Because people keep insisting on starting seven hundred thousand million billion trillion bananazillion threads demanding to know why Epic Boons aren’t yet implemented in DDB, I’ve decided to step through each and every Epic Boon in the DMG and provide detailed picture instructions on how to recreate that boon as a homebrew feat that functions completely identically to how the Epic Boon would work if officially implemented by DDB.
Because ALL ‘Epic Boons’ are nothing more than feats with unusual acquisition requirements.
Hopefully this will serve as a resource for the throngs of people that cannot figure this out, and at the very least I will have a link I can hurl into the faces of people who continue to harangue DDB for this despite there being a dirt-simple workaround for it whereas core rules there are no workarounds for languish unimplemented to this day.
Let us begin.
First, the basics:
When you first click "Create a Feat", this is the screen you will see. Record the name of the boon you're recreating in the 'Name' field, then copy the text from the DMG for the boon you're recreating into the "Description" field. You can create a snippet if you like, but it's not required, and don't bother with tags because you can't publish these feats anyways and tags are useless for private homebrew. Once you're done, click 'Create Feat'. Each of the breakdowns below assume you've already completed this most basic step.
Additional Good-to-Know For virtually all Epic Boons, we will be creating a feat that offers a custom action. You can add custom actions to already-created feats using this button:
1.) Boon of Combat Prowess The Boon of Combat Prowess is the first of roughly ******* all of them 80+% of boons that can be easily tracked/modeled on your character sheet by creating a custom action. First, create a feat called "Boon of Combat Prowess". Once you're in the Edit menu for BoCP, create a custom action for it. The prompt will ask you to select which type of action. Select 'General'.
In the 'Edit Action' menu, give your action a name. I recommend the format "Name of Boon: Action Type". For the Boon of Combat Prowess, this would be 'Boon of Combat Prowess: Automatic Hit', like so:
Ignore literally every single other field until you get to "Activation Type". I mean it. Ignore them. Leave them blank. Don't futz with them. Pretend they don't exist. The point of this process is to give you a trackable checkbox on your character sheet that will clearly indicate whether you've used your Combat Prowess or not, and none of the other fields in edit Action pertain to that.
Instead, skip down to Activation Type and Reset type, then set those to "Special" and "Short Rest", respectively.
Then, move down to Snippet. I like to write a brief, one or two-line description of what my custom action does, as a reminder on the sheet. The "Description" field is supposed to be for more in-depth text describing the action, but that's what the overall feat description is for so I just copy the 'Snippet' text into both lines. The "Snippet" text shows up in different places than the "Description" text, so make sure that both are filled in.
Once you're done, click the big blue impossible-to-miss "SAVE" button at the bottom of the interface. The action will be saved and you'll be kicked back into the Edit page for the general feat. Your action will be listed as a custom action in the feat, like so:
When you're done, scroll up and click the big orange impossible-to-miss "SAVE" button under the 'Basic Information' field of your feat.
THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!
You have to click BOTH 'Save' buttons for this to work. The blue Edit Action 'Save' button applies to the action and pins it down, but if you don't also save the overall feat before closing out of your editor, then your feat will not remember your custom action, it won't show up on your sheet, and you'll have to create the custom action all over again. Blue button, THEN orange button. if you haven't clicked the orange button, you're not done.
If you have? Then congratulations! You now possess a custom homebrew feat that perfectly models how DDB will implement the Boon of Combat Prowess in the future! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
2.) Boon of Dimensional Travel Start by creating a homebrew feat called "Boon of Dimensional Travel", same as with Combat Prowess. Once you're past the 'Create' screen and into the 'Edit' screen, this time we're going to set up an at-will spell, via the 'Spells' menu in DDB homebrew feats. Click the big blue 'Add A Spell' button, and it will take you to the Edit page for your spell.
The Edit Spell page works differently than the Edit Action page. 'Spell', in this case, lets you search for the spell you want to add to the feat. Because we're doing Boon of Minor Hops, we search for Misty Step. Type letters until you've typed enough to see the spell you're looking for in the dropdown list, then click on it.
For the Boon of Dimensional Travel? Ignore every single additional field in the whole-ass page,with the sole exception of "Reset Type".All of them. Every single one. DO NOT click the "is infinite?" checkbox; that checkbox is not for at-will, freely castable spells, it's to allow a feat to model things like Book of Ancient Secrets that let you select an undefined number of spells that fit criteria we don't care about because the only heckin' thing this boon does is put 'Misty Step' on our sheet. So. ignore everything but "Reset Type", which you set to 'Short Rest'.
Once you're done, click that big blue 'Save' button again, and as we discussed in Combat Prowess, do not forget to then save your entire homebrew feat using the big orange 'Save' button. Once that's done? Congratulations! You now have a homebrew feat that perfectly models the Boon of Dimensional Travel, exactly how DDB will implement it! Assign it to your characters and enjoy game night!
3.) Boon of Fate The process for creating "Boon of Fate" is exactly the same as creating "Boon of Combat Prowess" Refer to the step-through for the Boon of Combat Prowess, changing the names and descriptions to match the custom action described in the DMG Boon of Fate, instead. Push the blue "Save' button, and then the orange 'Save' button. Once you do? Congratulations! You now have a custom homebrew feat that models the Epic Boon of Fate, exactly the same way DDB will implement it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
4.) Boon of Fortitude Fortitude will use the 'Modifiers' menu of DDB's homebrew feat interface, shown here. Click "Add Modifier" to get to the Edit Modifier menu.
Once in the Edit Modifier menu, start by setting your Modifier Type - in this case, 'Bonus'
Then, move to 'Modifier Subtype' and search for 'Hit Points'
That tells the feat you're adding a Bonus to your Hit Points. Next, move to the "Fixed Value" field and enter the bonus you're receiving - in this case, 40.
Click the blue 'Save' button, then go back up and click the orange 'Save' button. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You now have a homebrew custom feat that perfectly models the Tough feat Boon of Fortitude, just the way DDB will implement it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
5.) Boon of High Magic This one feels like it should be another "Spells" modifier...but it's not. You actually set up the Boon of High Magic the exact same way you set up Boon of Combat Prowess, save that this time your custom action will be configured to reset on Long Rest rather than Short Rest (and obviously your text will talk about spell slots rather than weapon swipes).
Keep the "Special" activation time; this custom action is mimicking a spell slot, which can be used a number of different ways. Blue Save button, then orange. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You now have a custom homebrew feat that...adequately models how the Boon of High Magic works in the DMG! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
Note: it is currently impossible to modify a character's number of spell slots in any way; spell slot count is determined solely and immutably by class levels. A custom action can track the 'extra' ninth-level slot, and a similar feat can track 'extra' spell slots from homebrew boons a DM may grant as well, but there's no way to make something that will cleanly integrate into Avrae. This workaround is perfectly sufficient for any table not using Avrae, which you shouldn't do anyways because Avrae is generally horrible and ENORMOUSLY hostile to homebrew of any sort, but it's one of the only places in the entire Epic Boons section of the DMG where the homebrew feat is not the exact same thing DDB will eventually implement themselves. Sorry. You still have it much better than anyone trying to use Slow Natural Healing rules.
