5e Sorcerer Variant?

One of my beefs with 5e is the uneven distribution of long rest and short rest abilities among classes (i.e. encounter and daily powers). The biggest offender, imho, is the sorcerer who gets only long-rest resources and is encouraged to use them up quicker because the sorcerer can spend more resources for a nova round. The quick brainstorm with a friend is to make sorcery points short-rest resources somehow. There's two issues with it.

Number of Sorcery Points. First, the number. 5e sort of assumes something like 2-4 short rests per long rest, so if we simply divide the sorcery points between half and a quarter, that should come close. Say half for now. That'd mean a level 5 sorcerer gets 3 points, which equates to one heightened spell per short rest or a bonus 2nd level slot. That seems pretty strong since warlocks get two 3rd-level slots per short rest, and the sorcerer would also have 3rd level daily slots. If it's a quarter, that means the level 5 caster has 2 points per short rest, which prohibits most expensive metamagic on spells other than cantrips and first level spells, but one level 1 slot per short-rest seems about right but weak. A third is probably about right.

Creating spell slots. The second issue is sorcery points being used to make new spell slots. Short rests could essentially be used to recharge, meaning why not take 3 short rests in a row to recover more slots? This is easily solved by capping created slots with a duration. I'd say end of next round, so you could create a slot in preparation for using it the next round. 1 minute might also be reasonable, or even 10 minutes though. But since they're easy to create, there's not a lot of reason to make them so long-lasting. And if/when they expire? They could automatically convert back to spell points. There's a slight loss here, as it's more expensive to create a spell slot (5 sorc points to make a level 3 spell) than you get from spell slots (3 sorc points for a level 3 slot). But that's probably fine.

Level 20. The sorcerer capstone ability is finally the short-rest sorcery points we want. Nice, but super late. They'd need a new capstone.

Done. What other consequences would this have? Some metamagics aren't going to work on your big guns. You won't have enough points to heighten, twin, or whatever your highest level spells. There's also a question of limitations, can you have more sorcery points that your max? I say sure, convert one big slot to points to power metamagic on your other big slots. Finally, it limits some metamagic options flat out, like Heighten Spell. We might be able to address this by either explicitly mentioning the option is best when you have more sorc points, or by fiddling with the number a bit, more like 1/4 plus 1 or half minus 1 something to ensure the number of sorc points at each level is about right. This still feels a little clunky, but I like the idea. Combine it with 1-2 bonus low-level utility spells for each origin, and it might do well.

The lost perception skills of older D&D

Older D&D was weird. Though I don't think I ever used the rules in the 90s, dwarves and gnomes (and some other races) have these strange detection abilities. And they're subtly different between the races. I'm going to focus on dwarves, elves, and gnomes here because the others just cherry pick some of these detection powers.

In AD&D 2nd Ed, dwarves can spend one round to detect things if they're within 10 feet of that thing (except depth underground, since you're always within 10 feet of your depth I guess): sliding and shifting walls or rooms (4 in 6), grade or slope (5 in 6), stone traps/pits/deadfalls (3 in 6), new construction (3 in 6) as well as depth underground (3 in 6). Gnomes can detect depth better than dwarves (4 in 6), grade/slope (5 in 6), but also detect direction underground (3 in 6) as well as unsafe walls and ceilings (7 in 10).

That's right, while 2nd Ed raised a few of these detections so they were all using a d6 (dwarves went from grade/slope and new construction of 3 in 4—75%—to 5 in 6—83.3%) except the gnome's 70% chance to detect unsafe walls and ceilings couldn't be lowered to 4 in 6 or raised to 5 in 6 to make it standard. Stout halflings and half orcs likewise ended up using a d4 for their detect grade/slope abilities (3 in 4 and 1 in 4 respectively), and later races in Skills & Powers just get percentile scores assigned. So while the system mostly uses a d6, it doesn't use it consistently.

In the basic Rules Cyclopedia D&D (which only has dwarves), dwarves get all of these stone skills at a 2 in 6 chance, whereas Swords and Wizardry (my ersatz oldest-school D&D) says dwarves get this but the rolls are up to the DM.

This is fascinating in part because these skills were/are probably almost wholly ignored by most D&D players, but also how specific they were to dungeon crawling. Knowing how deep you were (approximate dungeon level) would be hugely helpful in figuring out how tough monsters might be, as well as if the 5% grade in the 100-foot corridor (nigh imperceptible) was taking you further down or not. New construction seems like an ersatz measure of things being walled off, but it also gives you a sense of history within the dungeon, while shifting walls, traps/pits, and unsafe walls/ceilings are obvious hazards (of apparently differing difficulty). Also interesting to note is that dwarves and gnomes got slightly different sets, meaning it was useful to have both types of characters in your party. It also conjures some strange image of dwarves keeping their eyes down and watching for pits and new construction at the base of walls while gnomes are eyes-in-the-sky noticing the ceilings of the dungeon plus a different sense of direction.

Elves get a different ability, which is passive secret/concealed door detection. They get this at a 1 in 6 chance, so just by walking through the dungeon elves will find one secret door in 6. Not great, but totally nice if the DM remembers it (I also just roll this for random noticing facts in my AD&D Al-Qadim Church game). Elves who are actively searching find 1 in 3 secret doors, and 1 in 2 concealed doors.

It's also interesting to note that there are no rules for how these interact with thief abilities (does a dwarf searching for a trap get his roll plus the thief roll? does it take extra time to get both rolls?) nor do these detection abilities ever increase with level: you have them or you don't, and they never improve.

