D&D 5E young justice campaign
- Thread starter Emryn
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MonsterEnvy
Legend
Well I would use a different system. There is a Mutants and Masterminds spinoff that uses DC Heroes.
I assume we are talking about the Cartoon Young Justice (which I love!)
So probably the easiest way to do it, is to use the Rogue as a base template (to represent more of the skilled nature of many of the heroes) and then allow people to choose one "X level" spell as an at-will ability (no concentration), or two "X-Y" spells at-will, or a class ability at will, etc. Or some abilities are just permanently on. Then you could allow fighter classes for the martial focused classes. From there we can do some tailoring. Note that these powers are not balanced, nor are they in teh show. If you actually want characters to be somewhat balanced with each other, you will need to adjust levels. Ms Martian might be a 3rd level rogue, while Nightwing is a 10th level rogue/3 fighter....to provide some measure of parity between "normal people" and "meta-humans"
Kid Flash - Haste at will, and maybe allow for the haste action the ability to cast haste again. This allows him to get faster and faster but in a way that's at least requires some build up.
Robin/Nightwing - Rogue with some fighter levels, and several "magic items".
Artemis: Fighter with true strike permanently on.
Beast Boy - Wildshape at will
Aqualad - Permanent Water Breathing, swim speed, control water at-will. Maybe some magic swords to represent the water swords he often uses. Probably some fighter levels.
Superboy - Haste, Stoneskin, Enhance Ability (Strength) all on permanently.
Ms Martian - Polymorph at will, Fly (always on), telekinesis at-will, detect thoughts at-will.
Zatanna - I would probably just stat up as a wizard.
So probably the easiest way to do it, is to use the Rogue as a base template (to represent more of the skilled nature of many of the heroes) and then allow people to choose one "X level" spell as an at-will ability (no concentration), or two "X-Y" spells at-will, or a class ability at will, etc. Or some abilities are just permanently on. Then you could allow fighter classes for the martial focused classes. From there we can do some tailoring. Note that these powers are not balanced, nor are they in teh show. If you actually want characters to be somewhat balanced with each other, you will need to adjust levels. Ms Martian might be a 3rd level rogue, while Nightwing is a 10th level rogue/3 fighter....to provide some measure of parity between "normal people" and "meta-humans"
Kid Flash - Haste at will, and maybe allow for the haste action the ability to cast haste again. This allows him to get faster and faster but in a way that's at least requires some build up.
Robin/Nightwing - Rogue with some fighter levels, and several "magic items".
Artemis: Fighter with true strike permanently on.
Beast Boy - Wildshape at will
Aqualad - Permanent Water Breathing, swim speed, control water at-will. Maybe some magic swords to represent the water swords he often uses. Probably some fighter levels.
Superboy - Haste, Stoneskin, Enhance Ability (Strength) all on permanently.
Ms Martian - Polymorph at will, Fly (always on), telekinesis at-will, detect thoughts at-will.
Zatanna - I would probably just stat up as a wizard.
MonsterEnvy
Legend
DC Adventures - Wikipedia You could always read it and try to learn. I think there is another DC roleplaying game coming though.
So another idea, which is a veeeeery rough draft, but might get you in the ballpark.
Starting Level: 5th rogue
When you make your character, you can choose from the following list 4 times.
1) Gain 5 levels in fighter or rogue (full abilities, not just multiclass). If you make it to 25th level, you gain a +7 proficiency bonus.
2) Gain 1 4th or 3rd level spell or equivalent class ability. The spell does not require concentration, and is castable at-will. Or the effect can be on permanently, at the DMs discretion.
3) Same as 2, but gain 2 1st or 2nd level spells.
4) (Requires 2 uses). Choose the effect you got in 2 or 3. This ability now stacks with itself, allowing the effects to increase. Example: shield of faith can provide more AC with every cast, haste makes you faster and faster, etc.
Starting Level: 5th rogue
When you make your character, you can choose from the following list 4 times.
1) Gain 5 levels in fighter or rogue (full abilities, not just multiclass). If you make it to 25th level, you gain a +7 proficiency bonus.
2) Gain 1 4th or 3rd level spell or equivalent class ability. The spell does not require concentration, and is castable at-will. Or the effect can be on permanently, at the DMs discretion.
3) Same as 2, but gain 2 1st or 2nd level spells.
4) (Requires 2 uses). Choose the effect you got in 2 or 3. This ability now stacks with itself, allowing the effects to increase. Example: shield of faith can provide more AC with every cast, haste makes you faster and faster, etc.
MarkB
Legend
Warlocks with deliberately themed builds can make reasonable superpowered characters, gaining a selection of abilities that are usable at-will, plus a few others that they can only use a few times before taking a breather to recover.
More generally, restricting builds to a combination of martial and short-rest-based classes should give you a pretty good range of builds without getting into the full dedicated spellcasters that tend not to be such a good fit for the pace of superhero action.
More generally, restricting builds to a combination of martial and short-rest-based classes should give you a pretty good range of builds without getting into the full dedicated spellcasters that tend not to be such a good fit for the pace of superhero action.
I agree that if I was going to use base classes for the work, that warlock would be the way to go.
That said, I feel like the warlock is going to fall well short of the kind of "at-will superpowers" most young justice members use. Warlocks invocations, as cool as they are, don't come close to mimicking the kind of powers that superheroes exhibit. And warlock spells, with the ability to cast only 2 spells per short rest, is just not frequent enough to mimic the casualness of most powers.
So if your just going for a "team with powers", I think the team of warlocks can do the job. But if you really want to mimic "superpowers" you will need to take it several steps beyond the base to get the right feel.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Just recently started up a Masks: A New Generation game, and it really is heavily Young Justice inspired. The rules are explicitly around the craziness and drama of teen-aged superheroes - it's not even a generic superhero system. The playbooks (vaguely analogous to classes if you're mostly familiar with D&D) are more concerned about the types of issues, problems and drama that you want to deal with than with what your powers are.
It's a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) system, not a d20 like D&D. But it does a great job for that type of game, it's worth checking out.
It's a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) system, not a d20 like D&D. But it does a great job for that type of game, it's worth checking out.
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