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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7893965" data-attributes="member: 6704184">1/ Rangers can either play the Revised Ranger, or use the PHB Ranger with the UA "Replacements" made into "Enhancements"2/ 4 Elements Monks reduce ki cost of all disciplines by 1 ki, to a minimum of 1 ki, and gain 1 EE cantrip per archetype level3/ Bonus Feat at level 1, and +1 to any 1 stat when you choose a feat over an ASI when your class gives you that choice. 4/ Crits maximize damage dice, and then roll the damage dice, and then add any static mods. (so a crit with a 1d4+4 dagger attack deals 4+1d4+4 damage)5/ Assassin Rogues crit on any successful hit against a creature that is surprised, or who is unaware of the presence of the rogue. So, if the party rushes in, but the rogue is hidden, their first attack still works as if they'd surprised the target. 6/ Skill challenges. Similar to the 4e mechanic, count as level appropriate encounter in the odd occassion that I count up XP. [spoiler]Often I'll pair up PCs and ask them to make a pair of rolls. So, I'll have two PCs make Survival and Perception checks to scout, 2 to make Stealth and Deception checks to leave misleading trails, 2 to decipher the weird archetecture of the wizard's tower with Riddle, Arcana, or Int (Mason's Tools), and have Success, Failure, Mixed Success, outcomes for each task based on whether both succeed, fail, or split results. Other times, I'll use an initiative order and ask each PC in turn what they think they can contribute to the situation. WHen solving a puzzle room in order to operate the strange control room in the wizard's tower tonight, they found a central metal tube with a magical furnace heating a hydraulic fluid of some kind, leading to a "pipe dream" game style puzzle of levers and wheels that moved different parts of the tower depending on the flow of the fluid. They had to:  decipher the coded language of the controlsfigure out what the wheels, levers, and movable slats with instructive runes on a blackboard, all dofigure out the geography of the tower's multi-dimensional architecture as it relates to the controlsplot a safe path through the toweralign the moving parts of the tower using the control devices, according to the plotted coursefigure out how to map the tower in such a way that the patrols of abominations that had infested the tower would be turned in circles and not find themBonus checks based on what they thought of and tried includedfigure out the purpose of the device. turns out it isn't for defense, but a sort of magical multi-dimensional tiny house invention. Like when your stairs fold up and become bookshelves, and fold a different way to be a desk, and fold another way to be a couch, except with added dimensions where you turn a room clockwise and it's one room, but counterclockwise and it's another room, and if your rotate it all the way and then quarter turn the other way, it's a hallway. Packing an immense complex of rooms equal to several buildings into a relatively small tower. Find an access panel underneath the magical furnace in the center of the room that with a successful theives tools check gave them essentially admin access to the system, and also netted the rogue some neat new tools that will let her better tinker with magical systems and devices, ie arcane thieves tools. Give a floating Inspiration to the group to use on a type of check, such as "examining how part of the system works" or "determining how to align things to do what we want". A complex challenge like this, which basically determines how hard the next leg of the adventure will be, is worth a major encounter/quest completion. They leveled up from the two challenges I've described, and a fight with a patrol of dolgaunts, dolgrims, and a chuul-drake, combined with a caper adventure I ran before this one, that was 90% skill challenge with some individual rounds of combat-as-contest. [/spoiler]7/ Flashbacks using Inspiration. Inspiration is given out a bit more freely. You begin the adventure with Inspiration, and regain it when you solve a problem, do something spectacular with a real chance of failure, or just wow the group. One use of Inspiration is as a "plot coupon", which must be used to enter a brief flashback where we figure out what you or someone else did before this moment that allows you to get out of a bad situation, had the tool you need for this moment, or otherwise have that movie/tv moment where we flash back to a scene that shows us why actually things aren't going pair shaped, and this turn of events needed to happen, or you have a solve for it, or you planned for it, or whatever.</blockquote>

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