In 5e, we get a little of these as ersatz fixes. Dwarves get their stonecunning and elves get free proficiency in perception, but I can't help but wonder if the sheet blinders work in reverse here. Often with skills, new players are wondering which one they can roll for a certain thing to get more info or move the story along, but there's nothing specific enough about those skills in 5e to warrant the utterly specific uses (or expectations?) that the old AD&D options provide.

I've been thinking about this more and more because, in my 2nd edition game, many of the rules are buried in paragraph form, when bullet points would bring them to light easier. The oft-maligned Skills & Powers book does a nice job of presenting each as a clear option since you needed to spend points to purchase each one, but it can also be used to nicely gather each option together so you can really see what powers you have. So in my vague dream to do some cut-and-paste work to compile and solidify some 2nd ed material and make it more accessible at the table, I'm wondering if these strange powers shouldn't be made broader (i.e. dwarves and gnomes might passively notice sloping corridors rather than needing to actively do it) or otherwise wrapped into a coherent system which includes general thief/rogue skills.

There's also a strange element of DM determinism in these skills, which is the information these detection powers provide or the paths these open up need to be a bonus in the adventure. For traps, their detection is generally simple since the failure result is merely that the trap is set. For sliding walls/rooms though, a passageway could be blocked if not detected. Similarly, if a secret door is the only exit and it isn't found, the party is just stuck. Just because this stuff is on a character sheet, doesn't mean it will work when you need it. Also, while there's been a lot made about dungeons haveing interesting design (loops, multiple entrances, etc.) there seems to be little attention paid to some of these other issues here: sliding doors or cave-ins which trap a party and force them to continue onwards, subtle changes in elevation leading to distinct levels (or over and underpasses), the history of a dungeon's construction and determining which areas are original and which are recent editions, natural construction problems and hazards vs consciously-made traps. It's a small laundry list of good elements to put into a dungeon that I hope to keep in mind for the future.

It's easy to see how these old skills got consolidated in third edition into a version of notice and search (along with the rogue skills), what you're noticing or searching for has perhaps been lost a little. Also what's lost is the race-specific nature of these skills. Dwarves and gnomes have an uncanny ability to detect a grade or slope in a corridor, others could attempt it with weights or marbles or water, but these races just are that attuned to their world that they get these automatically and no one else will ever be as good as them. And I think that's one thing that's been a little lost in modern D&D: some races were just better at some things than others, which actually made the race/class choice matter a bit more.

Powerful NPCs destroy verisimilitude

My current DM really likes throwing high-level NPCs at us now. I'm not super happy with this because it really brings us out of the game. Here's how it came about, as far as I can tell:

The DM has decided the CR system is ridiculous since we could easily handle many battles in the past campaign. In the last campaign, we did well with a lot of battles, but he's also remembering the past year of high-level play when we really could handle a lot of stuff. I think the earlier parts of Princes of the Apocalypse (before level 7 or so) were fairly well balanced modulo travel nonsense (see below).

As part of his play style, the DM tends to keep combats small, where I think the math of 5e makes a battle with fewer enemies than the number of players easy. Players can gang up on people, and with a few clever uses of some battlefield control can really keep one to three of the enemies out of combat to focus fire on the half of the group that is still a threat. Still, it's easier to keep track of 3 enemies' stats than 6 enemies' stats.

Another aspect of his play style is he tends to say yes, even to ridiculous requests at times. He was very willing to give surprise rounds and advantage right away, and still is at times. That makes stealth much more valuable, and I'm a little surprised we didn't make an all stealth party this time because of that. We've always got time to take short and long rests, and he doesn't pressure us for time usually, so we can really handle many battles with ease. The short rest mechanic also means many of us get some nice resources back after a rest (particularly when I played a warlock), so you can really handle battle after battle when he makes them easy (or easy for us).

On a related note, overland travel with random encounters is awful in 5e. Not only does our ranger ensure we'll never get lost or need to forage for food while traveling, but since all your resources come back after a long rest, there's really no point to doing these in 5e. I like random encounters to help set the mood or tone of a story, or to siphon off a few resources from the party, but travel in 5e (without the Adventures in Middle Earth fix where you can't get a long rest in the wilderness) makes the resource drain pointless.

Finally, I'm not sure if he nerfs the enemies intentionally or not, but he tends to ignore many aspects of the by-the-book stats. It may be a combo of not reading things close, being tired at the time, or lack of system mastery for the spells (He used crown of madness totally ineffectually tonight and didn't use the enemy's second winds). For the spells, I suspect some of it is by not really playing 5e much, you don't know off the top of your head what most of the spells do. That's easy to mess up, or having an archmage up-cast lightning bolt as a 9th-level spell is just not super useful. So he's not always using his enemies effectively. Some of the theater of the mind aspects of play also might hinder this, there's really not interesting terrain in the game for stunts, and we usually have trouble tracking where enemies are and which one is which (probably once or twice a night at least).

How does this lead to high-level NPCs? Since The DM has thrown out the CR system, we end up having three 6th-level PCs fighting things like two CR9 champions plus a CR6 warlock (this past week's tomfoolery). Or the end of Rise of Tiamat where there were just tons of archmages wandering around. Those archmates were functionally something like 14th level NPCs we just fought, it took everything we had to defeat them, and we got a short rest in the middle because we had been beaten (non-lethal damage on taking down the paladin and fighter/rogue). Obviously, we hunted the survivor down to take our money back, because D&D.

So we're left wondering why the noble was able to hire these very powerful mercenaries to chase us down (The druid made a deal to reincarnate his dead nephew for a lot of cash, but he wasn't going to pay us for it when the mother wasn't 100% convinced it was her son). So why are we the ones going to deal with the giant problems when there are these high-level mercenaries able to be hired?

