I forgot about this. I love a good background generator or lifepath system.
D&D 5E What is your favorite subsystem?
RangerWickett
Legend
Dramatic Skill Challenges
I haven't had a chance to use them since I wrote them, but I came up with a small hack of the skill system where, for non-combat scenes like investigations, chases, scouting, and heists, I set up one to four 'obstacles.' Each obstacle requires a skill check to pass (usually DC 10 to 12), and if you fail the check, instead of failing the task, you just are in peril of failure.
After you fail the first check, you can pull out and give up, or you can try again. But if you fail the second time, something bad happens.
When you try again, if you use the same tactic, you increase the DC by 5. But often the first failure gives you some info that might help you figure out a better tactic. In a negotiation you might realize the person responds better to threats than reason. If you keep trying Persuasion, increase the DC by 5, but if you switch to Intimidation, it's still a normal DC. Or if you're trying to get into a building and you fail Athletics for climbing to the roof, you make some noise and a guard opens a window to look for you; you can try to keep climbing with a higher DC, or you can switch to Stealth and wait for him to leave, then discreetly keep the window from swinging shut so you can enter once the guard leaves.
The point is to have three beats to the challenge. What do you want to do, how do you try to do it, and how do you deal with adversity?
Use in Game
One obstacle is usually enough for simple moments in larger scenes:
Two obstacles are fine for standalone minor scenes:
The four-obstacle challenges are for key parts of the adventure, and often include a chance to prepare ahead of time. If the players want to accomplish something significant where there's no clear rules for, the GM can let the players drive the action a bit with improv-inspired "yes and" design. The players say their goal, and the GM proposes some obstacles.
Then the players get two phases: before the mission and during the mission. Each PC can contribute one check before the mission, usually to either surveil or prepare. Surveiling might learn some useful secret info, which grants advantage on one check during the mission. When you prepare, you try to solve one obstacle in advance. This isn't always possible, but it gives you a way for one PC to contribute from afar, even if a different PC is going to face the obstacle. Sometimes the GM will roll in secret so you won't know if your efforts work until during the mission.
Then for each obstacle, one PC handles that check, and potentially the same PC could take point on multiple obstacles.
For example, a party with no wizard needs to get into enemy territory in a hurry, so they decide to bamboozle a hostile wizard and get him to teleport them. They need to look like people who would be allowed to go to the enemy territory, they need to earn the wizard's trust, they need to convince him to take them, and then they need (optionally) for him to be willing to teleport them back. In the planning phase, two PCs surveil - one by shadowing him to learn his patterns, another by researching him - and two PCs prepare - one by acquiring costumes and cover stories for them, and another by forging an order from the enemy leader commanding the wizard to help them.
Then during the mission, the first obstacle they handled with preparation thanks to good costumes and preparing their cover story. (The GM let the player get a bonus to the check because he's trained in weaver's tools.)
For the second obstacle, a PC tries to use Persuasion, but the wizard isn't buying it, so another PC tries an Arcana check to get the guy talking about magic, which soothes his ego.
For the third obstacle, they have the orders, but crap! The actual forgery check failed, so the wizard is about to say no, but a PC who surveiled knows some blackmail on the wizard, so they try Intimidation (with advantage) to blackmail him. This works.
But then the final obstacle is to get this cranky wizard to sit ready to teleport them away when they finish their mission in enemy territory. One PC decides to seduce him, using Deception to promise that they can spend the night together if he gets the group back.
---
It's just a loose structure, but I think it's got enough connective tissue between narrative and mechanics to be more engaging than 4e style skill challenges were.
I haven't had a chance to use them since I wrote them, but I came up with a small hack of the skill system where, for non-combat scenes like investigations, chases, scouting, and heists, I set up one to four 'obstacles.' Each obstacle requires a skill check to pass (usually DC 10 to 12), and if you fail the check, instead of failing the task, you just are in peril of failure.
After you fail the first check, you can pull out and give up, or you can try again. But if you fail the second time, something bad happens.
When you try again, if you use the same tactic, you increase the DC by 5. But often the first failure gives you some info that might help you figure out a better tactic. In a negotiation you might realize the person responds better to threats than reason. If you keep trying Persuasion, increase the DC by 5, but if you switch to Intimidation, it's still a normal DC. Or if you're trying to get into a building and you fail Athletics for climbing to the roof, you make some noise and a guard opens a window to look for you; you can try to keep climbing with a higher DC, or you can switch to Stealth and wait for him to leave, then discreetly keep the window from swinging shut so you can enter once the guard leaves.
The point is to have three beats to the challenge. What do you want to do, how do you try to do it, and how do you deal with adversity?
Use in Game
One obstacle is usually enough for simple moments in larger scenes:
- You're climbing a cliff, but oof, you got yourself into a bad location and you're either going to have to backtrack or risk climbing a dangerous path.
- You're trying to get a prisoner to talk. If you misstep he digs in his heels, but you might get him to talk still.
