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@roguednd
HALF-RACES
Homebrew for all the half-human combinations possible with the races found in the player’s handbook! I had a lot of fun making these, though they took a while. Have fun playing!
This was made for D&D 5e and feedback is much appreciated!
How Much Are Spell Components Anyways?
1 Foot of Fine Silver Wire: 1 Gold Piece
1 Foot of Golden Wire: 2 Gold Pieces
1 Foot of Copper Wire: 1 Silver Piece
1 Spool of Thread: 1 Silver Piece
1 lb. of Tallow: 3 Silver Pieces
1 lb. of Talc: 5 Silver Pieces
1 Ounce of Sweet Oil: 1 Gold Piece
1 Ounce of Oil: 1 Silver Piece
1 Ounce of Molasses: 1 Silver Piece
1 Ounce of Mercury: 5 Gold Pieces
1 Ounce of Honey: 1 Silver Piece
1 Square of Silk: 2 Gold Pieces
1 Ounce of Sesame Seeds: 1 Gold Piece
1 Ounce of Legume Seeds: 1 Silver Piece
1 Ounce of Kernels of Grain: 2 Copper Pieces
1 lb. of Lime: 1 Silver Piece
1 Ounce of Licorice Root Shavings: 1 Silver Piece
1 Ounce of Sand: 5 Copper Pieces
1 Ounce of Salt: 1 Silver Piece
1 Ounce of Sugar: 3 Silver Pieces
1 Ounce of Rose Petals: 1 Silver Piece
1 Ounce of Guano: 1 Silver Piece
Do you have any advice for creating character backstories? I seem to fluctuate between not preparing anything and writing six pages of backstory that I either end up changing or just completely ignoring.
Oh boy do I!
I get where you’re coming from. I tend to lean toward more detail, not less, but there’s definitely some things you can do to make a manageable backstory that doesn’t overwhelm.
1. Figure out what your character wants.
This is the big one, and while you don’t have to start here, it is essentially the heart of your character. What drives your character? Do they seek honor? Revenge? Love? Start with the general drive and work your way to specifics.
For instance, my paladin wants to make an impact on the world. More specifically, he wants to do this by performing well at the position he’s just been appointed to. Even more specifically, he wants to stop a recent crime spree in order to live up to the expectations of his position.
“I want” is the phrase that drives the story. Your character can and most likely will have more than one want, and the driving factor at the beginning of the story isn’t always the same as the one at the end.
2. What makes them “them”?
What does your character value? What flaws and fears do they have? What virtues and vices are the underlying current for their actions?
Answering questions about what is and is not important to your character can help you quickly get a grip on who they are and how they might play in game. The follow up question to all the above questions is, of course, ‘why?’. If you’re worried about writing too much and then discarding it, don’t answer ‘why’ beyond the surface reason.
For example, the paladin we’re talking about values honesty and fears disappointing those he admires. Why? He grew up hearing stories of heroes and longs to be one himself.
You don’t have to flesh out every single aspect of the character’s personality and life, which brings me to my next point.
3. Leave gaps.
Don’t fill in every bit of minutiae you can think of for your character. There’s a couple reasons for this: first, you need to allow the GM and other characters room to play.
“But it’s my character!” you say. That’s true, but you’re telling a story collectively. If you know every single thing about the character, you’ll have a more difficult time being flexible as you and your group tell a story. Allowing a GM to surprise you because you left room in your backstory for some past action/NPC to bite you in the ass, or because you didn’t flesh out with 100% certainty your character’s relationships and responses to various situations is delightful!
Secondly, you need to allow yourself room to play. Sometimes what we put on paper doesn’t translate to the table, or a response that flows better with the gameplay is “out of character” with your backstory. Give yourself wiggle room. Understand that you can’t conceivably know how your character would react to every single scenario; the split second reactions and improv may come more from you than your character, but that’s part of the charm of telling a story. You can inhabit a character well without knowing every little thing about them. Develop them as you go based on the solid foundation you have built.
Building a whole backstory that may or may not impact the game can be disappointing. Don’t set yourself up like that! It’s fine to have details and impactful events, but remember that your character needs to be ready to take part in a story with other characters whom they likely do not know or share history with.
4. Connect them to someone/thing.
Adding in a couple NPCs can give your GM fodder to make a story more personal to your character (and no, I’m not talking about them killing off your loved ones in session one). It allows you to carve out a little part of the world that is yours. While it can feel more real to make an entire family tree and circle of acquaintances, it can also bog things down! I tend to enjoy rolling with a little improv when my GM says, “Your paladin knows this fruit seller from the days before he joined the order,” rather than me writing a character the GM then finds himself having to play.