In the last campaign, where he started out using obviously 20th-level NPCs as patrons for each faction, we also were asking ourselves multiple times why we were being sent to investigate things while the big powerful spellcasters (able to cast wish spells and the like) were doing nothing themselves. I have no explanation for that.

I think this is often a criticism of some of the published D&D worlds: when there are these massively powerful NPCs walking around (Elminster, the Seven Sisters, etc.) why are the PCs really needed to be heroes? It's now exacerbated by the inclusion of these NPC stat blocks in the Monster Manual and Volo's Guide to Monsters, and incongruent with the idea of tiers of play.

In by-the-book 5e, characters of levels 1-4 (Apprentice) are local heroes, levels 5-10 are regional heroes, levels 11-16 (paragon) are global heroes and levels 17-20 (Epic) are cosmic heroes. This means that those CR 6 NPCs that function as 14th level spellcasters are really high up there, and the ones beyond that are just basically god-like. In theory, the CR for one creature is equal to average party level for a 4-5 person party. So that CR 6 warlock is an average encounter for a 6th level party. Give the warlock some support henches and it's a good time. But what's the level of that CR6 warlock? The spell-casting says the warlock is 14th level. Clearly paragon. We could instead try to break monsters down into their tiers, but a proficiency bonus diagnostic doesn't quite map to the tier levels exactly. Nonetheless, it may be a decent stand-in: things with a proficiency bonus of +3 are regional-level threats. +4 spans the end of regional and beginning of global. +5 is solidly global, with +6 being epic. That might not work out properly though because the CR 6 warlock was a 14th level caster with a +3 proficiency bonus. I'm sure with some more time and math I could reverse-engineer something somewhat close though.

What it really means, is by using these high CR NPCs, the DM is telling us there are many powerful people in the world that could be doing our job instead of us. So we need something more of a real hook for the game, especially since the others poo-poo'd my idea of all being good-aligned.

What's the fix? I guess telling the DM. He should know that the one warlock with a couple veterans (CR 3) is much more believable, and something like four veterans, a gladiator, and the warlock might have been a much more believable set of enemies to face. The mage might have an apprentice and two hired bodyguards rather than being an archmage, or might have a bound elemental or demon servitor to defend him. It's difficult to point out NPC powers that I don't know about, but I do try to point out some of the stuff most of the time if it'd make an easy fight harder. I could also try to point out that doing 4 easier combats will drain resources so it's useful to utilize that in the right context, and that random encounters on the road in 5e just serve to bog the game down.

Backgrounds and personal characteristics for a weekend in hell: Running Ravenloft

This is my second rodeo running a 5e Ravenloft game, which is slightly surprising since I wasn't the hugest fan of the setting in those halcyon days of 2nd edition in the 90s. And for a second time, I'm left with a bit of awkwardness as the PCs have minimal background and the adventure truly doesn't foster any roleplaying background. This isn't necessarily odd for one-shots in general, for shorter games, a character's backstory doesn't come into play much. But it is a little disappointing and I wanted to have characters with a few more ties to the setting/adventure. Unlike a dungeon where I can simply say the noble's family had some interaction with it, or that it was a haven for criminals, the weekend-in-hell style of Ravenloft really prohibits that a bit.

I explicitly told players they could (and perhaps should) swap any languages granted by their background for tool proficiencies, and I'm sure the players can manage to play up their backgrounds as criminals, nobles, outlanders, or entertainers. So what I'm going to focus on here are the personal characteristics that 5e uses.

I know the antagonizer and I have discussed how we find these personal characteristics disappointing by the book, since many of the examples in the Player's Handbook seem to blur the lines between these nebulous categories as well as encourage conflict within the party. But it's by-the-book 5e and that's mostly what I'm going with here.

With Curse of Strahd, I asked everyone to roll on the Harrowing Event from the haunted one background. This provided some minimal links for a party of monster hunters. For The Evil Eye, we didn't go so far as that much planning ahead and we took the first hour of chitchat time to finish characters. I knew this was happening, so I fleshed out my idea to use the Tarokka cards a bit. I dealt each character one card from the high deck and asked them to use one of the two personal characteristics associated with the card. These were ideals, bonds, or flaws based on the card's theme. For example:

These turned out to be a bit more generic than I had imagined, and as they're random I didn't make enough that were specific to this adventure. Since the beast wasn't drawn, it's cat-based option won't be coming into play. Since the cat-bond was an option anyway, there was no guarantee it would even come into play ever, which makes for some bad design. But, I can totally re-use them later with minimal updating (like removing the overly specific cat aspect). With just these three, you can see that they could use some revision anyway. The Raven was the hardest card to do, and the choice is really about whether you want that as an ideal or flaw. I thought the beast and innocent were a bit better by getting two different aspects of the theme in there. Since I'm also using the high deck to track inspiration (giving players a bonus d6 on their roll if they get their card), this adds some utility to the Tarokka deck that I bought but also reminds the players of this somewhat creepy setting element. [Aside: I know I used Tarokka cards to track inspiration for Curse of Strahd in a similar way, but for the life of me I can't find any notes on how I did it. So this is a bit of a rehash somehow.]

Ideally, this system would have mimicked more closely Appendix A from the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, which I was disappointed wasn't reused in future WotC adventures. Lost Mines of Phandelver does this slightly with the pre-generated PCs, not with personal characteristics, but giving a minor backstory with a clear goal. I may have failed a bit in this attempt with The Evil Eye, but succeeded in coming up with some options to use the Tarokka deck in future Ravenloft games. 

Water is a terrible element (yet its still my favorite despite being horribly suboptimal in D&D)

While nominally working on my Al-Qadim Church game (I was also tinkering with some 5e stuff for the Princes of the Apocalypse game I'm playing in and working on a secret project), I've been going through a lot of old and new D&D stuff looking at water spells. My conclusion: no one can write a decent water spell to save their lives.

