I hate to say it but going on other peoples posts about playing dnd 5e to preach about another system has NEVER made me want to play pathfinder instead. I don’t think this type of person often considers that the reason so many people play 5e is due to readily accessible resources and players who understand the system, it is about ease of setting up a game and getting it running often using the most bare bones of dnd than anything.
Nobody wants to seek out a game of uhm actually rules lawyers when they were having a perfectly good time in their current game. I believe that pathfinder is probably a good system but it being a better system isn’t enough to make it more usable than the one everyone knows.
This world has rules. Magical taboos and curses and planar bindings that hold power over even the most powerful beings of the realms. They are those rules, having claimed the the magical might of a witch along with the brawn bravery of a soldier. These are Witchknights, primal combatants wielding spell and sword in concert to aid their allies and rain punishment upon their foes.
I think this one's pretty cool, personally, so I hope you enjoy it! (Don't forget to consider following/donating to my Ko-Fi if you appreciate this kind of work, I would be honored)
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This world has rules. Magical taboos and curses and planar bindings that hold power over even the most powerful beings of the realms. They are those rules, having claimed the the magical might of a witch along with the brawn bravery of a soldier. These are Witchknights, primal combatants wielding spell and sword in concert to aid their allies and rain punishment upon their foes.
I think this one's pretty cool, personally, so I hope you enjoy it! (Don't forget to consider following/donating to my Ko-Fi if you appreciate this kind of work, I would be honored)
Become a supporter of Smoothie today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.
i wanna clarify that i am a big fan of many ttrpgs that are not fifth edition, but that being said i absolutely do not feel the vitriol i see online about 5e and 5e24.
sure, 5e has some clunky and strange, unexplainable mechanics and some utterly milquetoast decisions in the rulebooks to appeal to some fictional lowest common denominator, but like remember that the game’s still fun. at the most base level of, you know, having fun with your friends, that’s what ttrpgs are for. and 5e is fun for me and my friends.
and no, this isnt me agreeing with wotc’s decisions to over monetize the game and all that, that sucks too, but remember that they’ll release free pdfs of all the rules online anyway because of the OGL, so whatever, right? don’t buy the rulebooks if you dont want em, dont support wotc like that but as a system? 5e’s been as much fun for me as my games of pf2e or LANCER or Heart and many more.
if your negative aspersions are cast towards the company, go ahead, completely fair, but the game is just that. it’s like saying catan isnt fun because its not a very well optimized civ simulator.
in conclusion idk man??? its a game, at its core. let ppl enjoy the game
It's often remarked how D&D 5e's play culture has this sort of disinterest bordering on contempt for actually knowing the rules, often even extending to the DM themselves. I've seen a lot of different ideas for why this is, but one reason I rarely see discussed is that actually, a lot of 5e's rules are not meant to be used.
Encumbrance is a great example of this. 5e contains granular weights for all the items that you might have in your inventory, and rules for how much you can carry based on your strength score, and they've set these carry capacities high enough that you should never actually need to think about them. And that's deliberate, the designers have explicitly said that they've set carrying capacity high enough that it shouldn't come up in normal play. So for a starting DM, you see all these weights, you see all the rules for how much people can carry or drag, and you've played Fallout, you know how this works. And then if you try to actually enforce that, you find that it's insanely tedious, and it basically never actually matters, so you drop it.
Foraging is the example of this that bothers me most. There's a whole system for this! A table of foraging DCs, and math for how much food you can find, and how long you can go without food, etc. But the math is set up so that a person with no survival proficiency and a +0 to WIS, in a hostile environment, will still forage enough food to be fine, and the starvation rules are so generous that even a run of bad luck is unlikely to matter. So a DM who actually tries to use these rules will quickly find that they add nothing but bookkeeping. You're rolling a bunch of checks every day of travel for something that is purpose built not to matter. And that's before you add in all the ways to trivialize or circumvent this.
