Wispy’s Whatever

It’s whatever.

[lakevida]

everybody leave town i need to talk to myself on a walk for an hour and fifteen minutes

[wispynador]

Me too

[wispynador]

The sunlight was doing something pretty so I took a picture of it

[wispynador]

I think that rather than be worried that AI is going to replace people’s jobs, we should be trying to make it so that losing your job doesn’t mean you might die.

[emobandrpf]

Hot take apparently but i do not think trans men should feel bad for being men. I love being a man! Being a man does not make me evil or dirty or violent! Being a man is not an inherently bad trait! I love all of my fellow trans men <3

[wispynador]

Empires are explicit in their means and their ends. Imperialism is content to hide while implied.

[wispynador]

Okay y’all, I just saw a June Bug on my window screen so I don’t care what the call ender calendar says, pride month starts now. Right this second. Let’s go!!!!!!!

Edited for a typo

[wispynador]

[wispynador]

This is Molly. Molly likes to chill on the windowsill on cool breezy nights.

[wispynador]

Not my usual content but whatever.

[wispynador]

Rope Dart

This is a homebrew weapon I threw together for fun. I haven’t play tested it, so I can’t reasonably say if it’s balanced or not, but if anyone wants to try it out, here it is.

[wispynador]

Business and Crime revisited (d&d 5e)

I recently posted a set of guidelines for using 5e running a business mechanics as a means of bootstrapping player owned criminal enterprises.

My players requested a campaign with gameplay and adventures centered around owning businesses, building a home, and running a criminal enterprise. So, I started looking into the RAW mechanics and found it kind of lacking. So, I’ve taken it upon myself to expand business ownership mechanics to better suit being the main focus of their downtime gameplay, as well as tying in mechanics for criminal enterprises.

These mechanics include:

Buying businesses from previous owners.

Running businesses in cycles of 30 days, with 6 intervals of 5 days.

Using businesses as fronts for criminal enterprises.

Running multiple businesses as a conglomerate.

Side quest plot hook table (complications)

[wispynador]

Asking Around (d&d 5e)

Sometimes adventures need to dig up some local lore, ask around about a recent event, or otherwise make inquiries about whatever some such is their current subject of inquiry. Role playing asking every shop keep and bar tender in town is tedious, so here’s an alternative. A single day of downtime and a healthy helping of bribery to abridge the process of making Inquiries.

Time and Money: The party or character declares the focus of their inquiries, then spends a full working day (about 8 hours) and at least 10 gold to ask around. The gold represents bribes, gifts, and other expenses. (Have the player spend extra gold in 10 gp increments)

Checks and Results: The character making Inquiries makes a Charisma check, adding a +1 bonus for every 10 gp of gold they spent after the minimum (max of +5). Other characters can lend a hand, granting advantage. If the inquiring character is local or well renowned in the community, this could also grant advantage. The following table can be used to determine the result of the check:

Information: Each piece of information could be one true statement about the subject of inquiry. This might include one of the items on a creature or NPC‘s stat block, the password to a local private club, rumors and reputations, local legends, or other assorted informational breadcrumbs. 

Complications: You can mix up the search for info by adding in a complication that leads to a random encounter, or perhaps into the intrigue of the main plot. If you want to add in a complication as a random encounter, the following table can be used to generate that spicy intrigue.

This set of mechanics is great for giving players all the breadcrumbs and snack sized facts they need to piece together a mystery or give themselves an upper hand against a local monster, bandit crew, or evil cult. Its also perfect for characters with high charisma and low intelligence, who don’t want to spend their time slogging it out in a library. Whatever role it might play in your role play, I hope it enhances your adventures.

[wispynador]

Building a Criminal Empire (dnd 5e)

I recently stumbled upon the Xanthar’s Guide to Everything rules about committing robberies during downtime play. I kind of thought they where lacking and wanted to spice them up a bit, so I used the rules for running a business from the DMG to make player’s downtime crime more entrepreneurial. The full document I typed out and formatted for my own records is wordy and complex, so I’m just ganna give y’all the footnotes version with these two simple guidelines.

1. Use RAW businesses as a framework: The RAW mechanics for players owning and running businesses in chapter 6 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide has a perfect skeleton for players running organized criminal enterprises. The hirelings are your bandits, thugs, thieves, and other assorted henchgoons. The maintenance cost per day is money spent on the overhead cost of the criminal business. The mechanics even come with a table for determining the results of a business’s operations, which can easily apply to criminal businesses.

2. Up the stakes with complications: The entry for crime on page 130 of Xanthar’s Guide to Everything has a table for complications occurring as a result of criminal activity. Although it was originally designed for players cat-burglarizing on solo heists, it can easily be applied to the operations of a larger criminal organization as well.

That’s the basic framework I used to develop mechanics for player crime bossing. Have fun out there y’all.

[wispynador]

Google had me brew some boba tea but I think I did something wrong

I know y’all probably expect d&d memes and such from me, but I made this for my friends in the discord today and had to share it.