First problem: what sort of damage does water do? You can't really have a water elementalist without enough water spells, but you also can't really have a water elementalist in 5e without those spells doing damage. The Elemental Evil Player's Companion addresses this a bit by adding some spells that do bludgeoning damage. That makes sense: you conjure a big pile of water and whump someone with it. There was an old water blast in Al-Qadim as well, which is just a big spray of water (generally to the face). Unlike fire, however, there's really only one or two big watery face-blasts you can get away with it seems. Thus far one of my favorites is called Cone of Teeth from 2nd edition, where your watery blast takes the form of shark's teeth and rends your enemies.

Second problem: If you're not conjuring water, you're restricted to natural bodies of water. So many spells involve letting things normally on land bypass or function under water. Maybe you need to float or swim or breathe or see in the water? There's a spell for that, and a water elementalist can surely cast it. Possibly a couple different versions of it.

Third problem: Mist/fog is water, but its also air. A lot of the fog spells are listed as both air and water, and its easy to see why. Rain and weather are a combo of the two elements. So, for better or for worse, air and water need to share some spells or you have to decide to try to limit your possibly spells by restricting things to one or the other element. Related: does waterbreathing fall under air or water, or should there be a distinction between water breathing and lasting breath spells?

Fourth problem: ships are both air and water, but also neither. Ship spells are another issue all together. A lot of water spells are found in ship/pirate type games and supplements because it makes sense that they'd be useful in the setting. But is a spell to conjure rigging really a water spell? What about one that strengthens or weakens a ship's hull? Some of the ship spells are even nonsensical if you consider a water-wizard or water-sorcerer to be a "sea" type. Sea things often include storms and ships, by why the heck would a storm-sorcerer have the power to weaken a hull or conjure rigging with their innate magic? Why would a sea wizard gain any benefit for casting those spells which seem like tangentally related spells?

Fifth problem: Ice. Ice is the easy way out. Sure it makes a little sense since water is actually ice, but not when a water elementalist's primary means of attack is doing cold damage with a frostbite spell or a cone of cold. I certainly don't think a pirate in an Arabian Adventure (or, honestly, pirates in general) should be using Ice Knife and Snilloc's Snowball Swarm as their primary offensive spells till they hit 5th level. Ice sure can make for a nicely thematic set of spells though, especially if you add in wind/weather (and maybe some enchantments and northern lights type spells).

Sixth problem: Conjuration or Transmutation (or Evocation)? Related to the second problem, you can easily make many a water spell a conjuration and then you have no ridiculous need to cast it in/near a body of water. This could be the case with so many spells that it blurs the artifical lines between the codified 8 schools of magic in D&D. In 5e I can really see why they remove a lot of those sorts of limits in spells so tidal wave and wall of water don't need to rely on the surrounding environment. Still, if the schools weren't such a big thing it might be nice for them to get a boost in power when cast in the right environment.

So, what's the verdict? Its hard to concoct some original water spells. I bet everyone could come up with about a 6-12 fairly distinct ones (depending on the granularity) but everyone will basically cover the same ground with their water spells (stay dry, go underwater, get over the water, blast of water, something ice, something fog, manipulate the current/flow...). So I'm left with a few different feelings on this. One can either stretch the definitions of water a bit (and if you do that, why not add in a scalding steam spell alongside a bit of ice and fog), or accept the fact that if a player wants a water elementalist its part of the DM's job to ensure the setting supports water (i.e. ships or rivers will be involved). The latter is a bit unsatisfying, so maybe there's a few more ways one can make spells which are thematically watery (a spell that smooths and polishes objects, or alternately bloats and cracks them; scrying in a pool of water) that can be used to expand the list a bit.

Side note: all the elements are a bit repetitive, but somehow air, earth, and fire ones don't seem quite as bad. 

Homebrewing: Then and Now

Obviously, one thing I love about RPGs is the ability for the players to add to them. You can't just take a computer RPG and add new classes or spells or even new levels readily. Since time immemorial I've been finding cool things from Dragon Magazine to add to a game, or crafting new white necromancy for that old Giovanni larp. The rules need interpretations at times, and often minor fixes though it is easy to go overboard. Now we've got a glorious new SRD that lets anyone play with (most of) the 5e rules, and the Dungeon Master's Guild which lets you use all the rules and (for now) Forgotten Realms intellectual property to publish your own nonsense. So yesterday started a new golden era...

But new D&D is distinctly harder to homebrew than old D&D. And some of that is design philosophy.

When someone on the internet asks how to bring specialty priests back into Swords and Wizardry, my answer is simple: if you're not taking someone else's specialty priest options, just modify the spell list slightly. Remove 1-2 spells per spell level from the generic cleric list to get rid of all the non-generic miracles, then add a spell or two per level back to the list to make specialty priests unique. Steal the domain from 3rd edition and now your fire priest can cast burning hands and flame blade, no real need for special powers beyond that. But you could remove/alter turn undead if you really felt it was needed to make the class unique.

Making specialty priests for third edition was actually similarly simple: just a new domain as needed (similarly not 100% satisfying, but meh). But domains now are much more difficult. 4e required you to concoct two dozen powers to make a full class build, which is untenable. 13th Age is—lamentably—a bit similar in its complexity. I imagine the complexity of classes in 13th age is why the 13th Age in Glorantha has been delayed.  5e scales that back a little, but its still not necessarily easy to modify classes (races aren't as bad because they don't affect your character as much).

So the new homebrew takes a lot of work, unfortunately. Clerics don't just get a few bonus spells, but first, sixth, and 17th level granted powers and I've never played the game that high in level to really have a good idea what a 17th level granted power ought to do.

