My hubby is playing a Paladin whose story is based off of a song by Light the Torch called “The Great Divide“ where it goes, “I often pray to gods I never served”.
Basically, the concept behind it is that his holy relic was replaced with a cursed item, therefore losing direct contact with his deity. In order to regain that connection, he has to return the item to it’s rightful owner (which is going to be another player in our group, but neither of them know that. I just gave him his first vision quest for a slight reveal), but until he does so, his spells are basically out of his control.
We’ve agreed that in order for it to seem more “chaotic”, in a sense, I would prepare his spells for him every long rest and I would roll them randomly. BUT my issue here is that I also wanted to add in random spells that he could possibly have received from whatever “deity” is taking pity on him that day. So I wanted him to be able to have random access (that I would roll with a D100 or percentage die) to a spell or two.
The problem I’m having is that with D&D Beyond, his pally spells are the only thing he can have access to. I can’t have anything extra added to his character sheet. Is there a way I can go around it without multiclassing and potentially messing up any of his stats? I’m considering the idea of making him spell cards for that day, but there are so many additional spells and I never know what I’m going to roll, so I don’t really want to make a card for them all and I don’t want to limit them to just a select number because what’s the fun in that.
Well, the idea we had was that it’s completely random to him. He doesn’t know which deity is going to take pity on him for the day, so I’m preparing everything for him.
Someone suggested creating a trait, so I started working on that. I’m breaking down the lyrics of the song and trying to give him some permanent spells to replace a few pally spells since he doesn’t have his direct connection, such as Disintegrate (a part says “Don’t follow, I leave a wake of rust. When everything inside my hands returns to dust”) but I may have to create a Homebrew so he can use it at his low level.
For the few couple sessions (we’ve only had 3), I’ve taken a D10 to his current pally spells and selected them for him, but I really wanted some variety.
I think doing a trait will work, I’ll just have to modify it every time I prepare his spells for the day, which shouldn’t be too difficult.
You could do it in advance. Say you typically have 5 long rests per session. Pre-roll, probably six or seven sets of spells (to give yourself a cushion), and have them ready to go. Any you don't use gives you a head start on the next session.
Also, I'd keep things at the correct spell levels. Disintegrate, for example is a 6th level spell, which paladins never get. So if he's only getting level 1 paladin spells at this point, stick to level 1 spells from other lists. Realistically, he'll probably use most of his spell slots for smiting anyway. If you're going to give him "permanent" spells, I'd pull those off the paladin list. Otherwise things could get pretty OP pretty fast.
Finally, I just have to put out there that paladins in this edition don't necessarily get their powers from gods, they get them from their oaths. A table can choose to flavor it as coming from a god, but it is not a requirement.
"Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god."
Many meaning not all. Seems your table has chosen it to be divinely powered, but that doesn't have to be the case.
Well, I was planning on modifying Disintegrate so that it would be more level based. We really want to play off of the lyrics behind the song since it was his main inspiration, so I’m still playing around with the spells and potential for character development. We still have a couple weeks before we’ll have time for our next session.
If he actually pursues his vision quests, he’ll return the item and then restore control of his powers fully, which would mean anything “crazy” that’s outside the Pally realm, will be gone. We’re basically doing a variation of a Warlock/Paladin in the sense, but more on the lawfully spiritual side of the Pally than the potentially demonic aspect of a Warlock (yes, I understand that not all locks are necessarily “evil”, but we don’t want to push that boundary)
He wants it to be divine, so I’m finessing it to what he wants.
This is our first full camp and my first time as DM for a camp (we’ve only done the Stranger Things kit). Everyone else at the table is family and also noobs, so I’m being relatively flexible with the play style because I want them to learn how to enjoy their characters, while also maintaining the general structure of the game in case they ever branch out away from my table.
It’s definitely been a learning experience and it’s fun to play around with his character like we are. It’s a new variant and once we work out the tweaks, we may publish it as a Homebrew variant. So any advice is definitely helpful and welcome!
I get it. I wasn't trying to tell you not to do something. If you're all having fun, you're doing it right, and it sounds like you're all having fun. Just be cautious of giving out too much power; it can make the other players feel weaker than they are if they are constantly getting outshone (outshined?).
As for things like disintegrate. It's might be a lot easier, and is definitely a lot safer in terms of balance, to re-skin an existing spell than to nerf one. So maybe give him basically magic missile, but have it be a green ray instead of a bolt and describe it turning a thing to dust on a kill (I'd avoid being able to destroy inanimate objects at low levels, that can really be powerful, at least situationally)
Hello!
My hubby is playing a Paladin whose story is based off of a song by Light the Torch called “The Great Divide“ where it goes, “I often pray to gods I never served”.
