Quote from Amnon_Balderk >>

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Still waiting on feedback, but apparently they stayed up all night to finish it.

What I do have is a flat out request by 13 players that I run a version of Tomb of Annihilation (the one set in Chult on FR that is "Acererak before Tomb of Horrors"). Apparently they have had a blast with the White Plume and the Tomb, but want to test things out, under my DM, in a more involved setting where the new features can be more thoroughly explored.

I don't own TOA, lol. So I guess I should buy it.

Unrelated, I seem to have angered a rules maven, because I am aware of underlying mechanics and the presumptions that guide them, while they are more focused on just the narrow "what is written" stuff. Very peculiar.

Edit: Also unrelated, kinda sorta, but my big book crossed 1000 pages, so I had to drop out a reference section (stuff for "how to do this") that will get worked into the website overall. I finally figured out a way to take the sections I have written (in MA Word) and get them into the website with most of the formatting similar and automagically uploading any pictures.

The final "big book" will still be a few hundred pages over 1000, but I will break it into chapbooks ( 5 of them expected right now) to make it more manageable. Trade stuff is nearly finished, the slowdown right now being that I am still going through the outfitting list and breaking it down into all the different kinds of guild shops. Gotta say, breaking it into seven "Trade Zones" plus the "Start" is making for a bit of a headache, but aso, it is starting to feel like there's an actual economic system in place here -- and not the default "buy high, sell low" crap that the game prefers. Not that it is likely to be used , mind you -- but as they say, if you build it, they will come.

I have until November 30th to finish it all, so the crunch is on.

Anyone know any third party crafting mechanics that could be good inspiration?

 Check out Pathfinder 2e mechanics

 Thanks.

A little bit difficult to get to them, since I ain't gonna get the books (3.5, fork or no, is my least favorite of all the systems), but I go the gist of it, at least.

I am glad it avoids the equivalence of crafting to money, but the whole segment on formulas is veiled to me and I'm not in the mood to create 250 formulas, so will see about working on that.

Related searches helped a bit, and I have the rough edges of a possible system -- just need to apply brain power to it.

Look up anyflip pathfinder core rulebook. You can view the entire thing for free as a pdf. It could help iron out any additional wrinkles you find.

Anyflip is a great resource I used to create my first pathfinder character. The character was played in a one shot, but nothing else, so didn’t see much use, but regardlesss my flaming catfolk Druid was pretty epic as they melted robot dogs with fire.

Thank you for the anyflip suggestion. It is a bit hard to read and the ads are going to drive me nuts, but it works well and should be of value. Espeially as it will shorten some of the time too create certain things.

So, I am going over the feedback, and I have been chuckling the last half hour or so because through it they refer to the Nomad (now formally called the Mystic) as "Jedi Wick". Apparently they took inspiration from the story about Daisy, lol, and decided that this particular Mystic was once aiming to be a Reeve.

Well, it so happens that I decided to make Reeve an actual class. Reeve ultimately work for The Agency, and the Agency is "officially" in service to the Conclave, which is a yearly meeting of all the leaders that is more or less enforced by the Gods. All of the Leaders there sit at a Table (a round table, with all the hilarity that invokes in my mind). So The Agency is in service to the Table.

In creating the Reeve Class, I used the line from Wick: I will Serve. I will be of Service." And while I am applying it to what are essentially Judge Dredds meant to defend human rights (literally), it is still rather humorous that although the class wasn't finished yet, they took that and the Daisy idea and made their Mystic follow the path of the Reeve in their quest to seek out and repair tears, rips, and holes in the warp and weft of reality. On the new world, that's more accurately The Pale, and they are very good at slipping through the pale to other dimensions.

They have a pet. A dog. And they named it Daisy. They left it at home while they went off to traipse through the Tomb of Horrors.

Other feedback: Fighters are freaking terrifying. The two warriors wiped out two dozen vegepygmies like they weren't even there, in a combat that last all of 15 minutes real time and took four rounds. 

Cleric buffs are very nice. Druids are going to be the new "check it out" class, since they can send the numen to investigate, or get information from them. I was wondering why they were burning through the place and why they decided to go until done. I think the DM gave too much away through them (I wouldn't have had them figure out written stuff). But not my game.

Shrinewards after transformation are a nightmare of the highest order, and maybe paladins aren't the most dangerous against the Undying, lol. And apparently I am not longer the only one who loves the whole calling their shot deal I gave them. The Roleplay is a blast. Criticism: they are not sailor moon enough.

