike to a location. It deals 10d8 lighting damage in a 20 foot sphere and deals 50 points of lightning damage to objects and lights flammable objects on fire. I honestly can’t see this being used unless the caster knows that a group of hostile opponents are gathered in an area and wants to surprise attack them with the party once they arrive. However, such an effect can be similarly accomplished via lower-level slots such as an upcast Invisibility spell to affect multiple targets in order to ambush a place. It also requires a 2,000 gp material component to cast, and while it’s not consumed upon use it loses out to regular Teleport which doesn’t require such an expenditure.</p><p></p><p><em>Deflect Magic</em> is a 5th level spell cast as a reaction, which is similar to Counterspell in that it can let the caster avoid the effects of a 5th level or lower spell cast upon them but instead redirects the targeting effect back at the caster. Unlike Counterspell its range is “self” instead of 60 feet but technically has the “range” of the reflected spell, meaning it can also apply to longer-range spells such as Fireball. Overall a pretty handy thing to have, and like Counterspell it can block higher-level spells when cast via higher level slots.</p><p></p><p><em>Disorient</em> is a multi-target 4th level spell that causes up to 10 creatures who fail a saving throw to become lost and suffer disadvantage on checks to discern location and direction, which is like a highly specific and situational multi-target Bestow Curse. Maybe it can be of use when the PCs are running from foes and don’t want to be tracked down, but otherwise I can’t see it coming up that often.</p><p></p><p><em>Form Weapon</em> is a cantrip for Clerics, Druids, and Sorcerers, letting them draw from surrounding natural elements to form a simple weapon with which they have proficiency and is treated as magical. It lasts for one minute, is cast as a bonus action, and doesn’t require concentration. Given that weapons in general aren’t hard to come by and it can’t mimic martial weapons, this isn’t a very good spell, with its primary use most likely being to overcome non-magical damage resistance and immunities at lower levels.</p><p></p><p><em>Fury of Twr</em> causes a 120 foot radius of extreme heat to radiate from the caster, dealing 5d10 damage upon initial casting and causes any water within range to turn into superheated steam, dealing 3d10 damage to those within at least 1 inch of water each round for the next minute. It requires concentration to persist, and while potentially very damaging is only useful when cast in wet environments and requires a consumable 100 gp material component per casting. This makes it lose out to more broadly reliable AoE duration-based spells such as Wall of Fire.</p><p></p><p><em>Gaze of Glelh</em> is a 6th level ritual spell that consumes a 200 gp equivalent of pigments used to create a ceremonial square portraying lion-themed artwork. Any creature within the square can perfectly see anything up to 10 miles away as though they had a high-powered telescope, and as an action creatures seen within this range can be targeted to approach the square on a failed Wisdom save. Upon reaching the square’s location they lie down and gain the Paralyzed condition until the spell ends. The spell lasts for 24 hours or until it doesn’t have any conscious creatures with Wisdom scores of 4 or greater remaining within it. While it sounds quite situational, I can see some clever gaming groups coming up with uses for it by luring far-away targets from an area.</p><p></p><p><em>Heart of Urhosh</em> is a 6th level spell cast as a reaction whenever the caster or a creature they can see within 120 feet would die or drop to 0 hit points. They drop to 1 hit point instead and cannot be reduced below this value until the end of their next turn. Instadeath effects also can’t affect them for this duration. While it consumes a high-level spell slot, its long range plus the short-duration “KO immunity” means I can see a lot of players picking it up.</p><p></p><p><em>Lava Leap</em> is a 3rd level spell where the caster makes a standing leap to any point they can see within 30 feet, and a plume of magma explodes behind them as an AoE radius dealing 3d10 fire damage that cools into difficult terrain. In comparison to other 3rd level spells such as Fireball the damage is rather paltry, and unlike Misty Step which is 2nd level it’s cast as an action rather than a bonus action. The spell’s text doesn’t note whether or not movement from this spell provokes attacks of opportunity; if it does not which I presume, it can be a useful means for a caster to escape elsewhere but also wants to do appreciable damage that turn which they can’t ordinarily do with Misty Step (you’d only be able to cast a cantrip as an action vs a leveled spell this way). If it does it’s not very useful as an escape spell, and for vertical movement the Fly spell is better and longer-lasting.