6.) Boon of Immortality Create a feat called "Boon of Immortality". Copy the text from the DMG Boon of Immortality into the description box. Push the "Create Feat" button. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You have created the Epic Boon of Immortality, exactly the same way DDB will implement it! Seriously - this feat has no mechanical gameplay impact, it doesn't modify the character's abilities in any way. Add the description to your sheet, tell the DM 'Lol nah bruh" when ghosts try and make you save against aging, and watch out for dudes in trench coats with katanas. The plaintext description of this epic boon is all you need. Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
7.) Boon of Invincibility The process for creating the Boon of Invincibility os exactly identical to creating the Boon of Combat Prowess. Refer to the step-through for Combat Prowess, changing descriptive text where necessary. Blue button, orange button, then congratulations! You've just created a homebrew feat version of the Boon of Invicibility, exactly the same way DDB will when they get to it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
8.) Boon of Irresistible Offense Just like Immortality, the Boon of Irresistible Offense is a plaintext feat. There's no need to create any modifiers, and no modifiers that can be created for it. Note the effect, and whenever you deal damage, remind the DM that they don't get to apply resistance. Donezo. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You've created a homebrew version of the Boon of Irresistible Offense, exactly the same way DDB will do so when they implement boons! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
Note: Avrae will choke on this boon, and it will be absolutely impossible to fix that. Avrae is REALLY TERRIBLE at combat, automatically applying everything without ever stopping to ask the players if they want to use a reaction or if there's anything preventing normal rules from applying. If you use Avrae, you may want to avoid using this boon altogether, as there's no way to get the stupid heckin' bot to respect its effects. Sorry. Ish. Sorry-ish. Just don't use Avrae and you're golden.
9.) Boon of Luck The process for creating the Boon of Luck is exactly identical to creating the Boon of Combat Prowess. refer to the step-through for creating the Boon of Combat Prowess, changing descriptive text where necessary. Blue button, then orange button. Once you're done? Congratulations! You've just recreated the Epic Boon of Luck as a homebrew feat, the exact same way DDB will do so whenever they get around to it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
10.) Boon of Magic Resistance And for the first time in five boons, we're gonna have pictures again. Magic Resistance is added as a Modifier; click "Add Modifier' as per the Boon of Fortitude to get to the Edit Modifier screen. From there, set your Modifier Type to "Advantage".
Then, for 'Modifier Subtype', search for "Saving Throws"
Once you've got Type and Subtype set, go down to the "Details" field and fill in what you get advantage on saving throws agains - namely, spells and magical effects.
Once you've set this up, hit the blue button, then the orange button. Once you've done so, congratulations! You now have a homebrew custom feat that perfectly mimicks the Boon of Magic Resistance, exactly the same way DDB would rig it up! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
Note: ONCE AGAIN, Avrae will choke on this. Avrae has no idea what counts as a spell or magical effect and thus will not generally award you your advantage appropriately. You'll have to manually sort it out rather than relying on Avrae's godawful auto-combat system, which will be the case for basically any boon that modifies combat in any way when applied to Avrae. The bot absolutely cannot stand or tolerate exceptions to the general combat rules, and all of these boons qualify as "exceptions to the general combat rules". This is not a DDB problem, this is an Avrae problem. If people stopped asking the bot to over-automate combat it wouldn't be an issue, so technically this one's y'all's. fault. Jus' sayin'.
11.) Boon of Peerless Aim The Boon of Peerless Aim would be created exactly the same way we've created the Boon of Combat Prowess, as well as several others. Refer to the step-through for the Boon of Combat Prowess, changing descriptive text where necessary. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You now have a perfectly serviceable homebrew Boon of Peerless Aim, configured exactly the same way DDB would do so! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
12.) Boon of Perfect Health One new Modifier here and one new-ish use of one we've already covered, but both of these effects are Modifiers. For the first effect, we do Modifier Type: Immunity.
For Modifier Subtype, we look for "Disease"
Blue button, then orange button.
Immunity to Poison is set the same way, though do note. There's two 'Poison' Modifier Subtypes for the Immunity modifier type: "Poison" and "Poisoned". The former refers to the damage type, the latter refers to the condition. You're going to want to set three total "Immunity" modifiers - one for Disease, one for Poison-the-damage-type, and one for Poisoned-the-condition.
Once you've set all the things you're immune to, create a fourth Modifier, Type: Advantage, and Subtype: Constitution saving throws. You can ignore the Detail field this time, since this is conditionless advantage on ALL Constitution saves. Blue button, then orange button. Once you're done and looking at all four modifiers? Congratulations! You've just flawlessly recreated the Boon of Perfect Health as a homebrew feat, exactly the same way DDB is gonna! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
13.) Boon of Planar Travel This one's a butthole. For the most part it works exactly the same way as the Boon of Dimensional Travel (fuggoff Wizards of the Coast, "Dimensional Travel' and 'Planar Travel' are the same goddamn thing), but Planar Travel requires you to set a single plane you can travel to. You could do this with a feat that has a million Options in it, but that would suck. Instead, what I'm going to recommend is something DMs generally hate doing - tune your homebrew for the specific player/plane being used. Create "Boon of Planar Travel - Feywild", for instance, and then set the spell up. Locate Plane Shift, as so:
Once that's done, set the Reset to Short Rest, and then go down to Details to fill in all the hedge-arounds and limitations on this version of Plane Shift.
You'll have to do this for each version of Planar Travel you hand out, so be wary. Once you've done so though, and hit your blue and orange buttons? Congratulations! You have an adequate representation of the Boon of Planar Travel - and judging by all the Resilience, Ritual Caster, Telekinesis, and so on variations in the feat menu, you'll probably have done it the same way DDB will too! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
14.) Boon of Quick Casting This one is a giant butthole. You can't do this entirely within a feat. Don't worry, neither can DDB. It's one of those that the system just isn't set up to do and can't be made to do. Fortunately, if you don't use Avrae, it's easy to hack. Create a feat, and treat Quick Casting as a plaintext boon, a'la Immortality or Irresistible Offense. if you're creating this boon for a specific character, I highly recommend naming the spell that character chooses as their Quick-Cast and tuning BoQC specifically for that spell, but I can't make that assumption here. So create Quick Casting as a plaintext boon and assign it to a character. Then, on that character's sheet, find the spell you want to declare a Quick Cast spell and modify that spell's name and description to note the spell's new status as Jazz Handsy
That's the quick-and-dirty method. You can add a spell to your feat and override its casting time, like so:
You'll also then need to set the spell's Ability Score to whatever your casting ability is, like so:
Going this route will add a copy of the specific spell that has a one-BA casting time to your sheet. You will have both versions of the spell, which is not intended by the DMG (technically, you CAN'T cast the chosen spell as a normal action anymore once you learn to Quick Cast it), but eh. My preference would be for the plaintext feat and editing the spell on a character's sheet, but you can use whichever method is best for you. Blue button, orange button, and congratulations. You have a mostly-functional janky workaround for the Boon of Quick Casting. DDB would do it differently if they could, but they literally can't do it, so eh. Award it to your players, however that ends up working for this butthole of a boon, and enjoy game night!
15.) Boon of Recovery The Boon of Recovery is created exactly the same way we've created the Boon of Combat Prowess and half the rest of the list, by now. Refer to the step-through for Boon of Combat Prowess on how to add a custom action to your sheet, changing descriptive text as necessary, and remember to set the Reset Type to 'Long Rest' rather than Short rest. For ease of use, I would add a custom action to the sheet of any specific character with this boon that tells you what counts as "half of your maximum HP" for any given character. Gotta dodge that four seconds of subtraction during game night, y'know. Blue button, orange button, and congratulations! You've created the Boon of Recovery, in a manner DDB would've done themselves if people hadn't ridden their buttholes over the Life Cleric thing for years and years! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
16.) Boon of Resilience This is another Modifier boon, and probably the easiest one on this entire list except for the plaintext versions. But...well, if I could trust people to know what they're doing and figure things out on their own, I wouldn't be writing this post. SO. Add a Modifier to your feat, Modifier Type: Resistance.