There's another aspect of homebrew that's weird with modern D&D, which is that we're finally homebrewing non-casters. I guess you can make a swashbuckler class for Swords & Wizardry, but the breadth of classes like fighter and thief/rogue make that a bit odd, whereas one can always dream up another wizard or priest option. This is why I really think that wizards and priests need a bit more work, as their rules really impact the game world. Until third edition, almost all spell casters in D&D cast their spells in exactly the same way. Sure, we can replace old school spell mechanics with something a bit different, like the Sha'ir method, Runecasters, or something from Spells & Magic, and that's great. Unfortunately, in 5e we cant easily change how spells work, and each class needs new abilities at each and every level (excepting when spellcasters gain a new spell level, that apparently counts as a noticeable power bump).

So what's this really mean?

Because I like rules to reflect the setting, particularly with magic, D&D needs a bit of houserules and homebrew to really make it shine. Things like channel divinity make it hard(er?) to use the cleric class to represent priests who don't serve deities, and spells on bards, paladins, and rangers make it harder to use those classes in a low-magic setting.

Old D&D is still the easiest to homebrew, meaning I like it a bit better. I think my ideal D&D would take some of the simplifications of basic D&D and 5e, mixing them with some of the dice technology of 13th Age and the audacity of 2nd Edition. Basically an AD&D 3rd edition. With the new SRD someone could, perhaps, make much of that happen. But I'm still excited for the new 5e stuff, which could help fix a few of my issues with the game and (hopefully) produce a lot of good content.

Fixing D&D 5th Editon

Things I want to fix in 5e – A minor rant / thought catalogue:

1) Barbarians. The class should be called berserker, because that's what it is. It also opens up a bit more space to make a religious dervish berserker option as well as fixing a few lackluster elements.

2) Clerics. This class works well for good deities, but I wish domain were separate from vocation, so we could have a crusader of Moradin, a theurge of Moradin, a prophet of Moradin, and an evangelist of Moradin.

3) Rogues. They need a feature that rewards dagger use or else we need to differentiate weapons better. A general +1 to hit with daggers might suffice, but every rogue wants a rapier and hand crossbow just because anything else is stupid. Alternately, daggers and short swords just need some crazy bonus properties and the like.

4) Sorcerer and Warlock. There should be a mechanism to reward these classes for sticking to thematic spells. I'm not sure what it would be, but if you're consciously restricting yourself to a very thematic list a bonus spell known might be a nice reward. I had considered: remove 50% of the spells from your class list at each level for one bonus first level spell, but I'm not quite sure that would be the best way to do it.

5) Useful ability scores. Intelligence is a shit score in this edition. The same can be said of strength, mostly. Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma are almost always a dump stat. Dexterity is still stupidly potent, wisdom and constitution are just generically useful for most characters, and constitution, at least, will seldom be dumped because no one wants a penalty to their HP.

6) Useless ribbons. The elf and dwarf racial weapon ribbons are almost useless. They don't help the warrior types at all (who already have the weapons) and any class that dumps strength (wizard, sorcerer) will find them next to useless as they'll go to great lengths to avoid using them. The only real exception are classes that fight with simple weapons, like the cleric or druid because they might possibly have the stats to use them in melee. Allowing the trained weapons to count as finesse weapons might help, as dexterity-based characters might use them, as well as opening up a few more options for rogues.

7) Spell leveling. A lot of spells need to level more, with simple duration increases, or possibly eliminating the need for concentration eventually (even if its just a slot of 6th level or higher). This is a great idea, just not quite universally applied (you find it always on combat spells, occasionally on utilities). I suspect its easier to have the formula for combat spells, and leaving it off of utilities makes things simpler and requires less space in the book.

8) Spell versatility. There's a good number of spells which can and will have creative uses, and I think a number of them are obvious. What if I ready create water for when an enemy casts a fire spell? Can calm emotions affect a barbarian's rage? Can I use featherfall on an boulder about to hit me? Some of these are relatively obvious, and once a DM makes a ruling there's a new use for that spell for the entire campaign. A few guidelines or basic rules might help make those rulings.

9) Working modular dials. Many of the DMG options for hacking the system seem half-baked (group initiative, removing skills, etc.). It would be nice to have at least one well-thought-out option for these, though reasonably speaking there's probably 2-3 ways to implement a lot of those things. Altering the rests/healing seems to be the best of the options, but there's not really things for lowering the level of magic or fantastic in the game.

10) Updates for previous settings. Sure, I can run old modules with 5th edition rules, but each of the old settings could use a few things to help out. Obviously each setting could have its own book, but a simple 16-32 page book of a few crunchy updates would really help. I'd pay for the print-on-demand softcover, probably multiple times.

The greatest old school spells (low levels) and dreams of a better system.

Now that I'm running an Al-Qadim Church for SundAD&D morning fun, its feeling pretty crazy to explore some of the brokenness that was old school D&D. Obviously we're doing it with some mid-to-late second edition material, but its is crazy seeing some of these hidden gems.

1) Animal Friendship. Traditionally a druid spell, but it turns out any specialty priest with the animal sphere gets it. This is a set of permanent animal companions, whose total hit dice is less than twice your level. You do need to train them tricks if you want them to do more than follow you around friendly-style. The animals won't be your friend if you have ulterior/sinister motives, but basically its a huge pile of semi-competent companions. Good uses thus far: big cat than can shred goblins. Good suggested uses thus far: guards to stand watch at camp (especially at night) and something small/quick that can fetch things. There's probably a lot more uses, but eventually one or two combat creatures plus one to master each other trick sounds pretty reasonable to me.