</p><p></p><p><em>Mage Skis</em> is a 2nd level ritual that creates magical foot-strips that allow up to 6 people to move over snowy and frozen terrain at a speed of 60 feet and ignores difficult terrain penalties on them. Once again, highly situational to certain adventures and locations.</p><p></p><p><em>Nightmare Bind</em> is a 2nd level spell cast on a sleeping creature within 10 feet over the course of 1 minute, where if the target fails the save they cannot benefit from a long rest for 8 hours, and when cast at higher level slots the duration increases exponentially. As the target wakes up should they succeed the save, this is only the kind of spell a hostile NPC would cast on the party while sneaking around but doesn’t want to kill them for some reason. Most PCs who have 1 minute of access to a helpless foe would either kill them or do something else. There’s not a lot of cases where I can think of PCs needing to rob an NPC of the ability to long rest.</p><p></p><p><em>Possess Steed</em> is a 5th level spell that targets up to 10 willing creatures touching up to 10 separate willing steeds, where for the next 8 hours the non-steeds meld into the bodies of the steeds and take control of them…which brings to mind in what circumstances a character would do this if the steeds are willing and can otherwise be ridden on. Maybe it’s for exploits like someone wanting to apply Battlemaster maneuvers to the natural weapons of a dinosaur or something. Which can be cool, but again feels really situational in comparison to something like Polymorph.</p><p></p><p><em>Quillburst</em> is a 2nd level spell that causes magical quills to explode from the caster in a 20 foot radius, dealing 2d6 piercing damage. The effect is Concentration and can last for up to a minute, and any time the caster would take damage from an attack they can unleash a second burst of quills and end the spell. So this spell can deal up to 4d6 damage based on situational use, but for a 2nd level slot it’s not very strong. Scorching Ray can deal more and is more reliable in not needing the caster to be damaged, and Shatter is also AoE but has a much less resisted damage type. Heat Metal, or Heat Stone in this case, is concentration-based damage and single-target but can deal much more damage over time and is activated as a bonus action.</p><p></p><p><em>Senses Whispers</em> is a cantrip that detects the location of friendly undead creatures within 30 feet and has a casting time of 1 minute, making it all but useless for 99% of campaigns.</p><p></p><p><em>Smoke Breathing</em> is a 3rd level ritual spell that affects 10 creatures for up to 24 hours, letting them safely breath nonmagical harmful gas. As this doesn’t work for magical gas such as Cloudkill, this can only really be reliably deployed by PCs who manage to get their hands on inhaled poisons like burnt othur fumes. Even then, most savvy PCs should be able to avoid its effects.</p><p></p><p><em>Song of Mala</em> is a 6th level spell where the caster sings a song that can be heard by creatures up to 10 miles away, and the caster can make the selective nature differ such as particular individuals or creature types rather than affecting everyone within range. It is basically a multi-target one-way Sending spell that can communicate a message up to 25 words in length, and while concentrating on the spell (1 hour duration) creatures who can hear it can pinpoint the caster’s location. Such a spell is bound to be compared to Sending. That spell is 3rd level and single-target, but what it has over Song of Mala is that its range is unlimited and the recipient can reply back. Song of Mala also requires a 750 gp non-consumable spell component to cast, so it’s really only useful for sending out a multi-target long-range communication with a much higher slot than multiple 3rd level slots. Due to this, its usefulness in a campaign is much more nebulous and harder to gauge.</p><p></p><p><em>Spellbinding</em> is a 9th level spell that requires 1,000 gp component that is consumed, and when cast on a target makes them invisible to all spellcasters: any creature that can cast a cantrip or 1st level or higher spell is unable to see the target unless the spell’s dispelled, and magical means of detecting the target also fail. This is a very powerful feature but since it’s 9th level this means that it won’t see use on the PC’s side of things for most campaigns.