Basically, the concept behind it is that his holy relic was replaced with a cursed item, therefore losing direct contact with his deity. In order to regain that connection, he has to return the item to it’s rightful owner (which is going to be another player in our group, but neither of them know that. I just gave him his first vision quest for a slight reveal), but until he does so, his spells are basically out of his control.
We’ve agreed that in order for it to seem more “chaotic”, in a sense, I would prepare his spells for him every long rest and I would roll them randomly. BUT my issue here is that I also wanted to add in random spells that he could possibly have received from whatever “deity” is taking pity on him that day. So I wanted him to be able to have random access (that I would roll with a D100 or percentage die) to a spell or two.
The problem I’m having is that with D&D Beyond, his pally spells are the only thing he can have access to. I can’t have anything extra added to his character sheet. Is there a way I can go around it without multiclassing and potentially messing up any of his stats? I’m considering the idea of making him spell cards for that day, but there are so many additional spells and I never know what I’m going to roll, so I don’t really want to make a card for them all and I don’t want to limit them to just a select number because what’s the fun in that.
Any ideas??
Not that would save making spell cards or using a character sheet. Perhaps just give him a list of spells and make him google them?
Well, the idea we had was that it’s completely random to him. He doesn’t know which deity is going to take pity on him for the day, so I’m preparing everything for him.
Someone suggested creating a trait, so I started working on that. I’m breaking down the lyrics of the song and trying to give him some permanent spells to replace a few pally spells since he doesn’t have his direct connection, such as Disintegrate (a part says “Don’t follow, I leave a wake of rust. When everything inside my hands returns to dust”) but I may have to create a Homebrew so he can use it at his low level.
For the few couple sessions (we’ve only had 3), I’ve taken a D10 to his current pally spells and selected them for him, but I really wanted some variety.
I think doing a trait will work, I’ll just have to modify it every time I prepare his spells for the day, which shouldn’t be too difficult.
You could do it in advance. Say you typically have 5 long rests per session. Pre-roll, probably six or seven sets of spells (to give yourself a cushion), and have them ready to go. Any you don't use gives you a head start on the next session.
Also, I'd keep things at the correct spell levels. Disintegrate, for example is a 6th level spell, which paladins never get. So if he's only getting level 1 paladin spells at this point, stick to level 1 spells from other lists. Realistically, he'll probably use most of his spell slots for smiting anyway. If you're going to give him "permanent" spells, I'd pull those off the paladin list. Otherwise things could get pretty OP pretty fast.
Finally, I just have to put out there that paladins in this edition don't necessarily get their powers from gods, they get them from their oaths. A table can choose to flavor it as coming from a god, but it is not a requirement.
"Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god."
Many meaning not all. Seems your table has chosen it to be divinely powered, but that doesn't have to be the case.
Well, I was planning on modifying Disintegrate so that it would be more level based. We really want to play off of the lyrics behind the song since it was his main inspiration, so I’m still playing around with the spells and potential for character development. We still have a couple weeks before we’ll have time for our next session.
If he actually pursues his vision quests, he’ll return the item and then restore control of his powers fully, which would mean anything “crazy” that’s outside the Pally realm, will be gone. We’re basically doing a variation of a Warlock/Paladin in the sense, but more on the lawfully spiritual side of the Pally than the potentially demonic aspect of a Warlock (yes, I understand that not all locks are necessarily “evil”, but we don’t want to push that boundary)
He wants it to be divine, so I’m finessing it to what he wants.
This is our first full camp and my first time as DM for a camp (we’ve only done the Stranger Things kit). Everyone else at the table is family and also noobs, so I’m being relatively flexible with the play style because I want them to learn how to enjoy their characters, while also maintaining the general structure of the game in case they ever branch out away from my table.
It’s definitely been a learning experience and it’s fun to play around with his character like we are. It’s a new variant and once we work out the tweaks, we may publish it as a Homebrew variant. So any advice is definitely helpful and welcome!
I get it. I wasn't trying to tell you not to do something. If you're all having fun, you're doing it right, and it sounds like you're all having fun. Just be cautious of giving out too much power; it can make the other players feel weaker than they are if they are constantly getting outshone (outshined?).
As for things like disintegrate. It's might be a lot easier, and is definitely a lot safer in terms of balance, to re-skin an existing spell than to nerf one. So maybe give him basically magic missile, but have it be a green ray instead of a bolt and describe it turning a thing to dust on a kill (I'd avoid being able to destroy inanimate objects at low levels, that can really be powerful, at least situationally)
Gotcha! Good advice! Thank you!!!