Modifier Subtype: the modifier DDB specifically added because Wizards reuses this annoying wordy nonsense everywhere, rather than just saying "mundane weapon damage' like sane people who don't hate their customer base.
Blue button, orange button. And congratulations! You've just perfectly recreated the Boon of Resilience, exactly the same way DDB will do so when they get around to it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
17.) Boon of Skill Proficiency Here's where I tell you a magic trick, and then ruin the magic trick by telling you why the correct way is to ignore the magic trick and add between 10 to 14 different "Modifier" traits to your boon instead. First, the magic trick:
And boom - you're done. Proficiency in every single skill, from one single modifier. This is what they used to do the bard's Jack of All Trades without driving the devs bananas - set Modifier Type to "Half Proficiency" instead and you've just recreated the Jack of all Trades feature. Problem is? The Epic Boon of Proficiency does not apply to "ability checks". It states "you are proficient in all skills". Proficiency in ability checks is a very different and vastly more powerful thing, as it includes initiative rolls, contested-casting checks for things like Counterspell or Dispel Magic, or anything else that calls for an ability check unrelated to the game's rigid eighteen-skill skill list.
The correct way to implement the Boon of Proficiency is to create eighteen different modifiers, each one granting proficiency with a specific skill, like so:
Except that gets you into trouble too, because it'll cause hiccups on a character's sheet. The feat will conflict with proficiencies the character already has and potentially override things like Expertise.
The more correct way to do the Boon of Proficiency?
Write "Boon of Proficiency" as a plaintext feat a'la Immortality, then go to your character sheet and manually turn on proficiency with any skill you aren't already proficient with, as above. You get the exact same effect with a minimum of fuss and bother, and a minimum of tryin'a get DDB's spaghetti code to do what the book tells you to do. This would be my choice of method. DON'T use the magic trick without your DM's explicit permission to make the already-busted Boon of Proficiency seventeen times more busted than it is. Regardless of which method you choose? Congratulations! You now have a workable hack for the Boon of Proficiency! Award it to your players however ya blurdy gotta, and enjoy game night!
18.) Boon of Speed This is a two-parter, but each part's already been covered before. The first part is a simple Modifier I'd hope to Avandra somebody could work out for themselves after reading this far, but I know better. I know better. So, here's how you do a thirty-foot bonus to your walking speed:
The second part is a custom action, done mostly the same way I discussed doing custom actions in Combat Prowess. But since this is slightly different and it's been a while, brief refresher: First, Create a General Action:
Second, Name Your Action: Third, IGNORE EVERYTHING between "Name" and "Activation Type"
Fourth, set Activation Time to 'Bonus Action' and Reset Type to 'Short Rest'
Finally, record your snippet/description:
Blue button, then orange button. And congratulations! You now have a perfectly cool homebrew version of the Boon of Speed! Same way Grandma DDB used to make! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
19.) Boon of Spell Mastery This is another one of those butthole boons that can't be implemented the way people want it to be implemented, i.e. "give me a drop-down of all my applicable spells and let the tool do the rest". You can instead do it the same way you did Boon of Dimensional Travel, simply selecting the spell your individual character is making their Mastered Spell instead of Misty Step. Remember to set your Ability Modifier, the same way we did with the Boon of Quick Casting mess the last time the DMG told us to monkey with something on our sheet. You'll end up with two copies of the spell, but eh. It's kinda how life is in this case. But however you do it? Congratulations! You have a janky, mostly-functional workaround for the Boon of Spell Mastery! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
20.) Boon of Spell Recall This seems like another one of those Butthole Boons...but it's actually just as simple as Combat Prowess. See the Combat Prowess step-through for instructions on setting up a custom action. Rig up a "Spell Recall Bonus Cast" action, blue button, orange button, and congratulations! You now have a perfectly serviceable Boon of Spell Recall homebrew feat! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
21.) Boon of the Fire Soul Another two-parter. The first part, Immunity to Fire damage, I'm not going to cover in-depth since we've gone over it several times before. Type: Immunity, Subtype: Fire Damage The second part, the freebie spell, is a bit more tricky. The "Add a Spell" menu does not allow for the setting of a fixed save DC. You can add a note to the Details for the spell, like so: The better plan, or rather the additional plan, is to then find your Burning Hands spell in your character sheet and override the DC to 15, like so:
Once that's done? Congratulations! You have a perfectly serviceable copy of Boon of the Fire Soul! Not like DDB would make, but who cares? Award it to your players anyways, and enjoy game night!
22.) Boon of the Night Spirit The Night Spirit is exactly the same as Combat Prowess, save that you don't need to specify a reset type. This is an at-will action, and notably it's NOT the Invisibility spell. Once you get your custom action down, blue button and then orange button, and congratulations! You've got a great homebrew rendition of the Boon of the Night Spirit! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
23.) Boon of the Stormborn This one's exactly the same sort of two-parter as Fire Soul. See the notes on Fire Soul for implementation on "you get immunity to your element and a first-level spell with a fixed DC you can cast at will". Just change the spell and the Immunity subtypes, and congratulations! You've just rigged up a perfectly workable version of Boon of the Stormborn! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
24.) Boon of the Unfettered This one's a bit of a butthole, because as it's worded it'd clutter up a sheet. In this case, better to simply do the first bit, i.e. "Advantage on ability checks made to resist being grappled" as Advantage on Acro and Athletics, with the "made to resist being grappled" caveat in Details.
Do the same for Athletics, and you'll only have two skills flagged as 'Advantage'. Do 'Advantage', subtype "Ability Checks" and it'll flag every gorram check on your sheet with conditional advantage. Annoying.
The second half of Unfettered is another at-will custom action, exactly the same as Night Spirit, and in turn essentially the same as Combat Prowess. See Combat Prowess for the step-through on setting up custom actions, then blue button, then orange button. Congratulations! You now have a homebrew feat replicating the effects of Boon of the Unfettered! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
25.) Boon of Truesight This one's another "Modifier" boon, but of a different sort than the others. The Modifier Type is "Sense", at the way bottom of the list.
Subtype is, of course, Truesight
The final modifier, including the range, looks like this:
Blue button, then orange button, and congratulations! You now have a perfectly accurate-to-DMG Boon of Truesight! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
26.) Boon of Undetectability Our final boon on the list, and it's an easy one! The first half is a simple fixed-value 'Bonus' Modifier, like so:
The second half of Undetectability is plaintext - no modifiers to add or create. Write it down, and then blue button, then orange button...and congratulations! You have a homebrew Boon of Undetectability! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
* * *
Huzzah! Your guide, however snarky it may be, for homebrewing every single one of the Epic Boons from Chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master's Guide! Every single one of them can be made at least functional enough to work, and most of them can be rigged up bang-on. Now you've got no excuse for carping about official implementation of Epic Boons, and also a pretty decent starter guide for figuring out the most commonly useful homebrew modifiers for feats. You're welcome!
It's a great guide. However I don't think it does or should mute or moot those who do think a character option now present in the DMG + two more books aren't put into the toolset with official support. Some folk are just allergic to homebrewing, whether or not someone takes them by the hand and shows them how. Yes anything in WotC print should be reproducible through homebrew, but should also be represented in the DDB's toolset too.