</p><p></p><p><em>Stormscrying</em> is a 2nd level ritual spell that basically turns the caster into a weather anchor, letting them detect the current time, temperature, and weather of a named location with which they are familiar, and can even include large regions but have more general information. Druidcraft more or less does the same thing but only in regards to weather and the caster’s current location. It’s usability may depend on how broad a DM interprets “location.” If PCs travel overland, can a new area they enter be sufficiently different that Druidcraft won’t apply but Stormscrying can? I can see some DMs interpreting the cantrip to mean any location the PCs can reach in a short amount of time, which would make Stormscrying useless save for predicting the weather in far-away locations. And even that may be situational.</p><p></p><p><em>Time Slip</em> is a 1st level spell where someone who fails a Wisdom save becomes confused about time for the spell’s duration of Concentration up to an hour. They believe it to be whatever hour the caster designates and rationalizes any changes in lighting or environment. I honestly can’t think of any reason to use this spell in a typical D&D adventure.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> When it comes to the chapters, I like the new backgrounds and equipment, but am not really fond of the new spells. A lot of the spells are the kinds of things that aren’t really geared towards adventurers and more like “everyday magic” to make the world feel more plausible. But as such effects are competing with other more immediately useful and broad spells, they end up quite underpowered. I really like how the book goes into detail for equipment and shows quite the imaginative ingenuity, even if I feel that some of the weapons just don’t stack up against existing versions which can still be reflavored to fit the setting. I like that the book provided enough new backgrounds to fit a Prehistoric Fantasy feel rather than just doing a few or taking the lazy way out in going “just refit the core rules.” I will say that I don’t like the idea of tying backgrounds to specific communities or clans, given that such places are broad enough and likely where most PCs will come from. The text implies one needs to take such backgrounds in order to be an inhabitant/member/citizen of them, which blunts their appeal.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we delve into the DM’s side of things in Chapter 9: Stone Age Adventures!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 9252005, member: 6750502"] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/HGnJ0IX.png[/img] [b]Chapter 6: Backgrounds[/b][/center] I’m not sure why the backgrounds chapter has someone conducting a magical ritual in the shadow of a kaiju deer or goat, but the artwork’s cool enough that I’ll take it. While most 5e backgrounds can work in Planegea with some minor changes in terms of starting equipment and tool proficiencies, we get 20 new ones fitting a more prehistoric setting. Thirteen of them are related to some kind of trade or general background, while seven indicate a character coming from a certain clan or settlement: for the latter, four of them cover the three major Clans of the Great Valley plus the Whale Clan, while the other three focus on the setting’s largest settlements of Edgegather, Free Citadel, and Seerfall. I found this last part a bit confusing: if a PC wants to be part of the Lion Clan but also a Crafter, are those mutually exclusive? I presume not, but the way the text for the settlements and clans are worded indicates otherwise. Much like their standard versions, all of the new backgrounds are “balanced” in giving out two skill proficiencies, a variety of cheap equipment, either a total of two language and/or tool proficiencies, and a unique Feature. There is one exception with the Caretaker, a background for someone skilled in looking after children or the elderly and infirm as a variant; said background grants three tool proficiencies, albeit the text contradicts itself by giving out 2 in the background table (Cook’s Utensils and Mender’s Tools) but later on the entry itself also adds in one Gaming Set. Naturally some backgrounds are more attractive than others either in giving out useful skills or Features that have explicit benefits rather than generic “your character has a cool NPC mentor or is well-liked in a particular area.” These include Captive (represents someone who was kidnapped as a hostage and/or slave) which grants proficiency in Perception and Stealth; Gatherer (find food in the wild’s that doesn’t involve hunting) has a Feature where you can forage double the normal amount of food and can automatically notice objects within your line of sight if you are familiar with said objects in the past or had them described in detail; Hunter’s feature grants contacts that let you learn general information about an area ranging from common animal life, weather patterns, geographical features, and environmental dangers; Keeper of Beasts lets causes beasts you approach in a non-aggressive fashion to earn that creature’s trust as its first instinct, but other factors can mitigate this; Outcast gets proficiency in Stealth and Survival, and its Feature lets