You can similarly connect your character to a cause or organization. I’m not saying it’s bad to have a loner character! But even the most independent individuals know people. Do yourself a favor and give yourself a reason to connect to the story in advance, and then see where that connection takes you.
5. Quirks, preferences, and other little things.
This is optional, but for me it’s the quickest way to make my character feel like a real person, even if I don’t know much about them or have much in the way of backstory. Write down some likes and dislikes, or habits/superstitions, just 3-5 of each. Then jot a little note about why. It quickly gives your character the feeling of being a fully realized creation.
For example, my paladin has the following:
Likes
swimming - used to visit cousins on the coast
walnuts - a favorite snack from late night study sessions
vaudeville - if he hadn’t been a paladin, he’d be destined for the stage
Dislikes
bees - deathly allergic
cold - grew up in a warm climate and gets cold easily
the sound of metal on metal - inconvenient, but raises goosebumps every time
You can even start here, with the smallest details, and build out!
Whatever your preferences when it comes to building a character, the important thing is that you’re considering how they will fit at your table. TTRPGs are not a solo effort; it is important for you to enjoy your character, but equally important is making sure that who you choose to play is someone who will be compatible with the story/table, and who can be adaptable.
Happy gaming!
These
Tables
Are
So
Freakin
GOOD!
Shoutout to Lady Tiefling for being kickass.
Traveling Salesman Of Death
A magic horn that calls a travelling salesman to the party. (For High Movement Campaigns). Use a d20 or d100, the higher the roll, the rarer the items you can buy and trade. However! When the horn calls the salesman, You must make a DEX save to dodge the incoming cart. On a failed save, roll d6's equal to the horn roll for damage. So, you can call the salesman at a higher roll and hope you can dodge or take the damage.
Do you have any suggestions for introducing an inexperienced group to new games? My friends all play and love D&D, but that's it, so I tried to introduce them to Mindjammer. They were all very into the concept, but as soon as I went through character creation with them I scared them off. Any thoughts on what to do next time?
Yeah, you don’t start with something like Mindjammer. You’ve got a couple of big factors working against you there.
1. If your group’s prior experience is exclusively with one specific game – and particularly if that one specific game is Dungeons & Dragons, which informs so much of the popular image of What RPGs Are – then introducing new games is a challenge because you need to overcome a tendency to assume that all games have a process of play that’s identical to that of the one game they know, apart from a few small and generally superficial details. Basically, on top of the expected learning curve, there’s also a big unlearning curve.
2. In most cases, starting with character creation is a very poor way to introduce a new game. It requires players to immediately confront the system’s low-level nuts and bolts, typically in a piecemeal fashion, without any good “big picture” of how those pieces fit together. Jumping straight to asking your players where to assign a +3 skill rank isn’t reasonable when they have no context for what a “skill” is (it’s not necessarily the same as what D&D calls a “skill”!), or even what a “+3″ is (is +3… good?).
Taken together, these issues lead to a couple of general rules:
You can introduce a complex game that’s very similar to games your group already knows, or you can introduce a simple game that’s unlike games your group already knows, but introducing a complex game that’s unlike games your group already know is a recipe for trouble. Complex systems are too “big” to take in all at once, so you’ll constantly be crashing into the inappropriately-generalising-from-prior-experience problem in cases where that experience is broadly inapplicable.
If possible, you should avoid starting with character creation. There are some exceptions to this rule, of course, typically those games that include formal guided chargen as part of the setup, but in most cases you’ll have better luck introducing a game with pregenerated characters and a packaged scenario. Some groups are constitutionally averse to being handed pregens, but you can often get away with it if you present it as a one-shot introductory game with assurances that they’ll get to generate their own characters later on – sort of like a tutorial level.
What you tried with your group throws up red flags on both counts: you’re going straight from D&D to Mindjammer, both very complex games with very different basic frameworks of play, and you jumped straight to character creation without affording your group a good opportunity to come to grips with the system in its broad strokes.
If you’re still planning on trying Mindjammer at some point, I’d probably start with Fate Accelerated Edition, or at least a much lighter Fate Core variant – Mindjammer’s nonsense with fractal character sheets and using your culture’s art to punch the bad guys in the economy can come later!
When I try to help people learn a new system, I start by having them decide the kind of character they want to make before we even open the book. It depends on whether they know all the options, but for Call of Cthulhu it’s as simple as “you can have any job that might make you good at solving mysteries”.
Then based on who they want to play, we can list what they want to be good at from highest to lowest, which will let us assign stats and skills. If I’m the one running the game, I can be a bit more flexible with the rules (technically, as a detective you can only have a 20 in Language: Hindi, but if your parents have it as their first language it makes sense that you would be better at speaking that.)
Quartlings? – Is there a non-homebrew way to combine two races that aren’t already combined?
