#dnd theory

[gayofthefae]

Hey guys.....

[st-apostate]

Are Kenku Shinobi?

Tw: Naruto, DnD, edibles

Can someone who knows more about DnD than I do (low bar, but still) tell me if Kenku can use Naruto hand-signs as a means of casting spells?

To clarify, this is question is about if it works as a legitimate technicality, and not just something that can be added for the sake of roleplay. For players that are still learning about the different races, Kenku are flightless avian-humanoids that, if I'm not mistaken, all resemble corvids. Like actual corvids, they can mimic sounds and even voices/voice lines. They can't, however, speak beyond mimicry even though they can read/write common (and whatever other languages you choose). The recent Helluva Boss episode had me thinking about sign language lately and how it can be implemented in a DnD-type setting. Since the hand signs each depict their own individual meanings, which are pretty much universally known as characters are able to predict someone's jutsu by the hand signs they're using and in what order (which could cement them as a legitimate language). What's more, skilled shinobi can use jutsus with hand signs alone (Unless the need for speaking a jutsu's name is actually just a preference that bears no measure to a shinobi's level of experience). I also considered that a Kenku could potentially gain an independent voice through a pact of sorts, but I wanted to know how others would cast spells without reciting them?

While writing this, I considered the use of glyphs as a form of casting spells.

[marvalouslynerdish]

D&D prompt/thoughts/theory (this is copied from a comment)

its really hard to come with why there are not more dragons of other types (asides from the creators/writers of DND just not coming up with them; i would not say they're lazy for not trying but truth is it's hard to think/write/create this stuff) especially with all the expanded and obscure and inconsistent/never explained writings of the lore of dungeons and dragons; that it is probably indescribably hard to make any of it "canon". (sorry if this typing come off inconsistently or ranting.)

 but so far in my attempt to take a crack at this, i've been coming up with some different ideas just using what i know/have discovered or have come up with so far, though we call tiamat chromatic but maybe what she actually is; is prismatic. when it comes to tiamat lore; we only get so much information about her, we know her as the imprisoned in hell five-headed terror and we mostly assume she's always had five heads but what if she didn't; the ROT book classifies her as a gargantuan Fiend; Fiend? why not a dragon? or a dragon fiend? FTD gives us aspect of tiamat and she's classed as dragon but aspect, aspect is the word they use for defining her, meaning this is not the real tiamat. when it comes to bahamut he's described as the creator of the metallic dragons and is platinum scaled; meaning one, one color for him and he has no extra heads, tiamat is described as having five-heads with the body of a red dragon; since one idea is that bahamut is tiamats BROTHER why are they not very similar to each other?! since another idea is that dnd is a MAGICAL world that creatures/gods/monsters are born/created/shaped by the different worlds and environments; i think tiamat looks the way she does is because she has been changed by the environment of hell for living there for so long that she lost her true form!    

 so let's just try to go back way before tiamat was in hell, to a different time and place during and before the dawn of the "First World" and theorize this idea; that when tiamat was born her True form was that her scales were so indescribably colorful, bright etc. that when one sees her, her scales seemed as though you could see all the colors of the world through the reflections of the scales or that the scales had such a shine to them that if you walked around tiamat you could see her body in any/all the colors maybe even mixed, so what if the reason why we have only red, blue, black, white and green for her colors/form and the chromatic dragons is because after the first world was destroyed and tiamat was probably badly defeated/injured; that there was only a handful of her and bahamut creations that survived while the rest of them were destroyed! (and also maybe they didn't get that far with making orange, purple, pink, mercury, steel and Titanium dragons cause they were creating a world full of things and when the outsider gods came there was only what they made so far so maybe the 'First World" was an incomplete project so to speak) 

 so now that tiamat is in hell, her first work of creation is gone, Sardior is fucking dead, possibly has feelings like her brother betrayed her (i mean something had to have happened there and somewhere in between that made the Dragonfall Wars happen), she fought against impossible odds but lost and had the crap beaten out of her, hates the "gods" and their followers, wants revenge and now seeks to become more powerful than ever so she can destroy the world and the gods! hell hath no fury like the wrathful vengeance that this "woman" now seeks upon the universe; she is DONE with all of this! no wonder why she has been changed into what she is now as a reflection of the events that have changed/shaped her life; for as we know, to paraphrase: ONE BAD DAY can CHANGE YOUR LIFE. . .forever. damn that was a lot of text to type i did not expect this to be this long, sorry about that. but if anyone enjoyed this, glad you like it and hit me up, take care now.