you build concealable shelters that can protect inhabitants from weather conditions that are sized for one by default but can grow room with time and materials. One of the backgrounds has a Feature that I honestly can’t see coming up all that often in Planegea: Edgegatherer represents an inhabitant of Edgegather, the troperific “lawless city” settlement of Planegea. The Feature makes it so that the PC knows their way around large settlements, being able to easily maneuver through crowds and find particular establishments in cities (taverns, resting places, ruler’s dwellings) easily. They can quickly get a contact in newly encountered cities and large settlements who can give broad knowledge about the area. While this background includes “large settlement” in addition to the more explicit definition of a “city,” Planegea isn’t exactly brimming with large population centers. Edgegather, Free Citadel, and Seerfall are the closest, with the rest being territories of the Giant Empires which are pretty dangerous places for PC races to visit. Of course, it can be handy for campaigns centering in such areas, but it’s a lot more situational and won’t come up that often. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/0Svb9HW.png[/img] [b]Chapter 7: Equipment & Trade[/b][/center] This short chapter has a smattering of new gear, but much of its page space is dedicated towards reflavoring existing technology. Planegea’s lack of mass industry and fiat currency means that crafted items are more likely to have sentimental value, with weapons and armor in particular prone to being given names in line with the deeds of their wielders. Metals of all kinds do not exist, so material that would ordinarily be used is given a variety of alternative sources. We get tables for converting currencies, metal types, and even common gear. There’s even a table in back for reflavoring artisan’s tools to be more Stone Age, along with 3 new types: ceremonial supplies for divine rituals, butcher’s tools for harvesting animal parts, and gatherer’s supplies for foraging in the wilds. Regarding weapons and armor, material is much more versatile than they would be in most medieval fantasy settings. For example, a shield could be the shell of a large turtle or similar creature, or made out of stone-lined wood taken from a petrified forest. Stone, bone, antler, and wood are common metallic substitutes, while more exotic metals have specific replacements like polished wood replacing silver or adamantine replaced with divine ivory taken from the corpse of a god. Even heavier armor types like chainmail and plate armor can exist albeit reflavored: chainmail can be made from interlocking pieces of bone, antler, or shell; splint armor may be made from wood or chitin, tusks, and other curvy hard body parts taken from monsters and animals; and plate armor might be made of stone and/or dense bones and natural plating of thick-skinned monsters. Swords tend to not be giant knives so much as clubs and blunt weapons studded with lots of smaller sharp objects such as teeth, obsidian, and/or knapped stone. The book is still nice enough to give us tables of Stone Age Armor and Weapons, with the armor being pretty much identical to the PHB but renamed in places, but the weapons include some new entries. The more notable weapons include antlerclaws which are basically daggers that do slashing damage and can’t be thrown, hammerstones which are basically stone spheres that are treated as two-handed heavy weapons which can be thrown, the saw which is also two-handed and heavy but deals 1d6 piercing and 1d6 slashing damage, and bolas which are thrown weapons that have a pretty poor range (10/30 feet) but can automatically restrain Large and smaller creatures it hits. It also does damage unlike nets, which it has going for it. Boomerangs are the other thrown weapon, having the range of javelins at 30/120 feet but deal a respectable 1d8 bludgeoning damage and can return to the thrower’s hand at the end of their turn if they miss with the attack. Some weapons feel underpowered in comparison to existing PHB ones. The clubsword deals 1d8 bludgeoning and has the Versatile property where it deals 1d10 slashing. So like a warhammer but with 2 possible damage types, right? Well, it costs prohibitively more, being the equivalent of 50 gold whereas a warhammer is 15. Similarly, a warclub deals 1d12 bludgeoning and costs the same amount as a maul, but as the maul is 2d6 it has a better floor of minimal damage and more consistent bell curve of average damage, not to mention works better with Great Weapon Fighting rerolls. Moving on to gear that isn’t explicitly for killing and resisting being killed, technology that would’ve been advanced even in a medieval setting is reflavored as magic items. For example, a spyglass becomes a wood or bone hoop enchanted to “zoom in” when one views things