Hello, Gentle Readers. This week’s Question from a Denizen comes to us from an Anonymous reader, and it’s a curious one! My Anonymous friends asks, “So quick question, is it possible outside of Homebrew to play as a Halfling Firbolg? I really love both culture types and a mix suits my idea for my first character amazingly well. Maybe half Drow half Firbolg? I have ideas for backstories for both but im not sure they can be true characters outside of homebrew please help TT^TT”
Well, my Anonymous friend, there’s a very short answer to your question…
No.
What I mean is that, if you want to literally make an entity that is half-Halfling and half-Firbolg, there is no way within the Rules As Written that you can do so.
But, D&D is a game made of exceptions. If your DM is cool with working with you to create such an entity, then there’s no reason why you couldn’t play one. I would recommend looking at the stats of Halflings and Firbolgs and mixing and matching them. Try to keep a balanced mix if at all possible, and be prepared to modify that based on gameplay. Sometimes an idea sounds good on paper, but, when you start to play it, everyone realizes that it’s overpowered.
An easier way of doing this, which I would say IS possible within the Rules As Written, is to play a character of a specific race, but role-play them as if they had grown up within the culture of another. One of my friends used to play a character named Rumford the Destroyer. He was a Bugbear who had been raised by Halflings. So he dressed and acted very prim and proper, but, in the heat of battle, when his Barbarian Rage took over, he became far more aggressive and uncivilized.
Imagine a Firbolg who grew up among Halflings. Perhaps they were a late bloomer in discovering their innate magics because there was no one there to teach them. They might always feel awkward and too large, even in human buildings, because they’re so used to feeling twice the size of their family and community.
Alternately, a Halfling who grew up among Firbolgs might always feel small and inadequate. They might have honed their natural stealth and perception, because they’re used to playing hide and seek with people who can literally vanish into thin air. Maybe they always wear clothing far too large for them, because they still wear the hand-me-downs from far younger Firbolg siblings.
The same can be said of your Drow/Firbolg mix. While there’s no official half-Drow, half-Firbolg race, in a world where there are Owlbears, the idea isn’t that crazy. Work with your DM to see if they’d be willing to let you develop such a character to play.
In either case, I’d say there has to be a story reason for them to exist. Are they the experiment of a mad wizard? A warlock Patron’s capricious whim? Maybe a Drow and Firbolg became star-crossed lovers, and a sympathetic Archfey granted them their wish to have a child of their own? The life of such a person isn’t likely to be ordinary, that’s for sure.
I’m sorry I can’t give you an official way to make this happen, Anonymous, but I hope I’ve shown you that it’s not wrong to want such a thing. A friend of mine who’d never played D&D wanted to be a robot with laser eyes; I made them a warforged sorcerer. There were no 5th edition rules for the Talenta weapons from Eberron (which I hope is about to be corrected), so I helped make them with one of my players.
If it’s fun, and your DM is cool with it, there’s no reason you can’t play it.
Death Walker's Ward
+2 to AC
Advantage on death saving throws
Once per short rest, you can set a resistance to one of the five types of damage.
Exalted
+3 to AC
As a bonus action, you grow large, black raven wings. They last for 1 hour, and Grant a fly speed of 60 feet.
So I saw an idea for a house rule on here a while back (don’t remember who suggested it unfortunately) that essentially summed up to sacrificing point(s) of exhaustion to retrieve spent spell slots. Upon suggestion of a friend, I decided to kick it up a notch and increase the exhaustion point cost for the higher the level of spells. This is my page for it in my DM notebook.
I feel like it’s generally pretty solid and a neat rule to implement if you really wanna push yourself to the limits as a player. The only fault, though, is that someone could easily just cast Greater Restoration on themselves or another exhausted person to get rid of the exhaustion effects and just keep going, eventually abusing this rule for more spells.
So i’m wondering, if I even decide this idea is worth implementing in my own game, if I should make it so the effects of specifically spell-exerting exhaustion are not easily cured with anything but a proper night’s rest.
It’s a cool concept and I wanted to see if I could balance it enough to make it work in a real game to raise the stakes. Let me know what you guys think!
Wielding spell and sword, an expert of both, you are a dangerous enemy. First draft of a series of feats that allow anyone to be hexblade-esque.
Creating The “F*ck the Wizard” Dungeon...
The Many Ways to Kill a Wizard…
Stop them from Talking: Silence is a great spell if you want to stop a Spellcaster from talking.
Stop Somatic Components: Restrain them with Spells, put their hands in chains or shackles. There are even spells and magic items out there that are specifically designed to restrain creatures.
Steal their Material Components: An Unseen Servant or Invisible Monster could easily steal away the Caster’s Component Pouch or Arcane Focus, maybe even stealing their Gold Pouch and Magic Items. Remember: If they don’t have the Components, they can’t cast it.