I will take this criticism. From SM and the PC stuff all I took was the calling the shot bit. The rest came from PMMM and Magical Girl Raising Project and Yuki Yuna. Shrinewards are a bastion against the despair and grief of the necrotic Plane. They are meant to face off against the sad stuff. With friendship and heart, lol.

I need to do some adjustments to DPR for some class features. THat or adjust up on my monsters, lol. They are playing high level (13 to 15) so i do expect them to be in line with mainstream 5e, but holy cow. Some of the level 20 folks in the last campaign couldn't dole out that kind of stuff.

My strong introduction of shielding stuff and the structure around it relating to spell point usage is liked and hated in just the right ways (liked because they can make that shield super strong, hated because if the baddie puts energy into breaking it, they just might). Plays like several different books we have all read. 

The difference in spell points makes an enormous difference at this level. Spell points are determined by Axiom (how you learn magic). The folks who "feel their way" are called esensates and at 13th level have 97.  the folks who focused on studying it have 162. so, think Bards (Sensate Mystical) versus Wizards (Disciple Arcane). Even if they used the same spell list, Bards would have to be way more creative and careful, while Wizards can pretty much spam. Since you go unconscious if you use up all your points, and high level spells not only cost more, but are more tiring (fatigue), most folks gravitate to lower level spells.

Fireballs cost 4 points at base, cause 13d6 damage at this level, and I don' t have a fire and forget principle. So they can all spam the hell out of them. Also Frost bals, lightning balls, thunder balls, etc. The problem is that all spells cost something -- cantrips are 1 point, some special abilities are a few points, the wizards might have taken the mystery that lets them have two spells at once, and more. It is a lot of points, but I don't do single encounter a day stuff -- I might have four to seven, lol.

They were down to half when they faced off with Acererak.  Wizard tried a 6th level spell -- first go was fine, second go was a point of fatigue (out of 10), third was disrupted (so spell points lost) and then he got knocked out, so he lost all his spells memorized.

Shrineward had been stingy and totally let go (Divine Servant, just like Cleric -- Paladins are Devout Servants) high power shields against magic everywhere, healign, buffs. Really brill move on their part. An hour and ten minutes, lost one warrior and the druid, defeated Acererak, and headed to town to do a reincarnation since the bodies were gone or ravaged,. 

I make it sound like the whomped, but truth is they were all on their last legs, lol. A couple more rounds and they would have gone down. But their Dm is really tactical and way better at boss fights than I am.

So, I guess I am doing a full complement for Tomb of Annihilation in October. Just have to finish Crafting, Trade, and the full write up of the classes by then, lol. No stress. Really. *grabs pills*

I just realized. Shrinewardens really have the power of God and anime on their side.

Quote from Quar1on >>

I just realized. Shrinewardens really have the power of God and anime on their side.

 They absolutely do, lol.

There are oddities about them, as well -- feminine Shrinewards must purify each morning at dawn. Enby Shrinewardens must do so at noon. Masculine ones must do it at dusk. And there are Shrines all over the place -- the exception being the cities (where there are temples). In my lore that whole "no shrine within 100 miles a temple" thing is literally explained by a god as "because of the franchise".

A shrine in a particular town or village means that all the Shrinewards of all the Shrines essentially see that town or village as their place to protect and defend. But the trick is that if they are the ones who established the Shrine, then they are stuck there and cannot leave it (even in death). So they are always training new ones, and all of them are competing with each other for followers in what is basically a "I' going to protect more than you" competition.

Paladins are similar in design, but they have to go out and get rid of demons and devils (and vampires).

Clerics, though, well, they just get to be really nice people, counselors and confidants, lol. I use them to show how to create a class. All are able to heal (Paladins can lay hands, but mostly they get rid of poisons, disease, and corruption; SW's are mostly about light healing and the everyday simple stuff. Clerics are the big guns with healing).

So a friend of mine who enjoys my DM styles, but has had his fill of D&D (he's DMed Out of the Abyss twice now) and been a player in my game for like 5 years - kind of wants to do something else (he loves World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade and stuff, which he's also been running and playing in). He recently left my game for "an unknown time" because he found a World of Darkness Mage game that happens to fall on the same day as mine. So he's been in that game. But we were talking and he found a very nice fan made Star Wars 5e based game/site. And so he and I were talking about - and I'd be happy to run it. But during our discussion - I was saying how I did enjoy how in World of Darkness you could dump points into specific skills and such.