through it. As coins and other fiat currency don’t exist in Planegea, barter is the dominant means of economic resolution. As the writers realized many gamers may not want to role-play out every little trade, they came up with a gold piece equivalent: salt portion, or ps for short. A salt portion represents a coin-sized portion of salt, and is more of an abstraction given that salt’s value can be different based on its rarity in regions. It can thus represent various knick-knacks a character has on their person ranging from spare food and tools, handcrafted goods, and hours’ worth of everyday labor and chores. The book also provides a new form of reputation-based currency in the form of names and scars. PCs who commit deeds of note can find their reputation preceding them, which can take the form of “salt portions” from completing quests. Scars are also signs of someone who overcame a dangerous foe, telling people at first glance their possible “worth” in deeds. Sticking out like a sore thumb, we get a half-page article on languages that has nothing to do with equipment. There’s honestly not much to add beyond the fact that almost all the PHB languages exist in Planegea but don’t have written scripts, some are renamed like Thieves’ Cant being the Code, and Abyssal, Celestial, and Infernal aren’t yet separate languages but dialects of the same language known as Divine. Common has four dialects which serve as trade languages based on a region’s resident Giant Empire and are appropriately elemental such as Airspeech or Stonespeech. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/78k498V.png[/img] [b]Chapter 8: Spells[/b][/center] This chapter provides us with 28 new spells along with general information on the understanding and workings of magic in Planegea. Magic is still a relatively new discovered art, so certain kinships and groups have progressed farther in certain schools. For example, the dwarves are creating many common abjuration spells, conjuration was taught by the genies, and saurians made use of their spiritual links to ancestors to gain awareness of necromancy. While this doesn’t have any specific restrictions on what spells can be learned by PCs, the book instead provides guidance instead of restrictions by how a mage character’s kinship and school may be flavored based on spell components. There’s also an optional rule suggesting that all spells of 5th level and higher have yet to be invented and codified, so PCs who “learn” such spells are in fact their original inventors! Spells of this magnitude possessed by NPCs and monsters are instead reflavored workings of great magic that haven’t yet entered common understanding. As for spells with the names of famous mages such as Bigby’s Grasping Hand, they still exist or can exist in Planegea. They are instead rediscovered techniques that have since been lost to prehistory by the time their respective settings become the present day. But while Planegea provides open options, it does have some restrictions and changes to spells to work within setting parameters. Heat Metal is renamed to Heat Stone and instead effects stone, while Plane Shift is a more limited form of teleportation that transports people to broadly named regions. This is due to the fact that each “plane” is geographically linked and thus can be traversed the regular way rather than being counted as entirely separate realities. In this case, the “Material Plane” is considered to be the Great Valley, Wintersouth, and the four Giant Empire regions, with the Elemental Wastes, Sea of Stars, Nod, and Kingdom of the Dead to be other specific “planes” for the purposes of this spell. There are new creatures in this book that have two unique tags, God and Defiant, that limit how existing spells can interface with them. Creatures with the God tag cannot be transformed into by any magic, including Wish, while creatures with the Defiant tag are similarly limited in terms of transformation but also can’t be affected by Animal Friendship or Dominate Beasts unless they are cast with higher level slots. Defiant is a tag most typically applied to Beasts, as Planegea is home to quite a bit of high-CR dinosaurs and other animals that I feel the authors didn’t want to place in the laps of players. Regarding material components that have explicit costs in gold pieces, an alternative in paying the cost is known as Blood Magic. A mage who has access to liquid blood can substitute it for material components, where 1 hit point worth of shed blood substitutes for one gold piece/salt portion’s worth. For non-consumable components that specify objects, the blood is smeared on an appropriate object which then serves as the component. Blood shed this way doesn’t have to come from the caster and can be stored for later use, but blood that is “spent” to use on an object cannot be repurposed for another object. While I like this in terms of concept, it is easy prey for Bag of Rats style tactics such as using Conjure Animals to slaughter and thus gain “free gold” in order to gain pricy material components. On the flavor side of things, spells that bring the dead back to life work as normal, but its practitioners are prone to being hunted by Nazh-Agaa who is one of the setting’s major villains and seeks to make all dead souls his subjects. Now we get to the 28 new [b]Spell Descriptions.