Reduce their Chances to Hit/Succeed with Spells: Find ways to grant them Disadvantage on Spell Attack Rolls for their Spells, or Spells that grant Monsters Advantage on Rolls.
Make them waste Spells/Reactions/Counterspells: If the Caster has already used their Reaction, they can’t counter whatever big Spell your Monster has up their sleeve.
Cursed Items: Make them bad at stuff, if they’re bad at stuff, they can’t instantly win!
Force them into Melee: Give them no other options in combat but to go into Melee Range. Maybe use Hard-Hitting Melee Monsters that throw themselves at the Spellcaster…
Antimagic: One Spell: Antimagic Field.
Ruin their Spellbook: Have pits of acid, underwater sections, traps that spray acid or fire, all this can destroy a Wizards Spellbook.
I remember one particular DM (not naming names) that managed to steal away the Wizard’s Spellbook while they slept, and glued it shut with Sovereign Glue, and placed it back into the Wizards Pack.
So yeah… That was particularly effective…
Don’t let them Rest: Wandering Monsters and Random Encounters while the Party rests in the Dungeon can be fun. I’d also suggest looking up the spell Dream…
Obscure Sight: Have dark rooms that force the Players to cast Spells just to see, or cast one of the many spells that can blind someone: Fog Cloud, Darkness, Blindness and More!
Special Senses: Blindsight, Truesight & Tremorsense: Ruin Invisibility and any other Illusion Spells with a Creature that has Truesight Tremorsense and Blindsight.
Golems, Undead & Shapechangers: Most Spells say they won’t effect Constructs, Undead or Shapechangers, so stuff your Dungeon with Undead and Golems and a bunch of Dopplegangers and Werewolves.
Preventing Resurrections: Counterspell can work on Resurrection Spells like Raise Dead and Revivify, just letting ya know…
Damage Resistances & Immunities: There’s a LOT of Spells that deal common Damage Types: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Necrotic… And there are Monsters that are resistant or even immune to those damage types…
But if you want some extra irritating Monsters, I would like to suggest the Nilbog and the Iron Golem, since Iron Golems actually regain Hit Points from Fire Damage and the Nilbog has it’s ‘Reversal of Fortune’ Feature that let’s it reduce the Damage to 0 and instead gain 1d6 Hit Points.
Condition Immunities: Give ‘em Monsters that can’t be Charmed or Frightened, see how they react when they can’t make friends or force the Monster to run away…
Breaking Concentration: There are 3 Ways to break a Spellcaster’s Concentration: Making them cast another Spell that requires Concentration, Taking Damage, or Being Incapacitated or Killed. If you can find a way to do that, then that Concentration Spell is lost…
Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum: Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum is a great Spell that stops all Divination and Teleportation. It can stop all sound in the area, obscure all vision and darkvision, and when cast at 9th Level, it effects a square area up to 600ft by 600ft.
Force them into Armor: This is a strange one, but if you can, charm the Spellcaster and make them wear Armor they’re not proficient in, meaning they can’t cast any spells whatsoever.
I once had a Devil in disguise cast Geas on a Wizard and force the Wizard to wear a set of Demon Armor that the Wizard couldn’t remove… They then promptly dropped the Geas Spell and attempted to slaughter them…
Use them against the Party: Charm them with spells and let them assault the Party, using up all their precious high level spell slots…
Feeblemind: Destroy a Spellcaster for 30 Days.
Stinking Cloud: Instead of casting any Spells, they’ll just spend their turn retching.
Bestow Curse: Bestow Curse can do a LOT of effects that can shut down a Spellcaster. It can grant them Disadvantage on Intelligence Checks and Intelligence Saving Throws, it can grant them Disadvantage on all Attack Rolls, and it can even force them to succeed on a Wisdom Save or waste their entire turn doing nothing, and at a high enough level, the spell is permanent…
Wall of Force: A little bubble that can shut down a Spellcaster, and it can only be dispelled through a Disintegrate Spell.
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter: The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw of fall prone, becoming Incapacitated (and instantly breaking Concentration on any current Spells) and unable to stand up for the whole 1 Minute Duration.
Melf’s Acid Arrow: This Spell does damage over time, increasing the chances of a Wizard or Spellcaster losing Concentration on their Spells.
Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere: Here’s just an excerpt: “Nothing, not physical objects, energy, or other spell effects, can pass through the barrier, in or out, though a creature in the sphere can breathe there. The sphere is immune to all damage, and a creature or object inside can’t be damaged by attacks or effects originating from outside, nor can a creature inside the sphere damage anything outside it.” And the best part, if you cast this on a Wizard or Spellcaster, you could just have a big ol’ strong monster pick up the ball (with the wizard inside) and throw them down a pit, into acid or lava or just whatever nastiness you can think of, and wait for the spell to end…
Dare them to Draw from the Deck of Many Things: Make someone a literal Idiot with the Idiot Card from the Deck of Many Things, or just instantly stop them with cards like the Donjon, or give them a light tap on the wrist with a -2 to all Saving Throws…
Nets: Net Traps! Have them fall from the ceiling and restrain the spellcaster while a bunch of monsters pop out and bash the Wizard to death…
Shoot ‘em with Arrows!: Shoot the Wizard from a few hundred feet away! Remember, a Longbow can shoot foes from up to 600 feet away!
Keep reading
I may have neglected this blog for a couple weeks; but I am still alive! Here’s a pair of potions. One good for role-play, and one good for surviving a hard encounter. They could also be used together to have one hell of a last stand.
Mage with a voodoo doll who’s actually a healer because instead of hurting the doll they look after it and keep it in good condition, healing everybody in the party.
Everybody else upgrades their weapons with sharper blades, heavier metal, and better handles, but the mage’s weapon upgrades are just doll clothes and little accessories. The rings you collect get put on the doll like bracelets.
dunks the doll in a healing potion, reviving an ally
combs the doll’s hair of dirt, removing status effects
puts an extra set of clothes on the doll, increasing defence
whispers an enemy weakness to the doll, increasing ally attack damage
Order of the Fiendcurse: A Blood Hunter Subclass
Here’s the first edition of the Order of the Fiendcurse! It’s my first time doing a subclass for “unofficial content,” so we’ll see how it goes!
The Character Forge: How to Play as Link in DnD 5e
Link is without a doubt one of the most iconic heroes in fiction, which is why I’m excited to work on this build of Link. Now, of course Link has a long history of games where he’s had a wide variety of skills and abilities. So, for this build, I wanted to focus on his most recurring skills and items, and try to find DnD items with similar effects, if possible, to fill out his arsenal. Link is a multi-talented young man who has a talent for many skills, weapons, and items. He’s extremely flexible in what he can work with, and that was a primary focus of this build: to broaden his abilities as much as I could.
The Makings of a Hero
Hylians are clearly some kind of elf. You could make Link a Human or Variant Human if you want, but if it looks like an elf and it hyaas like an elf, chances are it’s an elf. There are a lot of kinds of elf he could be. Hylians are closely connected to the gods and think highly of themselves, so High Elf is a strong possibility. But Link is also something of a wilderness expert, so he could be a Wood Elf too.
Link is clearly good, but where on the goodness scale is a little less clear. He is a champion for goodness and light, so he could be Lawful Good, but he’s also jokingly famous for breaking into random houses and smashing random pots to steal people’s hidden money, so he could fall under Chaotic Good. And that divide could also make him Neutral Good.
As for background, that also tends to differ between game. Sometimes he’s a simple villager, a rancher, a farmer, a knight, an amnesiac foreigner. He’s so inconsistent that it’s better to just give him a background that covers the skills he doesn’t pick up from his build. Top contenders for Link’s background would be Outlander, Knight of the Order, Soldier, Far Traveler, and Folk Hero.
Skills, Abilities, & Items
Weapons -Longsword -Shield -Bow and Arrows -Bombs -Slingshot -Boomerang -Greatsword -Club -Spear -Magical Rods Skills -Horse Riding -Mounted Combat -Dungeon Crawler -Puzzle-solving -Weapon proficiency -Fighting Maneuvers Famous Items -Triforce of Courage -Master Sword -Hylian Shield/Mirror Shield -Hero Bow -Ocarina of Time -Power Bracelet/Golden Gauntlets -Zora Tunic/Mermaid Suit/Zora Flippers -Roc’s Feather/Feather Cape/Hover Boots/Glider -Hookshot/Longshot -Gale Boomerang -Wind Waker -Pegasus Boots/Pegasus Seeds -Biggoron’s Sword -Fire Rod -Fire Arrow/Lightning Arrow/Ice Arrow/Light Arrow -Ball and Chain -Fierce Deity Mask
Get to Class
Fighter Arcane Archer Battle Master Cavalier/Knight Champion Monster Hunter Scout Sharpshooter
Paladin Ancients Crown Devotion Heroism
Ranger Hunter Monster Hunter
Rogue Inquisitive Scout Swashbuckler
Stats & Proficiencies
Honestly, Link was hard to stat balance at first. I figured his best stat should be Constitution to correlate with a late-game number of heart containers. Link needs to be able to take a serious hit, and he spends most of the game getting a bigger health bar for just that very reason. Aside from Constitution, nothing really stood out as more important, though Intelligence and Charisma can get the shaft a bit, as Intelligence covers mostly book-learning which Link isn’t really known for, and largely in part to being a mute, aside from dancing in the Subrosia dance hall or playing his Ocarina, Link isn’t exactly great with Charisma-based skills. That’s not to say he’s really bad at anything, though. Link is a real Renaissance Man, as he’s good pretty much everything. Which means he shouldn’t have any negative modifiers. But Link is also not the pinnacle of strength, durability, or insightfulness. He needs items to perform feats of great strength, speed, or stamina, and wouldn’t get very far without them, so he’s also not going to be the max in any of his stats either. Rather, he’s going to be competent in Intelligence and Charisma, and fairly good at everything else.