I don't disagree. However, there have to be priorities.
To call once more upon my oft-harped "complaint" against official implementation of boons/gifts: my table's been wanting to use Slow Natural Healing, from the DMG, Chapter 9, almost since we started playing. We hate the Wolverine Super Regen PHB default 'Long Rest' rule that allows literally any wound to disappear without the faintest trace after one night's sleep. We hate it, we hate it, we hate it, WE HATE IT. It's the single most immersion-breaking issue in all of 5e for our table, and we've only kinda just managed to make bitter, fragile peace with it. But if you want to use the DDB character sheet, you can't use Slow Natural Healing. There's no way to turn off Free Ultra Superhero Regen whenever you click the button, and any workarounds we've tried rapidly fell apart. There's no good way to bass-ackwards Slow Natural Healing into the DDB tool, so we've just kinda come to accept that pain is an illusion, exile injuries and wounds mean nothing. An ancient dragon can baste you like a turkey and provided you have one HP left, all you need is a good night's sleep and nobody would ever know.
Boons? As I just tried to prove as conclusively as possible, they're easy. Most of them can be done bang-on, and the rest can be jiggered around well enough to work. Yes, it may be distasteful to have to do it yourself if you bought the content, and some people are allergic to homebrew. Cool. People can't do Slow Natural Healing, Proficiency Dice, or many of the other alternate rules in the DMG at all, allergic to homebrew or not, and we'll never be able to. DDB will never implement those rules/systems, because there'll always be some New Shiny Something that people are screeching for, some new book that takes priority over DMG stuff that's gone unimplemented since the service went live.
You'll have to pardon my bitterness over that occasionally welling forth.
Appreciate the ups. Heh, sadly I am too ornery and spicy for the mod staff to pin anything I write, but feel free to link the post next time you see someone carping about being unable to use Epic Boons on their sheet.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
You do realize that now you've cursed yourself and you'll have to do this same thing for implementing the Supernatural Gifts from Theros (which I know can be done via feats thanks to another user), and the Dark Gifts from Ravenloft, ne?
meanwhile, slowly adds this link into his signature for later use
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Heh. Part of why I did this thread was so that I had a ready resource to link to when people start carping about it not being implemented again. Ideally someone could read the twenty-six examples I've already posted and see that virtually all of these things fall into one of three broad categories:
Does the Boon/Gift/Mark/Pizza let you "Do" something? Custom Action. Anything that lets you DO something new, that gives you a new way to use your action, bonus action, or reaction, is going to be a Custom Action boon like Combat prowess.
Does the Boon/Gift/Mark/Pizza make you "Better" at something? Modifier, like Boon of Resilience. Anything that improves your numbers, gives you a passive trait that doesn't require an action (like resistance) or otherwise doesn't do anything but impact what you could already do is a Modifier, and at that point it's simply a matter of figuring out what all the different Modifier Types and Modifier Subtypes do.
Does the Boon/Gift/Mark/Pizza let you cast a spell? Use the 'Add a Spell' menu and add a spell, like Boon of Dimensional Travel. Set the reset type to whatever the B/G/M/P tells you to reset on and go.
Once you get good at doing those three things, you can implement nine out of ten things Wizards decides to stuff into their books without issue. The only real can't-do-it buttholes in the list were the Boons that interact with/modify spells and spell slots, and that's because the feat system can't interact with the spell system outside of bolting new spells on. DDB in general doesn't like letting feats interact with or change character abilities; you can add things, and you can fitz with basic numbers like HP or ability scores or such, things the basic PHB feat list already lets you do and thus DDB had to allow feats to monkey with. But if you wanted to use a feat to change your paladin's Smite damage to fire, for example, as part of a reskinning effort or because your god's given you new choices? DDB will tell you to f#$% right off, and Avrae would rather die than change the rules even a little.
I might go through Supernatural Gifts (even though Theros is a damned filthy Magic: the Goosening book) and Dark Gifts later, but just this one took me north of three hours to assemble. Cut me some slack, mang q_q
If you want I can add instructions for both the Hollow One supernatural Gift from Wildemount, as well as the Hero Points optional rules from the DMG.
How to implement the Hero Points Optional Rule:
Setting up that👆Basic Information is the easy part, next comes the👇Action:
You will have to designate the Reset Type and [SAVE] the Action. Then you can Edit that new Action and add the Limited Uses:
After the Limited Uses have all been added, [SAVE] the Action again, and then you MUST re-save the entire feat using the main [SAVE CHANGES] button under Basic Information or the system won’t pick up your changes. After that it can sometimes take up to 20 minutes for those changes to push through to the character builder/sheet.
How to Implement the Hollow One Supernatural Gift from the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount:
I’ll omit the Basic Information for this one as it should be self explanatory by now and I don’t want to give away Mercer’s proprietaries. Skipping to the rest of it:
Note that the Modifier will currently not do anything but hopefully it will of DDB ever gets their “Digital Play Space” up and running. Next, the “Cling to Life” Action that would correspond to this Modifier:
And now the Unsettling Presence Action:
Note that by leaving the Level unspecified it will automatically be available at “Base” level whenever the Supernatural Gift is gained.
How to implement the Stress Score mechanic fromVan Richter's Guide to Ravenloft:
you can make a Feat and use limited uses attached to a “General” Action with no “Activation Type” and a “Reset Type” of “Other.” If you give it 20ish limited uses that should be enough.
While its not strictly contributing to the post, I must say imagine DM'ing for Yurei and our other friends who've been doing this level of detail work for 20 years. Glad to see another guide posted somewhere. Feel like we've put these off a while.
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"I once knew this fella, Aasimar raised in the Underdark. Was like a brother to me. When he escaped we couldn't take much with us. Poor, emaciated husks of the living we were. 'ts okay though. We survived and made our ways. I'll never forget the way the people from my home looked at us when we walked in the archway. Though, I'm frighteningly certain the feelings they would have, had they but the opportunity ta see us leave." --Manolovo the Traitor, Memoirs of a Scoundrel
While its not strictly contributing to the post, I must say imagine DM'ing for Yurei and our other friends who've been doing this level of detail work for 20 years. Glad to see another guide posted somewhere. Feel like we've put these off a while.
Oh I would love to DM for these guys.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Heh. Maker said that because he has been DMing, at least for me and my table, for the past year and a half or so. The lovely pallid tiffle gal in my forum icon is my character in his game. He carps a twitch unfairly though, I like to think I'm pretty good at letting the Dungeon Master do the Dungeon Mastering and not backseat-DMing, outside of usually knowing a rule when someone else is trying to remember it.
'Sides, MAKER. When your players know how to use the homebrew tools in DDB that just means you don't have to be responsible for implementing every half-baked cockamaimy weirdboi idea that comes up whenever someone nat 1s their IRL WIS check and says "I wish" around Vyx, eh? :P
While its not strictly contributing to the post, I must say imagine DM'ing for Yurei and our other friends who've been doing this level of detail work for 20 years. Glad to see another guide posted somewhere. Feel like we've put these off a while.
While its not strictly contributing to the post, I must say imagine DM'ing for Yurei and our other friends who've been doing this level of detail work for 20 years. Glad to see another guide posted somewhere. Feel like we've put these off a while.
Oh I would love to DM for these guys.
The Position is open! :P
We always like more DM's. That means the rest of us can continue creating hare-brained character ideas and making life difficult for whoever is in the hot seat.