[upcastwish]

DND 5e Has an Ability Score Increase Problem

By now, Wizards has teased pretty much released in full the new variant rules for racial ability score increases (ASIs) presented in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. And it’s... pretty great, honestly. It’s good. It feels well-thought-out and balanced. It addresses the issues that a lot of people have with the notion of racial ability score increases and racial features like tool proficiencies and weapon/armor training, which is a really good thing.

The capacity to play races that you actually want to play and know that you're not missing out on getting bonuses to the ability scores that are actually useful to your character build opens up so many options for character optimization. It also means that races that have tricky ASIs but interesting potential (dragonborn, kalashtar, and gith come to mind) will now have an opportunity to shine.

But unfortunately, it also brings to the forefront a fundamental problem with race design: in terms of ability score increases, some races are just straight up better than others.

The half-elf and the mountain dwarf have long reigned among optimizers because, in a game where +2/+1 ASIs are standard, the half-elf and the mountain dwarf get +2/+1/+1 and +2/+2 respectively. They’re just stronger. Before these new rules, the limited utility of each race’s ability score increases balanced this somewhat. Half-elves generally ruled all Charisma-based builds (which, given that four of the eight half- and full-caster classes in 5e are Charisma casters, is a whole lot of builds), and mountain dwarves are hard to beat when it comes to races for clerics and druids (and monks, debatably, though the lack of a Dexterity increase is so hard on a monk build that +2 Dexterity races with either a Constitution or a Wisdom increase are arguably at least as good). But with the ability to apply ASIs flexibly, half-elves and mountain dwarves are now, suddenly, the best for every class when it comes to ability scores.

This is a huge deal. Sure, non-ability-score racial features can be excellent for specific character builds: gnome cunning is superb, for instance, and the chance to take a feat at level 1 is compelling enough that the variant human will always be competitive. 

As a sidebar on gnome cunning: now that ASIs can be swapped around, I’m hoping to see some gnome barbarians. The flavor is incredible and gnome cunning can be so good for shutting down the nasty status effects that barbarians tend to struggle against.

But even with the pull of certain excellent racial features, the issue of ability scores is significant: why would you want +2/+1 when you could have +2/+1/+1 or +2/+2?

This is not an argument against the rules in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. This is an argument that there’s a core problem with the way that races were designed in D&D 5e. Why are two races just straight up better in that one aspect than all the others? Why, when 12 out of 14 non-human races/subraces in the PHB, get a +2/+1 increase, do the other two get more than that?

Sure, perhaps it’s arguable that the mountain dwarf and half-elf’s other racial traits (well, really, lack thereof) balance their ASIs out. After all, the mountain dwarf gets a whole lot less in that department than does the duergar, for instance. But you know who also doesn’t get a lot in comparison to the duergar? The hill dwarf. Yeah, the hill dwarf who also doesn't get +2/+2 ASIs. Is one more hit point each level really good enough that it justifies the lack of A Whole +1 To One Whole Ability Score? Do racial traits really, really balance out these differences in ASI power?

Because they are significant power differences. If you’re using point-buy to build your character, the half-elf can get you a +3 modifier in three separate stats (to be fair, the triton can do that too, but without the benefit of a +2 to one ability score, and a +2 to a score you really need is generally better than a +1 to a couple scores you don’t really need that much, which is why the default human’s +1 to every stat is not better than the triton’s +1/+1/+1). And the mountain dwarf can get you a score of 17 in two stats at 1st level, which is good but isn’t a super big deal until you hit 4th level and all the sudden you're the only person in your party with a +4 mod in two stats.

If there were more of an effort in the expansion books (Volo’s, MToF, Eberron, GGR, SCAG) to introduce races that also had ASIs beyond the +2/+1 standard, it would make sense. It would be a normal variation within a system of normal variations. But they don’t. There are a couple races in the expansions that have ASIs other than the +2/+1 standard (orcs, kobolds, tritons), but they’re worse than the standard (okay, the triton’s +1/+1/+1 is arguably not too bad. It’s solid enough for really multi-ability-dependent builds, and pretty balanced overall). The point stands: they're not better. So instead, we get I-didn’t-count-how-many-but-it’s-a-whole-lot races/subraces with +2/+1 ASIs, and we get two that are better, two that are worse, and one that is... okay?