[wispynador]

Automobiles in 5e

Here’s a few automobiles I’ve worked up for 5e d&d. They use the infernal war machine mechanics from Descent into Avernus and are altered from the infernal war machine stat blocks provided in appendix B of the book.

These are first draft stat blocks. I recommend altering them to better fit your campaign. Have fun y’all.

[wispynador]

Customizing Classes

Substituting Class Features in 5e

Page 287 of the dungeon master’s guide includes the following excerpt, which talks about swapping out class features you don’t like for different ones.

The DMG elaborates further on the next page, advising that players and DMs work together to ensure that features taking the place of the removed ones are both balanced and useful to the player. However, it doesn’t provide any guidelines for how to do this. Well, I’ve got some house rules that you can use as a set of guidelines in building a character with class feature substitution.

1. Substitute with existing class features: when you remove a class feature from your chosen character class, replace it with an existing feature from a different class. Using homebrew features is fun, but if you’re not looking to spend the time required to properly develop and balance a homebrew feature, pre-existing features from other classes are already developed for gameplay.

2. Avoid vertical feature substitution: when replacing one of your class features with a feature from a different class, make sure that the new feature would normally be gained at the same class level as the feature it replaces. This will help keep a class with substitute features balanced. First level features can tip the scales of game balance as easily -if not more so- as high level features.

3. Treat substitute features as belonging to the base class: when substituting features from a different class, the new feature should grant all the mechanical functions it would normally grant to its original class to the new one. This should not extend to functions which depend upon the character possessing another specific feature. For instance, if a player wanted to substitute a fighter’s extra attack with the monk’s stunning strike. Stunning strike requires that the character have access to Ki points from the monk’s Ki feature. If the character doesn’t have the Ki feature, then they shouldn’t be able to use stunning strike. For features that reference the class table, draw from the table belonging to the feature’s original class when determining what spell slots, resources, and bonuses are granted to the character.

4. Don’t stack subclasses: some classes gain their subclass feature earlier or later than others. The subclass provides a handful features as the character gains levels in the base class, and having more than one at a time can create issues with balancing gameplay, so it’s best to limit the number of subclass features a character can have to one per base class. If a player is choosing to multi-class while substituting features of one or both of those classes, it’s best to ensure that each base class only has one subclass feature. You should treat the gaining of features from each subclass as being tied to the leveling of each base class it’s attached to, as you would classes without feature substitutions. If a subclass feature is placed in a class which gains its subclass feature at a higher level, the higher level subclass should be removed, or replaced with a feature that isn’t a subclass. In keeping aligned with guideline number 3, you should not allow a character to use a subclass feature which requires a different feature if the character doesn’t have that feature. For example, the path of the beast subclass for barbarian requires the character to use the barbarian rage feature in order to activate one of its primary subclass features. If a player chooses to substitute a fighter’s martial archetype with this subclass, it won’t activate unless they also have the barbarian’s rage feature.

[wispynador]

Guns Akimbo in D&D

Why you can’t dual wield firearms in 5e/one d&d

Homebrew firearms that you can dual wield are at the bottom of the post. Make your trigger finger happy and scratch that itch 😋

As it currently stands in 5e and one d&d, there is no way to engage in two weapon fighting with a pair of firearms. In both of the rule sets at least one of the weapons you wield must be a light weapon, and unless you have the duel weirder feat both have to be light.

The only ranged weapon in d&d that has the light property is the hand crossbow. All other ranged weapons lack the light property, which sucks. I’d like to see players engage in two weapon fighting with a flintlock (or a revolver) in each hand but because none of these weapons have the light property, it can’t be done. This restricts a pretty cool form of weapon wielding not only from being a viable gameplay option, but also from being an option at all.

I’ll give the status quo the benefit of the doubt here, as the inclusion of firearms in general throws combat out of balance. Mostly in terms of range advantage and damage output. With PHB ranged weapons you have several options ranging from a flat 1 damage to 1d10. With firearms from the DMG the damage output starts at 1d10 and climbs. Renaissance firearms range up to 1d12. Modern firearms start at 2d6 and range up to 2d10, while futuristic weapons put out between 3d6 and 6d8 damage per attack.

The higher damage output and increased range of action (over melee weapons) of these firearms definitely skews the balance of combat in favor of any character wielding even just one of them. Additionally most firearms are compatible with the extra attack feature of combat classes due to the reloading property. Stack that all together with an additional extra attack, courtesy of two weapon fighting, and it makes sense that the option isn’t really available.

Still, I’d like some kind of two weapon fighting option to be available with firearms. Perhaps some additional weapon options would do the trick? Firearms with a damage output more akin to that of the ranged weapons available in the PHB would be perfect. All the style and rule-of-cool-ness of John Wick without the balance-trashing damage. In the spirit of this, here are a few off the cuff ideas for some homebrew light firearms.

Palm Pistol (renaissance firearm) 1d6 piercing, ammunition (range 30/90), reload (1 shot), light

Light Revolver (modern firearm) 1d8 piercing, ammunition (range 40/120), reload (4 shots), light

Light Laser Pistol (futuristic firearm) 1d10 radiant, ammunition (range 40/120), reload (50 shots), light