These rules don't exist to be used, that is not their purpose. These rules exist because the designers were scared of the backlash to 4e, and wanted to make sure that the game had all the rules that D&D "should" have. But they didn't actually want these mechanics. They didn't want the bookkeeping, they didn't care about that style of play, but they couldn't just say, "this game isn't about that" for fear of angering traditionalists. And unfortunately the way they handled this was by putting in rules that are bad, that actively fight anyone who wants to use that style of play and act as a trap to people who take the rules in good faith.
And this means that knowing what rules are not supposed to be used is an actual skill 5e DMs develop. Part of being a good 5e DM is being able to tell the real rules that will improve your game from the fake rules that are there to placate angry forum posters. And that's just an awful position to put DMs in (especially new DMs), but it's pretty unsurprising that it creates a certain contempt for knowing the rules as written.
You should have contempt for some of the rules as written. The designers did.
A relic of war from times long past, when Hypnal was a goddess of wrath and war. Now, she oversees rest and healing for all who bask in her gentle light. But the echoes of war still ring within her followers...
Sorry I skipped last week lol, I forgor. Will make an honest effort to not do that anymore
in definitely unrelated news my doctor said I might have adhd. Well! haha
If you enjoy content like this please consider following or even donating to my page. I would really appreciate it!
Heyooo I’m looking for some people who would be willing to help me play test my ttrpg tales from the aether!
Tales from the Aether is a rules heavy sword and sorcery ttrpg heavily inspired by a number of open world video games. It focuses on role play and story telling while integrating both into the combat and social mechanics. Its roughly on par with pathfinder for crunchiness but takes a completely different approach to resource management in combat.
We’ll be creating characters and playing in a tournament esk arena to test out both the character creation and player combat system and to help me figure out the monster balancing.
Your commitments will be pretty low with reading the rules/character creation being the biggest time commitment and after that its all combat baby! I estimate - based on my own health and availability - that well be playing once every two ish weeks when everyone is available.
If this would interest you, please leave a comment or send me a message! If ur not interested for what ever reason then pls reblog and share so this post has more reach <3
(Edit: the server is temporarily closed due to so many volunteers XD if you are interested in joining, stick around for when I open the server again)
Heyo everyone! Im gonna be opening the server again this weekend!! The character creation manual is basically completed with 250 pages of purely character customization options.
I’m going to start running one shots of varying levels that tackle the combat, social, and survival mechanics in addition to mini games like fishing and stealth. If that interests you, please send me a message!!
Despite having just fallen from the sky, they were celebrating.
The canoe, while quite large for a boat of its general stature, was far too small to well contain all of its occupants. Each of its passengers were all stuffed close together along the seats and sides, but they hardly were thinking about that. They were thinking about victory.
And that sense was easily present on their faces. They felt that joy and relief down into the depths of their souls. Fear held their hearts still, but its grip was loosening minute by minute as the port lights grew closer, shining like pure gold across the night-black waves. The canoe rocked its way towards those lights, on its own time.
The grizzled looking, war-scarred woman stood over everyone, placing a hand on her comrade's shoulder to not fall over the side. "A toast, everyone!" She shouted into the night air, smiling wide. She held up her hand holding an imaginary glass, "A toast to Aegeus, and his broken fucking sword!" And thrust the glass into the air, to a cheer from the folks around her. The whole crowd cheered and laughed warmly as they looked to the boy in question, to warmly shake his shoulders and lay congratulations on to him.
Aegeus, or Aggy as most people called him, was content to receive all the praise from the knights who all looked at him with a twinkle in their eyes. He had a genuine mop of dark brown hair and a genuine face just on the cusp of adulthood, with some fading acne marks still marking his cheeks. Particularly bright green eyes looked towards each soldier around him with each word of praise. As he acknowledged them one by one, he glanced at the girl next to him, who looked unbothered by all the commotion but all the same unsure if she was looking at anything at all. The girl, named Calliope, had Asian features and straight black hair that covered most of her face from Aggy's perspective, looked over to him. They had, unmistakably, the same eyes. The two regarded each other quite seriously for a moment, the silent and brief exchange replaced a conversation that might have gone like this:
"You alright, Callie?"