2) Charm person. The duration is measured in weeks. And this is a step down from permanent in the Swords & Wizardry book (which I assume is faithful to the original edition). In my game calendar, I have to roll a bunch of saves to see how long folks will be charmed and I'll mark it off when we come to that date. This means if a character of average intelligence is charmed for about 1-4 weeks for each failed save, and the save for 0-level characters is a 19+ on a d20. Still less broken than permanent, but I literally now have a day log so I can eventually decide when NPCs break the charm.

3) Goodberry. This second level spell belongs to druids too, and is a nifty way for them to provide some food or minor healing to the party. The Antagonizer pointed out that the spell seems to need fresh berries, so I guess this is mostly going to be things on the vine from now on, but I also have to keep track of how many berries were made on which day. I think, perhaps, I'll need to start sharing my calendar with the PCs so they can more easily keep track of some of these things. I did decide to enforce that goodberries will first function as rations before doing healing, but only if its actually been 24 hours or so since the last meal (i.e. you don't need to have one for breakfast before you can get healed, though that'd be another good ruling). We're playing in a jungly setting, but I suppose maybe there could still be a winter-ish month where berries are out of season.

4) Armor. Thankfully it doesn't actually stack with actual armor, but it does stack with physical shields (not the spell) and dexterity, and it lasts for a long-ass time till you start taking damage. This spell is definitely saving the collective asses of the players, but they're all restricted in their armor somewhat (specialty priest, or multiclass wizard or thief).

5) Sleep. I knew it was good, but it can basically take out a couple low-level goblins like none other. I'm waiting for the PCs to use it for a hunting spell (sleep on a flock of game fowl?) or some other good uses, but even just putting one or two guards to sleep is pretty amazing.

6) Entangle. This is another druid spell that the specialty priest has, but its basically stopping creatures in their tracks. Because its a huge radius, its stopped a couple encounters right away. Rereading this, I think the creatures aren't effectively paralyzed, so next time I think the party will need to expect a few missile attacks or creatures struggling to free themselves (probably depending on the weapons creature have and the plants in the area), but even if the creatures might get missile attacks this spell is pretty great.

-1) Ventriloquism. Not really a great spell, but I managed a pretty fun encounter with it because it was the only spell the enemy wizard could cast. Obviously he's going to use it as best he can, even if his goblin allies didn't get a surprise round.

These have been the big-use spells thus far (minus ventriloquism), but I expect some others eventually. One disappointment is that I think other low-level spells would be a lot more enticing if their durations were a bit longer to begin with and didn't creep as much. A lot could be something like one hour plus 1 turn per level, and they'd actually be pretty competitive with some of the ones listed above. Invisibility to Undead, for example, lasts a flat six rounds and never improves.

To be fair, some of the lackluster spells of 5e suffer this problem as well. A lot of them simply don't scale with higher slots, and I'd love to re-write some to do this. Things like Invisibility and Greater Invisibility should just be combined into one spell, for example. I'm just yearning to use Create Water to flood things in my 5e game, but that's in part because I once won a 2nd edition gladiator game with the spell when my 30+ level wizard cast it once or twice to flood our arena (8 feet of water really puts a damper on the dwarf warrior). Also, by the book, the 5e version of Create Water fills a container, dramatically lessening its use potentially. I like the precision of 5e, but sometimes things like spells attacking a creature really rubs me the wrong way.

Ultimately, I'm really liking some of the clunkiness of these old school spells. As I do this a bit more I think I'd love a game that is a bit more of a blend of old school stuff with 5e. I like some of the simplicity of how 5e has a nice handful of conditions which don't really overlap, but I also like how the old school spells leave a lot more room for interpretation (I like the reaction mechanic of 5e and would love to see feather fall be able to stop missile attacks mid-flight). I like how the old school game is decidedly lower-powered at low levels so far and its fairly gritty. While I love warlocks and sorcerers, I really love how I can hand out spellbooks to PC wizards to give them things to find and potentially add to their list of powers. I also like how not everyone has to have magic. I suppose there's always room to tinker. I do like 5e, but wish it had skewed a little more old school or that those modular dials that were touted could be turned down from Heroic a bit more. I might have to look at some other OSR games and see what's best to steal from them eventually, but I think this Al-Qadim game, crazy old school spells and all, will keep my attention for a quite a while still.

Gussying up the Kenku

I had decided I'd attempt to monster gussy creatures I actually encountered in my 5e Princes of the Apocalypse game, and we finally (this was the fourth session maybe?) fought something that wasn't just people or undead people: Kenku!

Now, to be honest, we took out four of them with two sleep spells so we barely saw anything particularly kenku about these kenku, but I haven't gotten a chance to do this yet so I'm starting at a suboptimal place. Also, I suspect there'll be more kenku to fight eventually.

Flipping to the 5e entry for Kenku, we immediately see they're 100% lackluster. They gain advantage against surprised creatures (had to look that up as I figured everyone might) and the ability to mimic any sound they've heard. Otherwise, they're basically gypsy goblins that don't really talk.

Language rant: its pretty outrageous/implausible that creatures (as a race) can understand languages but cannot speak them. Individuals with speech deficits, sure. As a race which can mimic any sound they've ever heard, why they wouldn't communicate with efficient language rather than some crazy pantomime is stupid. In fact, its likely that with a vocal tract that can really mimic sounds well, they'd have a language that's truly baffling in the number of subtle distinctions in speech sounds; an agglutinating language with monosyllabic words comes to mind as things like tone, voice quality, and a large array of consonant clusters are all possible. So first fix: kenku can't understand language either. A bit reminiscent of how I'm imagining treating orcs and the like in my vision of the Empire of Man.