[/b] 18 of these spells fit within the “4th level or lower” parameters as set up in the optional rule for invented spells, and in regards to class the ones that get the most include the Druid and Sorcerer who both get 13 of the spells. The Cleric and Wizard are next up in having access to 12 of them, while the Bard and Warlock have access to 11 and 10 respectively. The Paladin and Ranger predictably get the least at 7 and 8. When it comes to new spell schools a good portion are Transmutation (7), followed up by Conjuration (6) and Enchantment (5). The remaining schools have middling to low representation, with only a mere 1 Abjuration spell and 3 Evocation spells, the rest being 2 each. Due to the volume I won’t cover every spell in detail, instead highlighting the ones I find most interesting or worthy of note. [i]Aggravate Wounds[/i] is a 3rd level necromancy spell where should the target fail a Constitution save, they take 1d6 additional necrotic damage whenever they’d take bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. When cast at higher level slots this bonus damage increases. Due to its nature it’s competing with Hex, as since it’s concentration it can’t stack with that spell, and Hex’s bonus damage isn’t so limited by damage type. But it can apply multiple times per round rather than once, so it is of great use in a party that has a lot of physical attackers. Otherwise Hex is better in most circumstances. [i]Bite Back[/i] is a 1st level spell cast as a reaction to being damaged by a melee attack. It summons a spirit beast that bites the attacker, forcing them to make a Dexterity save or take 2d8 damage (half on success) and be restrained until the end of the caster’s next turn if they’re no more than one size category larger. The spell’s competing with Shield as a 1st level reaction spell: as Shield can also apply to ranged attacks and outright negates damage, Bite Back is best used by a caster who has hit points to spare and wants to lock down an attacking enemy. Fortunately the designers realized this, as Bite Back is learnable by Druids, Paladins, and Rangers, whereas Shield is typically learnable only by squishy arcane casters, so this spell works out for the classes that have access to it. [i]Bolt of Ush[/i] is an 8th level spell that is basically a damaging version of Teleport that transports the casters and willing targets via lightning strike to a location. It deals 10d8 lighting damage in a 20 foot sphere and deals 50 points of lightning damage to objects and lights flammable objects on fire. I honestly can’t see this being used unless the caster knows that a group of hostile opponents are gathered in an area and wants to surprise attack them with the party once they arrive. However, such an effect can be similarly accomplished via lower-level slots such as an upcast Invisibility spell to affect multiple targets in order to ambush a place. It also requires a 2,000 gp material component to cast, and while it’s not consumed upon use it loses out to regular Teleport which doesn’t require such an expenditure. [i]Deflect Magic[/i] is a 5th level spell cast as a reaction, which is similar to Counterspell in that it can let the caster avoid the effects of a 5th level or lower spell cast upon them but instead redirects the targeting effect back at the caster. Unlike Counterspell its range is “self” instead of 60 feet but technically has the “range” of the reflected spell, meaning it can also apply to longer-range spells such as Fireball. Overall a pretty handy thing to have, and like Counterspell it can block higher-level spells when cast via higher level slots. [i]Disorient[/i] is a multi-target 4th level spell that causes up to 10 creatures who fail a saving throw to become lost and suffer disadvantage on checks to discern location and direction, which is like a highly specific and situational multi-target Bestow Curse. Maybe it can be of use when the PCs are running from foes and don’t want to be tracked down, but otherwise I can’t see it coming up that often. [i]Form Weapon[/i] is a cantrip for Clerics, Druids, and Sorcerers, letting them draw from surrounding natural elements to form a simple weapon with which they have proficiency and is treated as magical. It lasts for one minute, is cast as a bonus action, and doesn’t require concentration. Given that weapons in general aren’t hard to come by and it can’t mimic martial weapons, this isn’t a very