Proficiencies: Acrobatics Animal Handling Athletics Insight Investigation Nature Perception Stealth Survival
Link’s New Toys
-Bag of Holding -Triforce of Courage (Banner of the Krig Rune) -Mastersword (Dawnbringer) -Hylian Shield (Shield of the Hidden Lord, Shield +3) -Mirror Shield (Repulsion Shield) -Hero’s Bow (Oathbow) -Golden Gauntlets (Gauntlets of Ogre Power) -Zora Tunic/Mermaid Suit (Cap of Water Breathing, Cloak of the Manta Ray) -Gale Boomerang (Storm Boomerang) -Hover Boots (Boots of Levitation) -Pegasus Boots (Boots of Speed, Boots of Striding and Springing) -Fire Rod (Necklace of Fireball)* -Fierce Deity Mask (Mask of the Dragon Queen) *There are items like the Wand of Fireball and the Staff of Fire, but both items require the holder to be a magic user, which Link is not.
Name: Link Race: High Elf Background: Outlander Alignment: Neutral Good Class: Monster Slayer Ranger (6) Battle Master Fighter (10) Inquisitive Rogue (4) Base Stats: Strength: 16 (+3) Dexterity: 14 (+2) Constitution: 18 (+4) Intelligence: 10 (0) Wisdom: 16 (+3) Charisma: 10 (0) Saving Throws: Strength: +9 Dexterity: +8 Constitution: +3 Intelligence: 0 Wisdom: +3 Charisma: 0 Combat Stats: HP: 200 AC: 15 Speed: 30 Initiative: +2 Number of Attacks: 2 Proficiency Bonus: +6 Passive Perception: 19 Dark Vision: 60 feet Proficiencies and Expertise: Acrobatics (Rogue) Animal Handling (Ranger) Athletics (Outlander) Insight (Ranger) Investigation (Ranger) Perception (Elf) Survival (Outlander) Skills: Acrobatics: +8 Medicine: +3 Animal Handling: +9 Nature: +6 Arcana: 0 Perception: +9 Athletics: +15 Performance: 0 Deception: 0 Persuasion: 0 History: 0 Religion:0 Insight: +9 Sleight of Hand: +2 Intimidation: 0 Stealth: +8 Investigation: +6 Survival: +15 Condition Resistances: Charmed Immunities: Sleep Racial Feature: Elf Elven Weapon Training: Proficiency with Shortsword, Longsword, Shortbow, and Longbow. Ranger Feature: Fighting Style Archery: Add +2 to attack rolls for ranged weapons. Ranger Feature: Favored Terrain Forest Grassland Ranger Feature: Favored Enemy Monstrosity Fiend Fighter Feature: Fighting Style Dueling: Add +2 to melee damage rolls when using 1 one-handed weapon. Fighter Feature: Superiority Die 5 (1d10s) Fighter Feature: Maneuvers Disarming Attack: spend a superiority die to force your target to make a Strength saving throw. On a failed roll, it drops 1 item of your choosing. Feinting Attack: spend a superiority die as a bonus action, and select a target. You gain advantage against that creature and add the roll of your superiority die to your attack damage if you hit the target creature. Parry: As a reaction, reduce melee damage you take by your dex modifier + the roll of a superiority die. Precision Attack: add the roll of a superiority die to the damage roll of a melee attack you made. Riposte: When an enemy’s attack misses you, you can make a counter attack, and add the roll of a superiority die. Sweeping Attack: Use a superiority die to cause your melee attack to hit a second creature within 5 feet of your first target. Add your superiority dice roll. Trip Attack: Use a superiority die to force a large or smaller creature to make a Strength saving throw. on a failed save, that creature is knocked prone. Spell Slots: 1st (4) 2nd (2) Link’s Spellbook Cantrips True Strike 1st Level Cure Wounds Hunter’s Mark Wild Cunning Protection from Good and Evil 2nd Level Find Traps Actions: Action Surge: take an extra action once per rest. Primeval Awareness: Spend a spell slot. For 1 or 2 minutes, you sense the kinds of creatures within 1 mile of you, or 6 miles in forests and grasslands. Bonus Actions: Cunning Action: Dash, Disengage, or Hide once per turn. Second Wind: Regain 1d10+10 HP once per rest. Features, Traits, and Feats: Archery Fighting Style: Gain +2 on attack rolls with ranged weapons. Dueling Fighting Style: Gain +2 on damage rolls when armed with a single one-handed melee weapon. Ear for Deceit: Any roll of 7 or lower on an Insight check against lying becomes an 8. Extra Attack: You get two Attack actions. Eye for Detail: Perform an Insight or Investigation check as a bonus action. Favored Enemy: Deal +2 bonus damage to Monstrosities and Fiends. Gain advantage on Survival checks to track Monstrosities and Fiends, and Intelligence checks to remember information about them. Fey Ancestry: Resistance to Charmed effects, immunity to magical sleep. Hunter’s Sense: As an action, choose a creature within 60 feet. You learn the creature’s damage immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities. Can