#murderhobo

[rollforfocus]

Oh no consequences!

[magicaleraser94]

My dad came up with a D&D campaign idea for all those DM's with a murderhobo party. Here's the basics of it--

True Neutral to Chaotic Evil party. LET THEM GIVE IN TO THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS. Let them lie, steal, kill- hell, allow them to betray each other if they want. Their ONE JOB throughout all this is simple- transport a red dragon egg across a country. The reward is an UNBELIEVABLE amount of money, power, and influence, far more than the party could ever dream of.

Here's the problem. They cannot break the egg or kill the dragon inside. And the egg can hatch at any moment. If the egg does hatch, they still have to transport the dragon without injuring it. The dragon, however, has no qualms with killing the party members. To get their reward, the party has to learn self-control and teamwork. Who knows? Maybe your party will learn the value of patience and story-telling. They might be truly engrossed in the game by the end.

[tomesmithpress]

Baldur's Date

Choose your allies as your adventure awaits!

Included

Astarion

Gale

Karlach

Lae'zel

Shadowheart

Wyll

Murderhobo

Happy Baldur's Gate 3 launch day!

[therealgchu]

Snippet Sunday - Seven Days

i just realized i didn't put the graphic for 7 days up on dropbox, so i could use it on my home computer. whoops.

oh well, look at me, back to a regularly scheduled posting.

the first chapter of Seven Days is up on ao3. i'm publishing these at a more rapid rate since i've been writing them faster. almost half of it is already written. chapter 2 will go up tomorrow, hopefully.

Day 2 Sneak Peek

His brain had been trying to make sense of everything he’d heard yesterday, and he still didn’t understand most of it. He decided to take a stab at the most concrete aspect. “So, how did you become queen of the pirates?” he asked.

“By killing the king of the pirates,” she answered nonchalantly, like killing the pirate king was as mundane as getting coffee.

Sam choked, “You killed Delgado?”

She nodded. “In my original universe, I got nabbed by SysDef to infiltrate the Fleet. Delgado was obsessed with Kryx’s Legacy. I was obsessed with getting the artifacts and getting the fuck out of that universe. I helped him get Kryx’s Legacy, muscled out Naeva to become his second, and used the Fleet to finish getting the rest of the artifacts.

“In my second universe, I realized that it would just be easier and more efficient to take over the Fleet right away. So that’s what I’ve done ever since.” She opened her hand and a small bright ball of plasma formed in her palm. “Did you know plasma can burn through glass like a hot knife through butter? Or, more accurately, an 11,000 degree knife through butter.”

Sam stared at the bright ball in her hand and shuddered. “What are you?” he whispered.

She looked at him, “Starborn. I already told you.” She closed her hand into a fist and the light went out. “Anyway, I blasted him through the window of the war room. He never stood a chance. I declared myself queen, and if people didn’t fall in line, they’d be met with the same fate. People fell in line.” She shrugged. “It helped that I got Kryx’s Legacy within days of taking over. Whereas Del never got close in all his years. A lot of money buys a lot of loyalty.”

He looked at her in fear and awe. She was a monster. If there was anything human left, it had been burned away by whatever Unity was. He began pacing angrily again. “Are you going to let me out of here?” he demanded.

“Eventually.”

“Why the hell am I here?” Sam punched the wall in frustration.

She looked at him, but didn’t actually seem to see him. “I think I’m trying to punish myself. Maybe. I don’t know.” She looked back to the floor. “My Sam always could unravel me. Since the moment we met, he could slip past all my defenses and armor. Wasn’t even something he consciously tried to do.”

[old-aspiring-awesomeness]

Hiya there, I moved to aspiring-awesomeness (https://aspiring-awesomeness.tumblr.com/) :D

———

First commission DONE! 

Very happy with the fun idea of magic murder hobo goblin and the awesome customer who came up with it

[neapoke99]

Character idea: a short tabaxi soulknife rogue, but she’s the (polymorphed) cat familiar of a powerful hag and also chaotic evil ✨

[ghostly-creator]

Behold. A TANKSONA.

they're a Field Doctor, but really bad at it

less healing, more killing

[the-goblin-dm]

Curbing Murderhobos

If your players have some murderous tendencies, the first step is always to talk with them about what kind of game you're running vs what kind they want to play, and make sure expectations are aligned.

If the party all want to play a rambling gang of thugs, and you're down to run such a game, then murderhoboing can be fun! But if you prepped a game for heroes who want to do good, or the murderhobo is ruining fun for other players, it's time for a talk.

That said, here are some houserules I use to clearly signal that my game is not set up to accommodate murder hobo-ing.

Innocents Yield Negative XP

If you're using the XP system, this one stops the temptation to murder realquick. My loose definition of innocent is "someone who did not pose a threat."

Some players don't mind if their character is in trouble or disliked in the world. Negative XP gives a meta-level consequence that they might be more deterred by.

In-World Consequences

Speaking of being in trouble, your world has law enforcement, does it not? Characters who murder, rob, intimidate, harass, or otherwise engage in criminal behaviour should have wanted posters out. Wanted posters mean bounty hunters.

Being wanted also means that there's suddenly no vacancies at any Inn you visit, and the places that will serve you charge double, because they know no one else will.

Beefier Guards

It's easy to laugh off the law enforcement if you know that a guard is only CR 1/4. So homebrew yourself up some guards. Give them better armour, more hit points, spells, and extra abilities. Runesmith has a great video for this.

At the very least, guards should be able to inflict the restrained condition (nets and grappling abilities are easy ways to do this) and call for reinforcements (give them a reaction that does this). Give them spells, too. Hold Person is such a classic guard spell. Same with Calm Emotions.

Most Things Run Away

Few creatures are actually motivated to fight to the death. The exceptions are mindless things like oozes, cultists and the like who think they'll be killed anyway if they flee, and... I can't think of a lot else, tbh. Most stuff wants to live to fight another day.

The Monsters Know What They're Doing includes an estimation of the point at which a monster tries to flee in every entry. Remember it when you're running combat. It's a lot harder to insist you're playing a hero if you keep killing people who were surrendering or running away.