good spell, with its primary use most likely being to overcome non-magical damage resistance and immunities at lower levels. [i]Fury of Twr[/i] causes a 120 foot radius of extreme heat to radiate from the caster, dealing 5d10 damage upon initial casting and causes any water within range to turn into superheated steam, dealing 3d10 damage to those within at least 1 inch of water each round for the next minute. It requires concentration to persist, and while potentially very damaging is only useful when cast in wet environments and requires a consumable 100 gp material component per casting. This makes it lose out to more broadly reliable AoE duration-based spells such as Wall of Fire. [i]Gaze of Glelh[/i] is a 6th level ritual spell that consumes a 200 gp equivalent of pigments used to create a ceremonial square portraying lion-themed artwork. Any creature within the square can perfectly see anything up to 10 miles away as though they had a high-powered telescope, and as an action creatures seen within this range can be targeted to approach the square on a failed Wisdom save. Upon reaching the square’s location they lie down and gain the Paralyzed condition until the spell ends. The spell lasts for 24 hours or until it doesn’t have any conscious creatures with Wisdom scores of 4 or greater remaining within it. While it sounds quite situational, I can see some clever gaming groups coming up with uses for it by luring far-away targets from an area. [i]Heart of Urhosh[/i] is a 6th level spell cast as a reaction whenever the caster or a creature they can see within 120 feet would die or drop to 0 hit points. They drop to 1 hit point instead and cannot be reduced below this value until the end of their next turn. Instadeath effects also can’t affect them for this duration. While it consumes a high-level spell slot, its long range plus the short-duration “KO immunity” means I can see a lot of players picking it up. [i]Lava Leap[/i] is a 3rd level spell where the caster makes a standing leap to any point they can see within 30 feet, and a plume of magma explodes behind them as an AoE radius dealing 3d10 fire damage that cools into difficult terrain. In comparison to other 3rd level spells such as Fireball the damage is rather paltry, and unlike Misty Step which is 2nd level it’s cast as an action rather than a bonus action. The spell’s text doesn’t note whether or not movement from this spell provokes attacks of opportunity; if it does not which I presume, it can be a useful means for a caster to escape elsewhere but also wants to do appreciable damage that turn which they can’t ordinarily do with Misty Step (you’d only be able to cast a cantrip as an action vs a leveled spell this way). If it does it’s not very useful as an escape spell, and for vertical movement the Fly spell is better and longer-lasting. [i]Mage Skis[/i] is a 2nd level ritual that creates magical foot-strips that allow up to 6 people to move over snowy and frozen terrain at a speed of 60 feet and ignores difficult terrain penalties on them. Once again, highly situational to certain adventures and locations. [i]Nightmare Bind[/i] is a 2nd level spell cast on a sleeping creature within 10 feet over the course of 1 minute, where if the target fails the save they cannot benefit from a long rest for 8 hours, and when cast at higher level slots the duration increases exponentially. As the target wakes up should they succeed the save, this is only the kind of spell a hostile NPC would cast on the party while sneaking around but doesn’t want to kill them for some reason. Most PCs who have 1 minute of access to a helpless foe would either kill them or do something else. There’s not a lot of cases where I can think of PCs needing to rob an NPC of the ability to long rest. [i]Possess Steed[/i] is a 5th level spell that targets up to 10 willing creatures touching up to 10 separate willing steeds, where for the next 8 hours the non-steeds meld into the bodies of the steeds and take control of them…which brings to mind in what circumstances a character would do this if the steeds are willing and can otherwise be ridden on. Maybe it’s for exploits like someone wanting to apply Battlemaster maneuvers to the natural weapons of a dinosaur or something. Which can be cool, but again feels really situational in comparison to something like Polymorph. [i]Quillburst[/i] is a 2nd level spell that causes magical quills to explode from the caster in a 20 foot radius, dealing 2d6 piercing damage. The effect is Concentration and can last for up to a minute, and any time the caster would take damage from an attack they can unleash a second burst of quills and end the spell. So this spell can deal up to 4d6 damage based on situational use, but for a 2nd level slot it’s not very strong. Scorching Ray can deal more and is more reliable in not needing the caster to be damaged, and Shatter is