I was thinking this would be great for D&D too. So, for example - every 4 levels, you get 2 points to point into a stat (STR, DEX, etc.) or take a Feat. What if - you could instead also use those 2 points instead of a stat - but a skill? This would allow "specializing" in specific skills. For example, you made a fighter and have a low Charisma. But you want to be good at Intimidation (which, by RAW is a CHR skill). You hit level 4 and rather than raising any stats or taking a feat, you dump those 2 points into Intimidation (doesn't have to be both points, just saying both for ease of example). So your other CHR skills wouldn't raise, and you wouldn't have to waste CHR points if all you really want to do is raise one or two CHR specific skill traits.

Anyone see why this would be a bad idea?

May need to make my own "5e-like" system. lol

Quote from SirTawmis >>

So a friend of mine who enjoys my DM styles, but has had his fill of D&D (he's DMed Out of the Abyss twice now) and been a player in my game for like 5 years - kind of wants to do something else (he loves World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade and stuff, which he's also been running and playing in). He recently left my game for "an unknown time" because he found a World of Darkness Mage game that happens to fall on the same day as mine. So he's been in that game. But we were talking and he found a very nice fan made Star Wars 5e based game/site. And so he and I were talking about - and I'd be happy to run it. But during our discussion - I was saying how I did enjoy how in World of Darkness you could dump points into specific skills and such.

I was thinking this would be great for D&D too. So, for example - every 4 levels, you get 2 points to point into a stat (STR, DEX, etc.) or take a Feat. What if - you could instead also use those 2 points instead of a stat - but a skill? This would allow "specializing" in specific skills. For example, you made a fighter and have a low Charisma. But you want to be good at Intimidation (which, by RAW is a CHR skill). You hit level 4 and rather than raising any stats or taking a feat, you dump those 2 points into Intimidation (doesn't have to be both points, just saying both for ease of example). So your other CHR skills wouldn't raise, and you wouldn't have to waste CHR points if all you really want to do is raise one or two CHR specific skill traits.

Anyone see why this would be a bad idea?

May need to make my own "5e-like" system. lol

 

*slowly settles into rocking chair. Leaning heavily on cane, grunts and sighs a=plenty*

Well, young’un, back in my day, we done called that by a fancy new name: Proficiencies. What you all are usin in this newfangled, fancy modern game of yours is kinda like a pretend version of that.

Oh, dang, there’s that back muscle again…

So, less narratives, yes. rather than complete re-invent the wheel, I opted to just put a spinner on it, lol. In 2e (esp) proficiency were essentially a skill system that was slid into D&D to give it the benefits of a skill based system but still retain the class based system it was built on (because back then it was “you can have skills, or you can have classes).

After finding out that since about 2018 the whole idea of “bounded accuracy” is a myth (because the designers broke it themselves, lol) I opted to add in a few things.  Each of the ability scores in my group has 6 Ability Skills. Remember I have 9 scores — so I moved the existing ones around and added a few others.

Then I have proficiencies. Weapon training and armor training are in there. So are all the things you need to use tools and kits. Since I am doing a crafting system, I am revisiting all of this because I am adding things and the usual “blah blah” tinkering the hell out of it. Including my whole “aspects” system, because it touches on it a bit.

So, when you start,, you get your skills from your background and class (and some of the species stuff). Those all start at Level 0. Which is really pretty much base game. If you don’t have one of the proficiencies and you try something, you are at disadvantage and the DC is 5 points higher. So, right away, being at 0 works. That’s called Apprentice, lol. If you get a skill again, you go up to Novice, Yeoman, Adept, Master, and Grandmaster.

THis is a constant theme of the design. So you can get a proficiency up to five times. You can do the same thing with Ability skills (who have a different shift). Each time you get it, you gain a +1 to your rolls. Very simple, very basic mechanic.

At each Tier in the game (and note, there are five tiers, so, huh, how convenient, and it isn’t it funny that those tiers are called Novice, Yeoman, Adept, Master, and Grandmaster, too! Weird) each character gets 2 additional proficiency slots. They can use them on Ability Skills, Proficiencies, and some other stuff, but I am trying hard not to ramble.