Now that that's out of the way, we have boring, featureless bird-like humanoids with an interesting quirk of language making them a little reminiscent of the Dabus of Planescape fame. But what will make them better?

There's a few more things ravens/crows are kinda known for: pecking out eyes and stealing glittery things (we've already got mimicry down). Unfortunately Kenku (or Tengu as they're known in Pathfinder) don't have a 13th Age entry anywhere as far as I can find. They're known as Ravenfolk in the Midgard campaign setting, and I have the 13th Age version of the Midgard Bestiary, but Ravenfolk're only presented as a PC option, not a monster to do battle with.

So without further ado, here's a couple abilities to tack on:

TuesD&D Recap I: First session thoughts

So I joined a D&D 5e campaign on Tuesdays, we'll see if it lasts. The DM is running Princes of the Apocalypse, which makes it difficult for me because I have to not read the book I have. Oh well. Here's his mistakes thus far.

First mistake: I am chaotic neutral apparently. Despite my thoughts that maybe I'd be Lawful Evil at the beginning and transition to something more good. He basically told me my character is chaotic neutral. My character is a warlock, former pirate captain who was captured by Blunanda, Kelp Queen of the Sargasso sea. She forces me to do her bidding because she's got my lover captured in her shipwreck castle, and it pleases her to watch the evil pirate do good. Also I've been replaced by some changeling fetch, so there's still a Captain Glafiro sailing the sword coast and causing trouble. I'm playing the character as an evil dick who's being forced into do-goodery and is suspicious that the Kelp Queen is watching over his shoulder constantly. And I'm arbitrarily Chaotic Neutral.

Second mistake: He's enthusiastic, but probably hasn't played this new edition much. The first encounter he gave us an NPC light cleric of St. Cuthbert (we're in the forgotten realms, that's a greyhawk deity). So that seems wrong to me, not just the mixing of D&D worlds (which isn't a huge deal) but also feeling like we need a healer NPC. Ick. And he's somehow a NPC with the healer feat at first level. Double ick for us not needing to worry about healing ever apparently.

Third mistake: My crazy wizard eyes didn't see the zombie coming. He gave us a level up midway through the first session, so I obviously take the detect magic at-will warlock invocation. I'm actively detecting magic when we investigate this body lying on the ground, nothing. No faint aura of necromancy, just flat out nothing. 5e is a game with a lot of silly little absolutes, so I was a little miffed at this.

Anyway, I'm picking on the dude but the rest was actually pretty good. I hope he can keep all the NPCs and locations clear and distinct, cause this might be a fun little sandbox for the Captain to explore.

New DMs fucking things up before we start...

So I'm travelling for a conference but see this message about a new D&D game that's starting up that I was going to play:

For those of you wanting to roll up a character, use a 16,14,12,12,10, 8 point spread. Place them where appropriate. If anyone needs help rolling up a character, message me.

Now... WTF? Dude admits he hasn't played/run this edition before and is already mucking up the 15,14,13,12,10,8 stats the book recommend? So here's my thinking.

1) By giving me a 16 it does open up all races to all classes. So that Aarakocra or Lizardman diviner might be a bit more appealing.

2) However, that makes the +2 to an ability score super powerful as now I can start with an 18. +4 to hit, +4 to damage on all my attacks is nice.

3) And that +1 from my race is basically useless. Like non-variant humans, who get +1 to everything, or Half-Elves who get +1 to two different abilities in addition to the +2 charisma

4) High scores mean feats will be important. Because if I were a half-elf warlock and start with a 18 charisma, I can only take one charisma boost, the rest might as well be feats.

5) I kinda do things like this too maybe, but I don't think I'd change the basic stat array. More likely to modify spell lists or something. I'd like to think that I'm more aware of the consequences of doing things like this though.

And these are the things going through my brainpan. It seems particularly true in 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions where ability scores are huge, but it is really odd how just seeing one little set of numbers starts me along the lines of: maybe that Aarakocra Diviner isn't such a bad option afterall.

Random Stats: Story vs Creativity vs Math

As I'm gearing up to try to run a game or two, I've been thinking of how to generate ability scores. For my tentative 2nd Edition Al-Qadim game, I've got the following penciled in:

Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die in order for each ability score. If you are human, you may rearrange them in any order you choose. You must fit race and class minimums and maximums for any given score.

This gives us randomness while, at the same time allowing people to play the class they desire at the cost of an interesting race. I waffle over whether to somehow encourage a few other races by allowing them one ability swap to a "favored class" sort of thing: something like an elf may swap Intelligence with one other score, a dwarf may swap strength with one other score, a halfling may swap dexterity with one other score, etc. "Rare" races could be not allowed a swap so you either pick the race you want or the best class but not both. Less relevant for a game with a limited slate of races than an open-ended game like 4e which had a Mos Eisley cantina of races.

I like the idea of random ability scores, but the post third-edition math makes rolling potentially really bad. That is to say, a few high scores can be slightly unbalancing, whereas older editions didn't assume you'd have particularly high scores at all.

Now, I wouldn't encourage rolling abilities for anything third edition or later. The bonuses are just too important. One high stat can make a great OSR character, but you're not hindered by mediocre stats.

What's the benefit of randomness? I think, beyond some fetish for tradition and dice rolling, I think it forces a little creativity. We often let players make characters ahead of time, or else they have ideas of what they want to make before arriving at the table. But once you're stating at a 16 strength and 12 intelligence you've got a choice: Do I make the wizard I want who struggles with wizardry, or pick the fighter because I've got the stats for it? Because fewer things are based on stats in older versions of D&D, you can make a 12 intelligence wizard who is relatively functional. You cannot do that in modern editions of the game.