be used 3 times per long rest. Improved Combat Superiority: Your superiority die become 1d10s. Indomitable: Reroll a failed save once per long rest. Insightful Fighting: As a bonus action, make an Insight check against another creature’s Deception check. If you succeed, you can use Sneak Attack against the creature even without advantage for up to a minute. Doesn’t work if you’re disadvantaged. Wears off if you target a new creature with this feature. Know Your Enemy: If you spend at least 1 minute outside of battle observing a creature, the DM will tell you whether the creature is superior, inferior, or equal to you in any 2 of the following stats: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, AC, Current HP, Total Class Levels, or Fighter Class Levels. Natural Explorer: Favored Terrains are Grasslands and Forests. While in your favored terrains: double proficiency bonuses for INT and WIS checks you’re proficient in, difficult terrain doesn’t slow your party down, always alert for danger, can move stealthily at a normal pace when traveling alone, find double food when foraging, and when tracking anything, you can tell how big they were, how many there were, and how long ago they passed through. Sharpshooter: Attacking from long range doesn’t disadvantage ranged attack rolls, ranged weapon attacks ignore half and ¾ cover, and you can -5 on a ranged weapon attack roll to add +10 to the damage roll on a successful hit. Slayer’s Prey: As a bonus action, pick a creature within 60 feet of you. Add 1d6 damage to the first attack you make against that creature. Sneak Attack: Add 2d6 to damage roll when you have advantage, or another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it. Thieves’ Cant: You can articulate covert messages in casual conversations. Trance: Trance for 4 hours instead of sleeping for 8. Wanderer: You have an excellent memory for terrain and don’t need a map. You can remember where to find settlements, foraging spots, and geographical landmarks. You can always find enough food and water to sustain yourself and up to 5 more people provided the land can provide food and drinkable water.
I’m sure there’s some who will disagree with my picks, but I optimized a build around looking for enemy weaknesses, having a ton of proficiencies, and having a wide and varied arsenal of weapons at Link’s disposal. If you’d build Link another way, tell me what you’d do different. Who do you want to see me make next? And as always, I look forward to seeing you again at the Character Forge, where heroes are made.
Creating Deities and Pantheons
Creating Deities
Divine Portfolios
A deity has a certain realm that it lords over called a divine portfolio. A portfolio contains one or more species, places, things, or ideas that explain what the deity is all about. For instance, the Greek god Poseidon’s divine portfolio would include the seas, storms, waterborne travel, and horses.
Minor deities will only have one item in their portfolio, but major ones could have many. Further, a major deity that wished to delegate its power, perhaps to one of its children, could bestow one of the items in its portfolio onto another deity. Perhaps one deity goes to war with another in an attempt to seize an aspect of another deity’s portfolio for themselves.
New deities could even be created by filling a new role if a divine idea is not currently in any other deity’s portfolio.
Generally, the more power a deity has, the more broad the aspects in their portfolio will be. Likewise, lesser deities will have more specific aspects in their portfolio. For instance, a god of nature will be more powerful than a god of trees.
When creating your own pantheon of gods, try to divide up aspects into deities’ divine portfolios bearing all of this in mind.
Holy Symbol
A deity should have some sort of holy symbol that clerics can use for a spellcasting focus, but a symbol is more than that. A symbol lets mortals rally beneath it and recognize the deity’s followers. It a deity’s free advertisement to their people.
The symbol of a deity should reflect their portfolio in some way, as well as their alignment. It should be something unique that is easy to recognize, but also easy to replicate.
Favored Weapon
Many deities have some sort of weapon that they use and favor more than others. The deity will almost always use this weapon when manifested as an avatar. Wielding the same weapon as one’s deity shows an extra step of devotion to them, even if you aren’t a cleric to that god.