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Because people keep insisting on starting seven hundred thousand million billion trillion bananazillion threads demanding to know why Epic Boons aren’t yet implemented in DDB, I’ve decided to step through each and every Epic Boon in the DMG and provide detailed picture instructions on how to recreate that boon as a homebrew feat that functions completely identically to how the Epic Boon would work if officially implemented by DDB.
Because ALL ‘Epic Boons’ are nothing more than feats with unusual acquisition requirements.
Hopefully this will serve as a resource for the throngs of people that cannot figure this out, and at the very least I will have a link I can hurl into the faces of people who continue to harangue DDB for this despite there being a dirt-simple workaround for it whereas core rules there are no workarounds for languish unimplemented to this day.
Let us begin.
First, the basics:
When you first click "Create a Feat", this is the screen you will see. Record the name of the boon you're recreating in the 'Name' field, then copy the text from the DMG for the boon you're recreating into the "Description" field. You can create a snippet if you like, but it's not required, and don't bother with tags because you can't publish these feats anyways and tags are useless for private homebrew. Once you're done, click 'Create Feat'. Each of the breakdowns below assume you've already completed this most basic step.
Additional Good-to-Know
For virtually all Epic Boons, we will be creating a feat that offers a custom action. You can add custom actions to already-created feats using this button:
1.) Boon of Combat Prowess
The Boon of Combat Prowess is the first of roughly
******* all of them80+% of boons that can be easily tracked/modeled on your character sheet by creating a custom action. First, create a feat called "Boon of Combat Prowess". Once you're in the Edit menu for BoCP, create a custom action for it. The prompt will ask you to select which type of action. Select 'General'.In the 'Edit Action' menu, give your action a name. I recommend the format "Name of Boon: Action Type". For the Boon of Combat Prowess, this would be 'Boon of Combat Prowess: Automatic Hit', like so:
Ignore literally every single other field until you get to "Activation Type". I mean it. Ignore them. Leave them blank. Don't futz with them. Pretend they don't exist. The point of this process is to give you a trackable checkbox on your character sheet that will clearly indicate whether you've used your Combat Prowess or not, and none of the other fields in edit Action pertain to that.
Instead, skip down to Activation Type and Reset type, then set those to "Special" and "Short Rest", respectively.
Then, move down to Snippet. I like to write a brief, one or two-line description of what my custom action does, as a reminder on the sheet. The "Description" field is supposed to be for more in-depth text describing the action, but that's what the overall feat description is for so I just copy the 'Snippet' text into both lines. The "Snippet" text shows up in different places than the "Description" text, so make sure that both are filled in.
Once you're done, click the big blue impossible-to-miss "SAVE" button at the bottom of the interface. The action will be saved and you'll be kicked back into the Edit page for the general feat. Your action will be listed as a custom action in the feat, like so:
When you're done, scroll up and click the big orange impossible-to-miss "SAVE" button under the 'Basic Information' field of your feat.
THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!
You have to click BOTH 'Save' buttons for this to work. The blue Edit Action 'Save' button applies to the action and pins it down, but if you don't also save the overall feat before closing out of your editor, then your feat will not remember your custom action, it won't show up on your sheet, and you'll have to create the custom action all over again. Blue button, THEN orange button. if you haven't clicked the orange button, you're not done.
If you have? Then congratulations! You now possess a custom homebrew feat that perfectly models how DDB will implement the Boon of Combat Prowess in the future! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
2.) Boon of Dimensional Travel
Start by creating a homebrew feat called "Boon of Dimensional Travel", same as with Combat Prowess. Once you're past the 'Create' screen and into the 'Edit' screen, this time we're going to set up an at-will spell, via the 'Spells' menu in DDB homebrew feats. Click the big blue 'Add A Spell' button, and it will take you to the Edit page for your spell.
The Edit Spell page works differently than the Edit Action page. 'Spell', in this case, lets you search for the spell you want to add to the feat. Because we're doing Boon of Minor Hops, we search for Misty Step. Type letters until you've typed enough to see the spell you're looking for in the dropdown list, then click on it.
For the Boon of Dimensional Travel? Ignore every single additional field in the whole-ass page, with the sole exception of "Reset Type". All of them. Every single one. DO NOT click the "is infinite?" checkbox; that checkbox is not for at-will, freely castable spells, it's to allow a feat to model things like Book of Ancient Secrets that let you select an undefined number of spells that fit criteria we don't care about because the only heckin' thing this boon does is put 'Misty Step' on our sheet. So. ignore everything but "Reset Type", which you set to 'Short Rest'.
Once you're done, click that big blue 'Save' button again, and as we discussed in Combat Prowess, do not forget to then save your entire homebrew feat using the big orange 'Save' button. Once that's done? Congratulations! You now have a homebrew feat that perfectly models the Boon of Dimensional Travel, exactly how DDB will implement it! Assign it to your characters and enjoy game night!
3.) Boon of Fate
The process for creating "Boon of Fate" is exactly the same as creating "Boon of Combat Prowess" Refer to the step-through for the Boon of Combat Prowess, changing the names and descriptions to match the custom action described in the DMG Boon of Fate, instead. Push the blue "Save' button, and then the orange 'Save' button. Once you do? Congratulations! You now have a custom homebrew feat that models the Epic Boon of Fate, exactly the same way DDB will implement it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
4.) Boon of Fortitude
Fortitude will use the 'Modifiers' menu of DDB's homebrew feat interface, shown here. Click "Add Modifier" to get to the Edit Modifier menu.
Once in the Edit Modifier menu, start by setting your Modifier Type - in this case, 'Bonus'
Then, move to 'Modifier Subtype' and search for 'Hit Points'
That tells the feat you're adding a Bonus to your Hit Points. Next, move to the "Fixed Value" field and enter the bonus you're receiving - in this case, 40.
Click the blue 'Save' button, then go back up and click the orange 'Save' button. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You now have a homebrew custom feat that perfectly models the
Tough featBoon of Fortitude, just the way DDB will implement it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!5.) Boon of High Magic
This one feels like it should be another "Spells" modifier...but it's not. You actually set up the Boon of High Magic the exact same way you set up Boon of Combat Prowess, save that this time your custom action will be configured to reset on Long Rest rather than Short Rest (and obviously your text will talk about spell slots rather than weapon swipes).
Keep the "Special" activation time; this custom action is mimicking a spell slot, which can be used a number of different ways. Blue Save button, then orange. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You now have a custom homebrew feat that...adequately models how the Boon of High Magic works in the DMG! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
Note: it is currently impossible to modify a character's number of spell slots in any way; spell slot count is determined solely and immutably by class levels. A custom action can track the 'extra' ninth-level slot, and a similar feat can track 'extra' spell slots from homebrew boons a DM may grant as well, but there's no way to make something that will cleanly integrate into Avrae. This workaround is perfectly sufficient for any table not using Avrae, which you shouldn't do anyways because Avrae is generally horrible and ENORMOUSLY hostile to homebrew of any sort, but it's one of the only places in the entire Epic Boons section of the DMG where the homebrew feat is not the exact same thing DDB will eventually implement themselves. Sorry. You still have it much better than anyone trying to use Slow Natural Healing rules.