That is 10 total, gained in chunks of 2 at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels. when they hit +3 on any proficiency or skill, they can choose to use advantage instead of the bonus. Based on the playtesting so far, they usually take that unless they have a +5. Me, I will always take the bonus, but meh.

(side note: one of the ability skills I added was Affray, another was Brawling. Built out a whole system around them. And of COURSE they released the new UA today with “brawler” as a new subclass, making me giggle because any of my classes can do what that one does, and they still aren’t as good at it as my monks)

Now, the bonuses “break bounded accuracy”. In part because I haven’t limited stacking/Cumulative effects yet, so Proficiency bonus and for ability skills the ability modifier kick in some of the time. For reasons having to do with math that I suck at, the catch is that Bounded accuracy is based on a d20 base, but if you move to a d30 base (which is not a die structure, but is otherwise there in everything so I did, in fact, move to that) you fix it. D24 fixes it too.

And so, though sneaky back end work, I have a D&D game that still uses a d20 for everything, still had bounded accuracy, and yet operates on a d30 basis and lets me have special cool proficiencies that are now going to be really important for crafting and repair of broken items (because why have crafting if I can’t break your sword? Sheesh, unfair much?).

So, um, TL;DR: you can have that cake and eat it too!

Sweet

Quote from AEDorsay>>

I have a D&D game that still uses a d20 for everything and yet operates on a d30 basis

I'm confused. Do you use a d20 or a d30? What's a "d30 basis"?

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from AEDorsay>>

I have a D&D game that still uses a d20 for everything and yet operates on a d30 basis

I'm confused. Do you use a d20 or a d30? What's a "d30 basis"?

 
Are you ready?

I see her casting now..

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from AEDorsay>>

I have a D&D game that still uses a d20 for everything and yet operates on a d30 basis

I'm confused. Do you use a d20 or a d30? What's a "d30 basis"?

 
so, all the math in the game is basically built on a d20 by default.

that is, when setting up tables and increments and statistical arrays and all that weird nerdy shit that designers get into, they scale it to 20 options or 5% increments or similar. The spreads they use. Falling damage, under the hood, is a d20 calculation. And so on.

I went in and switched to a d30.

most of the changes are invisible numerically and player side. But I can now use a dice chain up to d30, I can roll d30 stuff on the dm side (I don’t make players use “odd dice”, but I love having the d14, d16, d18, d24 that I have). And if you start doing calculations on my charts and tables and you expect 5% or Fibonaccis in 20 or whatever, all the math comes up weird and wrong.

because I did the math using a 30 basis and then only used the 20 segment (specifically, I used 6 to 26).

I have a hate relationship with math, but given I work with statistical modeling frequently and have a talent for patterning, I tend to do a lot with simple math. I suck at explaining it, and I often don’t understand *why* things work when I look at a formula, but I can do it. I intuit it, is what maths people say.

probability is weird shit. There are a bunch of different probabilities that surround a single die roll on a single table. Knowing a bunch of them, you can structure a table to give you certain results more consistently , for example, than if you only consider one of those probabilities. Shift a die up or down a chain, you can shift probabilities, shift outcome ranges, and impact likely secondary and tertiary events in a ripple.

”never tell me the odds” is a joke around me because I run probabilities surrounding behavior of humans in my head every moment I am awake, and have since I was like five — and failed my first time taking a course because I have my own way of seeing stuff and do not handle the normative approaches well.

Which is why I was able to redo the maths for so much and still make it look like 5e and feel like 5e and play like 5e — but the underlying maths are not 5e, merely “sculpted” to seem that way.

so we use a d20 for pretty much everything. But I was able to rescale stuff (size, CR, xp, and such) so that it enables me to do stuff like like have a +5 Bonus to some weapon without breaking the game’s central mechanics.

and boy, I really suck at explaining this, lol.

we use d20. The rest is super nerdy stuff.

Btw, a die chain or die chain is a concept I think is used in a different game extensively, and basically sets all the dice in a row, d4 to dX. I use it for scaling CR, players can use it in my meta magic stuff to change their spells on the fly, and it is used in some odd mechanics I have in a couple adventures. I went out and tracked down a die for every even number from 4 to 20, added in a d24, a d30, a d60, and of course we have d%. My chain only runs from 4 to 24, but I tack on 30 for really powerful situations. My strongest monsters have d30 Hit Dice, for example. That’s 15.5 hp per die on average (but not mean). The biggest ones may have 24 of those, lol. 

but I can scale it down or up and have a pretty complicated CR setup That lets me turn a CR 0 critter into a CR 11 critter, just by changing a few things about their core abilities. And my max CR is technically 50, but the normal highest is 40 — the 41 and higher stuff comes from tweaking those factors, and all of them are based in a “30” count system.