"Oh, great. Just overwhelmed."
"By the knights?"
"They sure aren't celebrating your intelligence."
"Harsh."
"Just show them your sword or something. Hold it away from me, please."
Aggy freed his arm from the tangle of folks and drew what was left of his sword, and each figure aboard the boat shrunk in its strangeness. The hilt and guard shone in the approaching port lights, the gold highlighting the bronze in quite a magical way.
The blade, less so. To a length of about four inches from the guard it was indistinguishable from an average blade. What was left of the rest of the blade was corroded, scorched, weakened with frost growing in the cracks. Even reduced to such a diminished form, the weapon's power was clear in the chill it left in the air, how it seemed to be eating even the light from the port into itself. Its ominous presence was felt through all of the occupants of the boat. Calliope shivered a bit as he brought the blade into view.
"To the real hero, all." He lifted the sword above his head, a tight grip held it horizontally above his head in salute. "The Banisher Blade." The boat's raucous joy faded a bit at the presence of the blade, yet all in the boat gave the salute back in respect. Aggy was gladdened to notice that many of the knights were not looking at him anymore, their eyes instead fell upon the blade. Fear squeezed the hearts of the company here, but they took shelter in the proximity of each other, the safety of the sea, and the warm lights at their backs. They stood firm, and for that, Aggy felt proud.
Aegeus glanced to the front of the boat, and noticed the one figure who was not looking at him or the blade. He faced the sea, staring. Unlike most of the people on the boat, he was not wearing armor. All he had were clothes of red cloth, rich and beautiful in the light, which was the second most interesting thing about him. The massive, feathery wings on his back took the number one spot for that. His hair was blond just like his feathers, long and graceful in the way they fell down his back. His profile outlined a soft yet somehow sharp face, young but also aged, and glowing brightly yet looking so solemn.
Aggy thought he was, in a word, beautiful.
He placed the Banisher Blade back in its scabbard, and mumbled something to the crew to get them back to their carousing. Carefully stepping across the boat over many pairs of legs, he approached the radiant figure. Somehow, it was quieter on this side of the boat.
Aggy extended a hand to his shoulder, bare skin shivering at the touch. The face looked up at him, surprised.
"For what it's worth, Ganymede, I forgive you." He said quietly, gesturing with his eyebrows. Ganymede looked back out to the sea.
"What does one do with forgiveness, Aegeus?" His voice floated to meet Aggy's ears like a gentle violin. "Carry it with you? curl it up into a ball and throw it away once you're not looking?"
"Flatten it into a stone and see how many times it skips." Aggy remarked. Silence fell between them for a moment, his attempt at a lightening remark falling noticeably flat.
"I'm sorry for lying." Ganymede said. "I've never done it before." At this, Aggy crouched down to Ganymede's level. Ganymede's eyes were not like his, but they met each other's gaze with a soft familiarity.
"Mortality's tough, huh?" Aggy asked. Ganymede nodded like a dog shaking out its fur. "Like I said, I forgive you, Gans. "
"She'll get over it." Aggy said, looking over at Callie, who was deep in a conversation with some knights, holding a drawing of an ox and gesturing emphatically. "I should probably get back to the company. We'll all sit down over a meal and talk it out tomorrow, okay?"
"Can we have those ribs again?" Ganymede asked. Aggy thought for a minute on what to say.
"We'll get something just as good, promise." He said, and walked back to his seat. For now, his armor was quiet, and the Banisher Blade weighed much less in its scabbard. As he met eyes with Calliope once more, he thought back to what the Oracle told them.
He couldn't possibly kill Ganymede, that didn't seem right. I wouldn't do that, he thought to himself. I won't.
Right?
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First off I wanna thank everyone for teaching me that objectively bad content does better than things I put more effort into. Secondly, enjoy an updated version of this subclass that I do believe is improved upon the original, with a unique mechanic in Call The Wicked and the promised ‘new use for wild shape.’
(ignore the typo please)
Anyway make sure to like an subscribe if this is awesome and consider following and donating to my broke ass on Ko-Fi!
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