6.) Boon of Immortality
Create a feat called "Boon of Immortality". Copy the text from the DMG Boon of Immortality into the description box. Push the "Create Feat" button. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You have created the Epic Boon of Immortality, exactly the same way DDB will implement it! Seriously - this feat has no mechanical gameplay impact, it doesn't modify the character's abilities in any way. Add the description to your sheet, tell the DM 'Lol nah bruh" when ghosts try and make you save against aging, and watch out for dudes in trench coats with katanas. The plaintext description of this epic boon is all you need. Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
7.) Boon of Invincibility
The process for creating the Boon of Invincibility os exactly identical to creating the Boon of Combat Prowess. Refer to the step-through for Combat Prowess, changing descriptive text where necessary. Blue button, orange button, then congratulations! You've just created a homebrew feat version of the Boon of Invicibility, exactly the same way DDB will when they get to it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
8.) Boon of Irresistible Offense
Just like Immortality, the Boon of Irresistible Offense is a plaintext feat. There's no need to create any modifiers, and no modifiers that can be created for it. Note the effect, and whenever you deal damage, remind the DM that they don't get to apply resistance. Donezo. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You've created a homebrew version of the Boon of Irresistible Offense, exactly the same way DDB will do so when they implement boons! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
Note: Avrae will choke on this boon, and it will be absolutely impossible to fix that. Avrae is REALLY TERRIBLE at combat, automatically applying everything without ever stopping to ask the players if they want to use a reaction or if there's anything preventing normal rules from applying. If you use Avrae, you may want to avoid using this boon altogether, as there's no way to get the stupid heckin' bot to respect its effects. Sorry. Ish. Sorry-ish. Just don't use Avrae and you're golden.
9.) Boon of Luck
The process for creating the Boon of Luck is exactly identical to creating the Boon of Combat Prowess. refer to the step-through for creating the Boon of Combat Prowess, changing descriptive text where necessary. Blue button, then orange button. Once you're done? Congratulations! You've just recreated the Epic Boon of Luck as a homebrew feat, the exact same way DDB will do so whenever they get around to it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
10.) Boon of Magic Resistance
And for the first time in five boons, we're gonna have pictures again. Magic Resistance is added as a Modifier; click "Add Modifier' as per the Boon of Fortitude to get to the Edit Modifier screen. From there, set your Modifier Type to "Advantage".
Then, for 'Modifier Subtype', search for "Saving Throws"
Once you've got Type and Subtype set, go down to the "Details" field and fill in what you get advantage on saving throws agains - namely, spells and magical effects.
Once you've set this up, hit the blue button, then the orange button. Once you've done so, congratulations! You now have a homebrew custom feat that perfectly mimicks the Boon of Magic Resistance, exactly the same way DDB would rig it up! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
Note: ONCE AGAIN, Avrae will choke on this. Avrae has no idea what counts as a spell or magical effect and thus will not generally award you your advantage appropriately. You'll have to manually sort it out rather than relying on Avrae's godawful auto-combat system, which will be the case for basically any boon that modifies combat in any way when applied to Avrae. The bot absolutely cannot stand or tolerate exceptions to the general combat rules, and all of these boons qualify as "exceptions to the general combat rules". This is not a DDB problem, this is an Avrae problem. If people stopped asking the bot to over-automate combat it wouldn't be an issue, so technically this one's y'all's. fault. Jus' sayin'.
11.) Boon of Peerless Aim
The Boon of Peerless Aim would be created exactly the same way we've created the Boon of Combat Prowess, as well as several others. Refer to the step-through for the Boon of Combat Prowess, changing descriptive text where necessary. Once you've done so? Congratulations! You now have a perfectly serviceable homebrew Boon of Peerless Aim, configured exactly the same way DDB would do so! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
12.) Boon of Perfect Health
One new Modifier here and one new-ish use of one we've already covered, but both of these effects are Modifiers. For the first effect, we do Modifier Type: Immunity.
For Modifier Subtype, we look for "Disease"
Blue button, then orange button.
Immunity to Poison is set the same way, though do note. There's two 'Poison' Modifier Subtypes for the Immunity modifier type: "Poison" and "Poisoned". The former refers to the damage type, the latter refers to the condition. You're going to want to set three total "Immunity" modifiers - one for Disease, one for Poison-the-damage-type, and one for Poisoned-the-condition.
Once you've set all the things you're immune to, create a fourth Modifier, Type: Advantage, and Subtype: Constitution saving throws. You can ignore the Detail field this time, since this is conditionless advantage on ALL Constitution saves. Blue button, then orange button. Once you're done and looking at all four modifiers? Congratulations! You've just flawlessly recreated the Boon of Perfect Health as a homebrew feat, exactly the same way DDB is gonna! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
13.) Boon of Planar Travel
This one's a butthole. For the most part it works exactly the same way as the Boon of Dimensional Travel (fuggoff Wizards of the Coast, "Dimensional Travel' and 'Planar Travel' are the same goddamn thing), but Planar Travel requires you to set a single plane you can travel to. You could do this with a feat that has a million Options in it, but that would suck. Instead, what I'm going to recommend is something DMs generally hate doing - tune your homebrew for the specific player/plane being used. Create "Boon of Planar Travel - Feywild", for instance, and then set the spell up. Locate Plane Shift, as so:
Once that's done, set the Reset to Short Rest, and then go down to Details to fill in all the hedge-arounds and limitations on this version of Plane Shift.
You'll have to do this for each version of Planar Travel you hand out, so be wary. Once you've done so though, and hit your blue and orange buttons? Congratulations! You have an adequate representation of the Boon of Planar Travel - and judging by all the Resilience, Ritual Caster, Telekinesis, and so on variations in the feat menu, you'll probably have done it the same way DDB will too! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
14.) Boon of Quick Casting
This one is a giant butthole. You can't do this entirely within a feat. Don't worry, neither can DDB. It's one of those that the system just isn't set up to do and can't be made to do. Fortunately, if you don't use Avrae, it's easy to hack. Create a feat, and treat Quick Casting as a plaintext boon, a'la Immortality or Irresistible Offense. if you're creating this boon for a specific character, I highly recommend naming the spell that character chooses as their Quick-Cast and tuning BoQC specifically for that spell, but I can't make that assumption here. So create Quick Casting as a plaintext boon and assign it to a character. Then, on that character's sheet, find the spell you want to declare a Quick Cast spell and modify that spell's name and description to note the spell's new status as Jazz Handsy
That's the quick-and-dirty method. You can add a spell to your feat and override its casting time, like so:
You'll also then need to set the spell's Ability Score to whatever your casting ability is, like so:
Going this route will add a copy of the specific spell that has a one-BA casting time to your sheet. You will have both versions of the spell, which is not intended by the DMG (technically, you CAN'T cast the chosen spell as a normal action anymore once you learn to Quick Cast it), but eh. My preference would be for the plaintext feat and editing the spell on a character's sheet, but you can use whichever method is best for you. Blue button, orange button, and congratulations. You have a mostly-functional janky workaround for the Boon of Quick Casting. DDB would do it differently if they could, but they literally can't do it, so eh. Award it to your players, however that ends up working for this butthole of a boon, and enjoy game night!
15.) Boon of Recovery
The Boon of Recovery is created exactly the same way we've created the Boon of Combat Prowess and half the rest of the list, by now. Refer to the step-through for Boon of Combat Prowess on how to add a custom action to your sheet, changing descriptive text as necessary, and remember to set the Reset Type to 'Long Rest' rather than Short rest. For ease of use, I would add a custom action to the sheet of any specific character with this boon that tells you what counts as "half of your maximum HP" for any given character. Gotta dodge that four seconds of subtraction during game night, y'know. Blue button, orange button, and congratulations! You've created the Boon of Recovery, in a manner DDB would've done themselves if people hadn't ridden their buttholes over the Life Cleric thing for years and years! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
16.) Boon of Resilience
This is another Modifier boon, and probably the easiest one on this entire list except for the plaintext versions. But...well, if I could trust people to know what they're doing and figure things out on their own, I wouldn't be writing this post. SO. Add a Modifier to your feat, Modifier Type: Resistance.