That’s a problem. Either, from the very beginning, there should have been more variance beyond the +2/+1 standard, or there should never have been variance beyond that. You have to either go all out with making some races have straight-up better or worse ability score increases than others, or you shouldn’t do it at all. Because now the balance of the mountain dwarf and half-elf’s ability score increases being build-situational is no longer there.

This is, of course, a problem much bigger than what Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything can, should, or will tackle on its own. This is kind of fundamental. But at least for now, there’s a really, really simple way for DMs to address this when it comes to the flexible ability score variant rules.

Yeah, that’s it, really. Everyone gets a +2/+1 with flexible ability score variants.

Okay that’s it post over go home love you

[deli-oracle-delphi-deliah]

CR Fjord Theory

Hey so I have been wondering about Fjord, specially the ship crash that started his whole thing with snake boy. So the ship crashed right? Well what’s the chances that Fjord gets injured badly during the crash. Vandren sees this and thinks he’s dead. Snake boy sees someone important to his ex-follower and jumps on helping that boy and latvcing onto him. Gods like revenge that gets really close to home. So Fjord is alive and well, but unknown to him Snake boy had to give him something to keep him alive. So when the Wildmother sees our sea boy breaking his pact, she can tell that something lingers on him. Ergo a piece of Snake boy.

This all stems from Me fearing that Fjord was going to die from Snake boy since gods like to make deals with half dead individuals so they can’t refuse. I still kind of have this fear as Vandren didn’t really react like everyone thought he would. But it makes some sense he would react like that if he thought Fjord was dead. Also the Wildmother’s comment about something lingering in Fjord.

[st-apostate]

Is Captain Planet a Homunculus?

Tw: Occult themes, edibles, possible sacrilege (for good measure), a DnD tangent

Alright, so Captain Planet is a powerful being (I won't bother scaling) that is formed from the union of five elements (water, earth, fire, wind, and heart). With the elements being the same as the main elements of alchemy, "heart" being a debatable substitution for "spirit", it could be said that five alchemists are combining their individual fields of study to create a living being that exists with a specific purpose.

Alternatively, could Captain Planet be considered an omni-elemental being that serves as a patron for a party of five warlocks, granting each member 1/5 of his power and the ability to summon him with said powers combined.

[dungeon-meister]

D&D 5e is a very standardised game. Every player option follows a pattern. Many of these are fairly well known, being spotted within a few months of playing the game, the fact that ASIs are gained every four class levels except for the one at 19, with exceptions only being bonus ASIs and never ASIs being missing, or that scaling cantrips all improve at the same level. There are several more implicit ones, and as someone who homebrews a lot and designs my own systems I really want to call attention to these. In this case I'll be discussing weapons

The system weapons are balanced on is quite ingenious. Assigning values to different traits, pluses for those that are beneficial and minuses for those that are detrimental (following an x+x=6, y+y=10, x+y=? style of problem, based on how traits show up in what combinations), we see these values=

+2: Range (80+/320+), 1d12/2d6 damage +1: Finesses, Light, Reach, Range (30/120), 1d10 damage 0: Versatile (any), Range (20/60), 1d8 damage

-1: Heavy, Two-handed, Loading, 1d6 damage

-2: 1d4 damage (Thrown and Ammunition are judged equally based on range)

Most weapons come to a value of zero following these guides, and several simple weapons are at -1 (fitting, I think, as they are supposed to be less-than-great weapons). However, there are a few honorable mentions and tricky situations Range: the range of a weapon Special: it's special. Each trait is unique and there is no universal value to them Another thing worth noting is that simple weapons only reach 1d8 if they require two hands to do so, and martial weapons do not deal less than 1d8 if they require two hands, supporting it as a middle of the line, 0 value damage

notable weapons are the trident, the only martial weapon with a -1, and the rapier, the only weapon with a +1, and the Lance, which I would assign a +1 with it's Special trait

[dungeon-meister]

why does spell sniper prerequire you to know at least one spell? it gives you a cantrip that should be enough