also AoE but has a much less resisted damage type. Heat Metal, or Heat Stone in this case, is concentration-based damage and single-target but can deal much more damage over time and is activated as a bonus action. [i]Senses Whispers[/i] is a cantrip that detects the location of friendly undead creatures within 30 feet and has a casting time of 1 minute, making it all but useless for 99% of campaigns. [i]Smoke Breathing[/i] is a 3rd level ritual spell that affects 10 creatures for up to 24 hours, letting them safely breath nonmagical harmful gas. As this doesn’t work for magical gas such as Cloudkill, this can only really be reliably deployed by PCs who manage to get their hands on inhaled poisons like burnt othur fumes. Even then, most savvy PCs should be able to avoid its effects. [i]Song of Mala[/i] is a 6th level spell where the caster sings a song that can be heard by creatures up to 10 miles away, and the caster can make the selective nature differ such as particular individuals or creature types rather than affecting everyone within range. It is basically a multi-target one-way Sending spell that can communicate a message up to 25 words in length, and while concentrating on the spell (1 hour duration) creatures who can hear it can pinpoint the caster’s location. Such a spell is bound to be compared to Sending. That spell is 3rd level and single-target, but what it has over Song of Mala is that its range is unlimited and the recipient can reply back. Song of Mala also requires a 750 gp non-consumable spell component to cast, so it’s really only useful for sending out a multi-target long-range communication with a much higher slot than multiple 3rd level slots. Due to this, its usefulness in a campaign is much more nebulous and harder to gauge. [i]Spellbinding[/i] is a 9th level spell that requires 1,000 gp component that is consumed, and when cast on a target makes them invisible to all spellcasters: any creature that can cast a cantrip or 1st level or higher spell is unable to see the target unless the spell’s dispelled, and magical means of detecting the target also fail. This is a very powerful feature but since it’s 9th level this means that it won’t see use on the PC’s side of things for most campaigns. [i]Stormscrying[/i] is a 2nd level ritual spell that basically turns the caster into a weather anchor, letting them detect the current time, temperature, and weather of a named location with which they are familiar, and can even include large regions but have more general information. Druidcraft more or less does the same thing but only in regards to weather and the caster’s current location. It’s usability may depend on how broad a DM interprets “location.” If PCs travel overland, can a new area they enter be sufficiently different that Druidcraft won’t apply but Stormscrying can? I can see some DMs interpreting the cantrip to mean any location the PCs can reach in a short amount of time, which would make Stormscrying useless save for predicting the weather in far-away locations. And even that may be situational. [i]Time Slip[/i] is a 1st level spell where someone who fails a Wisdom save becomes confused about time for the spell’s duration of Concentration up to an hour. They believe it to be whatever hour the caster designates and rationalizes any changes in lighting or environment. I honestly can’t think of any reason to use this spell in a typical D&D adventure. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] When it comes to the chapters, I like the new backgrounds and equipment, but am not really fond of the new spells. A lot of the spells are the kinds of things that aren’t really geared towards adventurers and more like “everyday magic” to make the world feel more plausible. But as such effects are competing with other more immediately useful and broad spells, they end up quite underpowered. I really like how the book goes into detail for equipment and shows quite the imaginative ingenuity, even if I feel that some of the weapons just don’t stack up against existing versions which can still be reflavored to fit the setting. I like that the book provided enough new backgrounds to fit a Prehistoric Fantasy feel rather than just doing a few or taking the lazy way out in going “just refit the core rules.” I will say that I don’t like the idea of tying backgrounds to specific communities or clans, given that such places are broad enough and likely where most PCs will come from. The text implies one needs to take such backgrounds in order to be an inhabitant/member/citizen of them, which blunts their appeal. [b]Join us next time as we delve into the DM’s side of things in Chapter 9: Stone Age Adventures![/b] [/QUOTE]
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[Let's Read] The Star-Shaman's Song of Planegea: Dungeons & Dragons, Prehistoric Style
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