Modifier Subtype: the modifier DDB specifically added because Wizards reuses this annoying wordy nonsense everywhere, rather than just saying "mundane weapon damage' like sane people who don't hate their customer base.
Blue button, orange button. And congratulations! You've just perfectly recreated the Boon of Resilience, exactly the same way DDB will do so when they get around to it! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
17.) Boon of Skill Proficiency
Here's where I tell you a magic trick, and then ruin the magic trick by telling you why the correct way is to ignore the magic trick and add between 10 to 14 different "Modifier" traits to your boon instead. First, the magic trick:
And boom - you're done. Proficiency in every single skill, from one single modifier. This is what they used to do the bard's Jack of All Trades without driving the devs bananas - set Modifier Type to "Half Proficiency" instead and you've just recreated the Jack of all Trades feature. Problem is? The Epic Boon of Proficiency does not apply to "ability checks". It states "you are proficient in all skills". Proficiency in ability checks is a very different and vastly more powerful thing, as it includes initiative rolls, contested-casting checks for things like Counterspell or Dispel Magic, or anything else that calls for an ability check unrelated to the game's rigid eighteen-skill skill list.
The correct way to implement the Boon of Proficiency is to create eighteen different modifiers, each one granting proficiency with a specific skill, like so:
Except that gets you into trouble too, because it'll cause hiccups on a character's sheet. The feat will conflict with proficiencies the character already has and potentially override things like Expertise.
The more correct way to do the Boon of Proficiency?
Write "Boon of Proficiency" as a plaintext feat a'la Immortality, then go to your character sheet and manually turn on proficiency with any skill you aren't already proficient with, as above. You get the exact same effect with a minimum of fuss and bother, and a minimum of tryin'a get DDB's spaghetti code to do what the book tells you to do. This would be my choice of method. DON'T use the magic trick without your DM's explicit permission to make the already-busted Boon of Proficiency seventeen times more busted than it is. Regardless of which method you choose? Congratulations! You now have a workable hack for the Boon of Proficiency! Award it to your players however ya blurdy gotta, and enjoy game night!
18.) Boon of Speed
This is a two-parter, but each part's already been covered before. The first part is a simple Modifier I'd hope to Avandra somebody could work out for themselves after reading this far, but I know better. I know better. So, here's how you do a thirty-foot bonus to your walking speed:
The second part is a custom action, done mostly the same way I discussed doing custom actions in Combat Prowess. But since this is slightly different and it's been a while, brief refresher:
First, Create a General Action:
Second, Name Your Action:
Third, IGNORE EVERYTHING between "Name" and "Activation Type"
Fourth, set Activation Time to 'Bonus Action' and Reset Type to 'Short Rest'
Finally, record your snippet/description:
Blue button, then orange button. And congratulations! You now have a perfectly cool homebrew version of the Boon of Speed! Same way
GrandmaDDB used to make! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!19.) Boon of Spell Mastery
This is another one of those butthole boons that can't be implemented the way people want it to be implemented, i.e. "give me a drop-down of all my applicable spells and let the tool do the rest". You can instead do it the same way you did Boon of Dimensional Travel, simply selecting the spell your individual character is making their Mastered Spell instead of Misty Step. Remember to set your Ability Modifier, the same way we did with the Boon of Quick Casting mess the last time the DMG told us to monkey with something on our sheet. You'll end up with two copies of the spell, but eh. It's kinda how life is in this case. But however you do it? Congratulations! You have a janky, mostly-functional workaround for the Boon of Spell Mastery! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
20.) Boon of Spell Recall
This seems like another one of those Butthole Boons...but it's actually just as simple as Combat Prowess. See the Combat Prowess step-through for instructions on setting up a custom action. Rig up a "Spell Recall Bonus Cast" action, blue button, orange button, and congratulations! You now have a perfectly serviceable Boon of Spell Recall homebrew feat! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
21.) Boon of the Fire Soul
Another two-parter. The first part, Immunity to Fire damage, I'm not going to cover in-depth since we've gone over it several times before. Type: Immunity, Subtype: Fire Damage
The second part, the freebie spell, is a bit more tricky. The "Add a Spell" menu does not allow for the setting of a fixed save DC. You can add a note to the Details for the spell, like so:
The better plan, or rather the additional plan, is to then find your Burning Hands spell in your character sheet and override the DC to 15, like so:
Once that's done? Congratulations! You have a perfectly serviceable copy of Boon of the Fire Soul! Not like DDB would make, but who cares? Award it to your players anyways, and enjoy game night!
22.) Boon of the Night Spirit
The Night Spirit is exactly the same as Combat Prowess, save that you don't need to specify a reset type. This is an at-will action, and notably it's NOT the Invisibility spell. Once you get your custom action down, blue button and then orange button, and congratulations! You've got a great homebrew rendition of the Boon of the Night Spirit! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
23.) Boon of the Stormborn
This one's exactly the same sort of two-parter as Fire Soul. See the notes on Fire Soul for implementation on "you get immunity to your element and a first-level spell with a fixed DC you can cast at will". Just change the spell and the Immunity subtypes, and congratulations! You've just rigged up a perfectly workable version of Boon of the Stormborn! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
24.) Boon of the Unfettered
This one's a bit of a butthole, because as it's worded it'd clutter up a sheet. In this case, better to simply do the first bit, i.e. "Advantage on ability checks made to resist being grappled" as Advantage on Acro and Athletics, with the "made to resist being grappled" caveat in Details.
Do the same for Athletics, and you'll only have two skills flagged as 'Advantage'. Do 'Advantage', subtype "Ability Checks" and it'll flag every gorram check on your sheet with conditional advantage. Annoying.
The second half of Unfettered is another at-will custom action, exactly the same as Night Spirit, and in turn essentially the same as Combat Prowess. See Combat Prowess for the step-through on setting up custom actions, then blue button, then orange button. Congratulations! You now have a homebrew feat replicating the effects of Boon of the Unfettered! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
25.) Boon of Truesight
This one's another "Modifier" boon, but of a different sort than the others. The Modifier Type is "Sense", at the way bottom of the list.
Subtype is, of course, Truesight
The final modifier, including the range, looks like this:
Blue button, then orange button, and congratulations! You now have a perfectly accurate-to-DMG Boon of Truesight! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
26.) Boon of Undetectability
Our final boon on the list, and it's an easy one! The first half is a simple fixed-value 'Bonus' Modifier, like so:
The second half of Undetectability is plaintext - no modifiers to add or create. Write it down, and then blue button, then orange button...and congratulations! You have a homebrew Boon of Undetectability! Award it to your players, and enjoy game night!
* * *
Huzzah! Your guide, however snarky it may be, for homebrewing every single one of the Epic Boons from Chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master's Guide! Every single one of them can be made at least functional enough to work, and most of them can be rigged up bang-on. Now you've got no excuse for carping about official implementation of Epic Boons, and also a pretty decent starter guide for figuring out the most commonly useful homebrew modifiers for feats. You're welcome!
Good night, everybody!
Please do not contact or message me.
Nerd.
That said, nice job friendo.
Holy crap monkeys. Nice work and I hope people appreciate it!