(I even spent time calculating the CR ratio for number of people of varying levels. So I know that a CR 41 monster would need over a 100 level 1 people fighting it to be on par, lol.)

Quote from SirTawmis >>

So a friend of mine who enjoys my DM styles, but has had his fill of D&D (he's DMed Out of the Abyss twice now) and been a player in my game for like 5 years - kind of wants to do something else (he loves World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade and stuff, which he's also been running and playing in). He recently left my game for "an unknown time" because he found a World of Darkness Mage game that happens to fall on the same day as mine. So he's been in that game. But we were talking and he found a very nice fan made Star Wars 5e based game/site. And so he and I were talking about - and I'd be happy to run it. But during our discussion - I was saying how I did enjoy how in World of Darkness you could dump points into specific skills and such.

I was thinking this would be great for D&D too. So, for example - every 4 levels, you get 2 points to point into a stat (STR, DEX, etc.) or take a Feat. What if - you could instead also use those 2 points instead of a stat - but a skill? This would allow "specializing" in specific skills. For example, you made a fighter and have a low Charisma. But you want to be good at Intimidation (which, by RAW is a CHR skill). You hit level 4 and rather than raising any stats or taking a feat, you dump those 2 points into Intimidation (doesn't have to be both points, just saying both for ease of example). So your other CHR skills wouldn't raise, and you wouldn't have to waste CHR points if all you really want to do is raise one or two CHR specific skill traits.

Anyone see why this would be a bad idea?

May need to make my own "5e-like" system. lol

 

 *whispers*
Pathfinder (;

But in all seriousness, this is a very common idea in 5e clones, d20 system games, and PbtA games. I am, in fact, using a similar concept in my game. I will admit that Pathfinder has the most refined version of this I have seen (though I am partial to Blades in the Dark’s method as well, along with Call of Cthulhu’s weird skill progression), but it is based on D&D 3/3.5e skill progression.

Also, dice chains were made popular by the great DCC RPG!

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from AEDorsay>>

I have a D&D game that still uses a d20 for everything and yet operates on a d30 basis

I'm confused. Do you use a d20 or a d30? What's a "d30 basis"?

 
Are you ready?

I see her casting now..

Wall of Text

 

Concentration

 

I still don't know why the Wall of Text type spell doesn't show up on my original post and appears invisible... but if you quote it you can see the top but not the rest which is odd.

EDIT" Hah! Doesn't appear when I quoted it here - but if you quote this post or the original it's there.

Somehow I cast invisibility....

I just added d26 and d28, lol. My fall to the dark side is complete, and I have a complete die chain in evens from d2 (a coin flip) to d30.

Alternating between the UA 7 and working on light editing while talking on the phone and writing emails — such a day it is. Have a DM group meeting tonight (all of us in our group who are main DMS) to look over the UA. I think I may do a character myself, because not up for running a game.

Build A World.
Here's how it works. Each person who answers the next post (who wants to parktake in this) names the next unanswered question of the below. And you can add flavor to it "XYZ is named ABC because DEF did TUV" to explain why something's named the way it is.

Name of the World:
How Many Deities:
Name of a War (Holy or Mortal) that took place and was world changing:
(Name all) Five primary playable races/species:
How many continents in the world:
Name the largest sea in the world:
Name the largest city in the world:

============

Will start there and continue if it's of interest.

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Build A World.
Here's how it works. Each person who answers the next post (who wants to parktake in this) names the next unanswered question of the below. And you can add flavor to it "XYZ is named ABC because DEF did TUV" to explain why something's named the way it is.

Name of the World:
How Many Deities:
Name of a War (Holy or Mortal) that took place and was world changing:
(Name all) Five primary playable races/species:
How many continents in the world:
Name the largest sea in the world:
Name the largest city in the world:

============

Will start there and continue if it's of interest.

Yzlaran, after the God of Lands, without whom no grains grow and no firm land beneath us. the soil is his flesh, the stone his bones!

Quote from SirTawmis >>

How Many Deities:

0. The gods have died. This is especially a problem in the case of Yzlaran, what with the soil being the flesh and the stone his bones and all that.