Random Portfolios
When creating your own deities, roll on the Random Portfolio Aspects table multiple times to find a random divine aspect to populate their portfolio. Some aspects defer you to another table to find a more specific aspect.
You can also use these tables as a jumping-off point to create your own portfolios and aspects, as there is no way to have a complete and exhaustive list.
Pantheons
Pantheons are groups of deities. Your setting could have one or several pantheons. Perhaps you include pantheons from a variety of settings and incorporate them all in one place. Maybe different kingdoms or countries worship different pantheons, or just group the same deities in different ways. Our own world has many religions, each with their own god or sets of gods, so why can’t your setting?
While it is possible to have a monotheistic setting where only one deity exists, polytheism tends to be more interesting and supportive. Multiple deities allow for players to choose who their character believes in. If they are a divine caster, they can choose where their powers come from. This choice affects a player’s character and creates additional roleplaying opportunities as they confer with folks of the same or different religion.
Types of Pantheons
Some settings may have multiple pantheons. Here are some pantheons that can easily exist in the same setting.
Racial Pantheon. A race or species could have a whole group of gods to worship that are unique to them. For instance, the elves of your setting may worship their own set of deities. People might commonly refer to the “elf gods” or “dwarf gods” in such a circumstance.
Aspect Pantheon. A broad aspect or domain normally placed in divine portfolios may have its own pantheon. For instance, your setting may have a pantheon of death gods who take on aspects like death, undeath, afterlife, martyrdom, murder, plague, famine, and drought. All the minor aspects should be related to one greater aspect.
Regional Pantheon. In your setting, a certain region like a kingdom, country, or continent may worship different deities and have an entirely different pantheon that hold sway in their lands. Each region could have a pantheon all their own.
Religious Pantheon. Many religions exist in our own world, some of which have their own pantheons of deities. Different pantheons could have arisen in your setting from religions that developed separately. This works especially well if your deities are created through mortal belief.
Creating Pantheons
Myths. Deities in a pantheon often take on different responsibilities in running the universe, or at least take part in its history or its creation. Try to come up with myth surrounding each deity that explain why that deity exists. A deity should have some significance or importance within any pantheon you create, and your pantheon should cover a broad spectrum of created things.
Deific Relations. Deities should have complex relationships with one another to create a robust pantheon. Pick one or more from the Divine Relationships table when deciding how two deities relate, or roll randomly. Trying to justify how conflicting or unusual relationships occurred can create unique and interesting ideas. Is one deity’s son also their lover? Don’t be afraid to tread in the realm of mythological fantasy or dream-logic here.
Remember, existing myths are likely far stranger than anything you can come up with. A Norse cow licked a god out of primordial ice. In Greece, Athena was born of Zeus’s cracked skull after he tried to eat her. The Egyptian ferry to the afterlife has a mast that is the phallus of a fertility baboon-god. So you can get pretty unusual with your myths.
Pantheon Metagame. When designing a pantheon, you should also consider satisfying different elements that exist in the game. Each player could very well worship a different deity that supports their worldview in some way.
A good start is creating gods with various alignments, not just good and evil. With nine possible alignments, you can create some interesting deities. If you are making an entirely random deity, you can roll from the Deity Alignment table to determine the deity’s alignment.
Another game-related thing to consider is creating deities that will cater to existing character archetypes, such as mages, naturalists, outcasts, spiritualists, and warriors. Many pantheons have deities that would be worshiped by different classes. Try to provide deities that are tempting for each archetype to believe in, or ensure that some of your deities are more universal so many different classes would be interested in them. If you are creating a random deity, you can roll from the Archetype Patron table.
D4 Skeletons
Human skeletons are everywhere, but there are numerous creatures with a skeletal system. Roll on the table for your unique horror.
Assume that all of the below creatures have the basic skeleton’s damage vulnerabilities, immunities, and 60’ darvision.
1) Giant Skeleton: Use the hill giant as a base regardless of the kind of giant. This towering bag of bones doesn’t quite rattle as much as rumble when it lumbers. A long lost tomb can be creepy. A long lost tomb of titans is mythic.
2) Hydra Skeleton: This is actually 6 separate creatures. 5 constrictor snakes represent the 5 heads, and an elephant without a gore attack for the body. The heads start off attached to the body, but when the body is destroyed the five heads pop off and fight on their own.
3) Gargantuan Dragon Skeleton: As the roc, but with the elemental immunity of the dragon and it flys magically. Determining the dragon type can be difficult without its skin. Also a dracolich may keep a few of these around to bait foolish adventurers.
4) Unicorn Skeleton: As Minotaur skeleton, but without the greataxe attack. Nothing feels quite as wrong as a symbol of innocence turned into an undead abomination. The only color showing on its bleached bones are its glowing red eyes and the fresh blood glistening off its horn.