- You're crossing a river and the current's stronger than you expected. Do you press on, swim back, risk getting swept away, or maybe make a Survival check to figure out a safer place?
Two obstacles are fine for standalone minor scenes:
- You lurk near an objective to scout it - you need to avoid discovery, but also figure out what's going on inside. Maybe you arouse a guard's suspicion; do you press your luck to try to get more info, or do you leave?
- You find a suspect in a bar and try to get him to talk - first you form rapport with him, then you extract the information.
- The party travels to a ruin they have a map for - someone leads the way (Survival to follow a map? Arcana to follow a flow of energy? Persuasion to get aid from a wary wandering goblin?), and someone makes sure the party doesn't come to harm (Perception to look out? Stealth to move discreetly? Religion to chant and keep away evil spirits?)
The four-obstacle challenges are for key parts of the adventure, and often include a chance to prepare ahead of time. If the players want to accomplish something significant where there's no clear rules for, the GM can let the players drive the action a bit with improv-inspired "yes and" design. The players say their goal, and the GM proposes some obstacles.
Then the players get two phases: before the mission and during the mission. Each PC can contribute one check before the mission, usually to either surveil or prepare. Surveiling might learn some useful secret info, which grants advantage on one check during the mission. When you prepare, you try to solve one obstacle in advance. This isn't always possible, but it gives you a way for one PC to contribute from afar, even if a different PC is going to face the obstacle. Sometimes the GM will roll in secret so you won't know if your efforts work until during the mission.
Then for each obstacle, one PC handles that check, and potentially the same PC could take point on multiple obstacles.
For example, a party with no wizard needs to get into enemy territory in a hurry, so they decide to bamboozle a hostile wizard and get him to teleport them. They need to look like people who would be allowed to go to the enemy territory, they need to earn the wizard's trust, they need to convince him to take them, and then they need (optionally) for him to be willing to teleport them back. In the planning phase, two PCs surveil - one by shadowing him to learn his patterns, another by researching him - and two PCs prepare - one by acquiring costumes and cover stories for them, and another by forging an order from the enemy leader commanding the wizard to help them.
Then during the mission, the first obstacle they handled with preparation thanks to good costumes and preparing their cover story. (The GM let the player get a bonus to the check because he's trained in weaver's tools.)
For the second obstacle, a PC tries to use Persuasion, but the wizard isn't buying it, so another PC tries an Arcana check to get the guy talking about magic, which soothes his ego.
For the third obstacle, they have the orders, but crap! The actual forgery check failed, so the wizard is about to say no, but a PC who surveiled knows some blackmail on the wizard, so they try Intimidation (with advantage) to blackmail him. This works.
But then the final obstacle is to get this cranky wizard to sit ready to teleport them away when they finish their mission in enemy territory. One PC decides to seduce him, using Deception to promise that they can spend the night together if he gets the group back.
---
It's just a loose structure, but I think it's got enough connective tissue between narrative and mechanics to be more engaging than 4e style skill challenges were.
RangerWickett
Legend
On a simpler note, I came up with a real loose 'mass combat' system when I had the brainwave of just treating a company of one hundred soldiers as being equivalent to, like, one CR 12 monster with 'legendary actions' to represent what the soldiers who aren't on the front line are doing. And a regiment of a thousand soldiers is a CR 24 monster, with 'legendary actions', plus 'regional effects' to represent the army's scouts and sappers and siege weapons and such.
The big revelation I had was that you just give an army multiattack, with a high attack bonus, to represent multiple people coordinating attacks on a single target. For instance, a company of 100 guys might have 200 HP and three attacks dealing 15 damage each on average, so if two such units go head to head, within a few rounds one side's morale will break.
You just need to give each unit one novel attack or ability, and two interesting legendary actions.
The big revelation I had was that you just give an army multiattack, with a high attack bonus, to represent multiple people coordinating attacks on a single target. For instance, a company of 100 guys might have 200 HP and three attacks dealing 15 damage each on average, so if two such units go head to head, within a few rounds one side's morale will break.
You just need to give each unit one novel attack or ability, and two interesting legendary actions.
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iserith
Magic Wordsmith
Inspiration is also one of my favorites. I wrote up a way to handle it better in my view here: The Case for Inspiration.
It's often the thing that people take from my games and implement in their own. I'm on a big Discord server for one-shots and I see it popping up in people's games who I've never run games for before.
Backgrounds.
Nothing does more to distinguish first-level characters from each other.
Nothing does more to distinguish first-level characters from each other.
I was aiming for things outside of the core books that have been added to the game since release. I wasn't clear in the OP, apparently.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
Ah, sorry I missed that. I don't know how since it was literally the first thing you wrote about, but any way...
What new mechanics have there even been since the core books???
You were clear (or it;'s clear now). But it's still the subsystem I like best!
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
I like the downtime rules in Xanathar's, especially the ones pertaining to finding, buying, and crafting magic items. It's a lot more efficient and story-centric than the old 3.X Craft skill.
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