It's a great guide. However I don't think it does or should mute or moot those who do think a character option now present in the DMG + two more books aren't put into the toolset with official support. Some folk are just allergic to homebrewing, whether or not someone takes them by the hand and shows them how. Yes anything in WotC print should be reproducible through homebrew, but should also be represented in the DDB's toolset too.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't disagree. However, there have to be priorities.
To call once more upon my oft-harped "complaint" against official implementation of boons/gifts: my table's been wanting to use Slow Natural Healing, from the DMG, Chapter 9, almost since we started playing. We hate the Wolverine Super Regen PHB default 'Long Rest' rule that allows literally any wound to disappear without the faintest trace after one night's sleep. We hate it, we hate it, we hate it, WE HATE IT. It's the single most immersion-breaking issue in all of 5e for our table, and we've only kinda just managed to make bitter, fragile peace with it. But if you want to use the DDB character sheet, you can't use Slow Natural Healing. There's no way to turn off Free Ultra Superhero Regen whenever you click the button, and any workarounds we've tried rapidly fell apart. There's no good way to bass-ackwards Slow Natural Healing into the DDB tool, so we've just kinda come to accept that
pain is an illusion, exileinjuries and wounds mean nothing. An ancient dragon can baste you like a turkey and provided you have one HP left, all you need is a good night's sleep and nobody would ever know.Boons? As I just tried to prove as conclusively as possible, they're easy. Most of them can be done bang-on, and the rest can be jiggered around well enough to work. Yes, it may be distasteful to have to do it yourself if you bought the content, and some people are allergic to homebrew. Cool. People can't do Slow Natural Healing, Proficiency Dice, or many of the other alternate rules in the DMG at all, allergic to homebrew or not, and we'll never be able to. DDB will never implement those rules/systems, because there'll always be some New Shiny Something that people are screeching for, some new book that takes priority over DMG stuff that's gone unimplemented since the service went live.
You'll have to pardon my bitterness over that occasionally welling forth.
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Great post. This should be pinned somewhere.
Appreciate the ups. Heh, sadly I am too ornery and spicy for the mod staff to pin anything I write, but feel free to link the post next time you see someone carping about being unable to use Epic Boons on their sheet.
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Wow this is impressive!
Well done, Yurei!
Great guide and super helpful.
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Hey Yurei...
You do realize that now you've cursed yourself and you'll have to do this same thing for implementing the Supernatural Gifts from Theros (which I know can be done via feats thanks to another user), and the Dark Gifts from Ravenloft, ne?
meanwhile, slowly adds this link into his signature for later use
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Heh. Part of why I did this thread was so that I had a ready resource to link to when people start carping about it not being implemented again. Ideally someone could read the twenty-six examples I've already posted and see that virtually all of these things fall into one of three broad categories:
Does the Boon/Gift/Mark/Pizza let you "Do" something?
Custom Action. Anything that lets you DO something new, that gives you a new way to use your action, bonus action, or reaction, is going to be a Custom Action boon like Combat prowess.
Does the Boon/Gift/Mark/Pizza make you "Better" at something?
Modifier, like Boon of Resilience. Anything that improves your numbers, gives you a passive trait that doesn't require an action (like resistance) or otherwise doesn't do anything but impact what you could already do is a Modifier, and at that point it's simply a matter of figuring out what all the different Modifier Types and Modifier Subtypes do.
Does the Boon/Gift/Mark/Pizza let you cast a spell?
Use the 'Add a Spell' menu and add a spell, like Boon of Dimensional Travel. Set the reset type to whatever the B/G/M/P tells you to reset on and go.
Once you get good at doing those three things, you can implement nine out of ten things Wizards decides to stuff into their books without issue. The only real can't-do-it buttholes in the list were the Boons that interact with/modify spells and spell slots, and that's because the feat system can't interact with the spell system outside of bolting new spells on. DDB in general doesn't like letting feats interact with or change character abilities; you can add things, and you can fitz with basic numbers like HP or ability scores or such, things the basic PHB feat list already lets you do and thus DDB had to allow feats to monkey with. But if you wanted to use a feat to change your paladin's Smite damage to fire, for example, as part of a reskinning effort or because your god's given you new choices? DDB will tell you to f#$% right off, and Avrae would rather die than change the rules even a little.
I might go through Supernatural Gifts (even though Theros is a damned filthy Magic: the Goosening book) and Dark Gifts later, but just this one took me north of three hours to assemble. Cut me some slack, mang q_q
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If you want I can add instructions for both the Hollow One supernatural Gift from Wildemount, as well as the Hero Points optional rules from the DMG.
How to implement the Hero Points Optional Rule:
Setting up that👆Basic Information is the easy part, next comes the👇Action:
You will have to designate the Reset Type and [SAVE] the Action. Then you can Edit that new Action and add the Limited Uses:
After the Limited Uses have all been added, [SAVE] the Action again, and then you MUST re-save the entire feat using the main [SAVE CHANGES] button under Basic Information or the system won’t pick up your changes. After that it can sometimes take up to 20 minutes for those changes to push through to the character builder/sheet.
How to Implement the Hollow One Supernatural Gift from the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount:
I’ll omit the Basic Information for this one as it should be self explanatory by now and I don’t want to give away Mercer’s proprietaries. Skipping to the rest of it:
Note that the Modifier will currently not do anything but hopefully it will of DDB ever gets their “Digital Play Space” up and running. Next, the “Cling to Life” Action that would correspond to this Modifier:
And now the Unsettling Presence Action:
Note that by leaving the Level unspecified it will automatically be available at “Base” level whenever the Supernatural Gift is gained.
How to implement the Stress Score mechanic fromVan Richter's Guide to Ravenloft:
you can make a Feat and use limited uses attached to a “General” Action with no “Activation Type” and a “Reset Type” of “Other.” If you give it 20ish limited uses that should be enough.
I hope that helps.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Go for it. I ain't gonna complain about people adding more resource to the resource.
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Sweet, thanks Yurei and Sposta.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
While its not strictly contributing to the post, I must say imagine DM'ing for Yurei and our other friends who've been doing this level of detail work for 20 years. Glad to see another guide posted somewhere. Feel like we've put these off a while.
"I once knew this fella, Aasimar raised in the Underdark. Was like a brother to me. When he escaped we couldn't take much with us. Poor, emaciated husks of the living we were. 'ts okay though. We survived and made our ways. I'll never forget the way the people from my home looked at us when we walked in the archway. Though, I'm frighteningly certain the feelings they would have, had they but the opportunity ta see us leave." --Manolovo the Traitor, Memoirs of a Scoundrel
Oh I would love to DM for these guys.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Heh. Maker said that because he has been DMing, at least for me and my table, for the past year and a half or so. The lovely pallid tiffle gal in my forum icon is my character in his game. He carps a twitch unfairly though, I like to think I'm pretty good at letting the Dungeon Master do the Dungeon Mastering and not backseat-DMing, outside of usually knowing a rule when someone else is trying to remember it.
'Sides, MAKER. When your players know how to use the homebrew tools in DDB that just means you don't have to be responsible for implementing every half-baked cockamaimy weirdboi idea that comes up whenever someone nat 1s their IRL WIS check and says "I wish" around Vyx, eh? :P
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Damn double post
While its not strictly contributing to the post, I must say imagine DM'ing for Yurei and our other friends who've been doing this level of detail work for 20 years. Glad to see another guide posted somewhere. Feel like we've put these off a while.
Oh I would love to DM for these guys.
The Position is open! :P
We always like more DM's. That means the rest of us can continue creating hare-brained character ideas and making life difficult for whoever is in the hot seat.