However. Some of the randomness may come at a price. Namely, it may be best to start with a coherent party rather than character concepts. And once the players decide they want to be crusaders fighting against demonic old gods and founding a new city to dedicated to their ideals... Those paladin-preventing scores could be rough. If I'm asking players to decide before they create characters what sort of alignment or ideals the party might have, that may limit some character options that randomness would encourage or possibly discourage.

I'm hoping my rule above has struck a reasonable balance. By allowing humans to swap scores around, it allows people to be the rarer classes of their choosing. It also will make demihumans less common: non-humans are more likely to have unexpected high and low ability scores for their class which or the player might opt for a class that fits the race better.

One possible problem I see, however, is that 2nd edition (like pretty much all editions) needs a healer. It may be beyond randomness in character creation though. If no one rolls well for wisdom or wants to be a priest, there's not many healing options. I'm hoping to alleviate this decision by including the Spells & Magic crusader and monk (revised as Dervish) alongside the more native Al-Qadim classes. I.e. more priest choices so one might be more appealing to players.

None of this, however, deals with the problems of a possible 5e game though. If you roll 4d6 drop the lowest the average character will have at least a 15 as their highest score and its reasonably likely to having between a 14 and 17 as their highest on either end of the probabillity curve. These numbers are high at low levels, but the cap at 20 probably helps. Most ability scores will end up 9-15 (within one standard deviation of the mean of 12.2), which is at least in a reasonable range for modern D&D. Maybe its not worth worrying about it and using the same rule will be fine. Or maybe the rule should only be by-the-book humans rather than variant humans. But here's the real problem: low scores aren't a huge deal in second edition, but in modern editions (including 13th Age) they are.

Low scores can be damning in modern editions. The fact that the 13th Age designers hadn't encountered characters with a negative constitution modifier before making the necromancer in 13 True Ways highlights this. Stats under 8 make for some really shitty characters. This is obviously mitigated by point-buy options, but rolling a 6 isn't going to be super uncommon.

The possible answer: Modify the rule above to allow humans to choose the standard array. This would ensure no PCs have crazy low stats, but doesn't prevent luck from giving someone three 17s, which are bumped up by the chosen race. I might just have to live with a little luck, I suppose, unless I want all the characters to include no randomness whatsoever. And I like how my rule encourages humans at any rate.

I suppose I could reduce the role of luck by changing the rolling method if there's a point buy backup for humans. 3d6 in order, or 3d6 twice in order might do. There's still a chance that luck will grant an exceptional character to one player while the others rely on a point buy.

One possible problem remains with randomness: The players decide on a mercenary party attempting to raid the tombs of old gods to find the wealth needed to found a new city and rule over it, yet one player rolls perfect paladin or monk stats. Maybe that's just a roleplaying or creativity challenge if the player really wants to play the character they rolled who doesn't quite fit the party. Or maybe the party needs to be designed at the same time as ability scores are rolled.

Ultimately, I still like my rule. Modulo it might need to be adapted for a specific version of the game and specific racial desiderata. Minimums or rearranging ought to prevent absolutely useless characters, and randomness can nicely constrain creativity. However, it means one does need to tread carefully with the party story perhaps.

Gussying up monsters (the Ogre!) and crits

The Antagonizer lamented that running 5e monsters was a bit lackluster compared to 13th Age or Dungeon World. Like: he wanted an ogre to grab two PCs and smash them together, giving me a vague impression of that scene from the Avengers where Hulk whips Loki around like a rag doll. So obviously I challenged him to a contest of gussying up some of the basic monsters in D&D. I sorta said I'd work on the Ogre. This has definitely sprawled beyond the Ogre, but I think in a good way. Ultimately my thoughts have moved a lot more to critical hits and fumbles over fixing the Ogre, it seems.

But I said I'd do the Ogre, so here's some thoughts. Also we've now agreed that we should both write up our thoughts separately on this topic, so I'll come back to this after I read what the Antagonizer has written. tl;dr: There's stuff for ctitical hits and additions to the Ogre at the bottom.

First up, 5e Ogres are boring, but 13th Age ones aren't all the inspiring to me. Though I do like a few of the story implications of 13th Age ogres, the stats are still a bit lackluster even with the rock-solid—if not completely incredible—13th Age Bestiary.

Second up, I want to respect the rules lawyers out there. Being a bit of one myself, I totally understand wanting to know how I escape the ogre's grapple. So the restriction I've got here is one that keeps the basic combat rules intact, but adds a few options. So this can't be full-on Dungeon World style narration where anything goes.

Third up, gussying up combat might have some interactions with critical hits and weapon properties that I've toyed with before.

Fourth up, there is no fourth. All hail discordia. Or some nonsense like that.

Mechanical and Narrative Options
So gussying up the Ogre. What you really want is something that makes combat more interesting by adding complications in:

• Dungeon World does this by giving mechanical and/or narrative penalties for failed rolls (you attack the Ogre but roll low, so it damages you or knocks you prone) and bonuses for high rolls (sweeping attack, you damage the ogre and knock it perilously close to the cliff's edge).
• 13th Age (often, but somewhat irregularly) does this by using the technology of the d20. Low rolls against certain creatures open you up for attacks or effects, natural odd/even results can trigger secondary attacks or less common effects (essentially replacing generic: it hits you, save vs whatever to avoid some condition), and sometimes specific numbers (a generic high roll of 18+, natural 2, natural 5, 10, and 15) can also trigger effects. This makes 13th Age a bit more exciting for the GM because you don't know when a creature will unleash its bigger power, and makes combat a bit more random. Its a little unevenly applied in some monsters get this treatment and some don't, and some get a lot more of it than others.
• 4th Edition did it by adding rider effects to just about all your powers. Damage wasn't the only thing you did, but you also moved creatures about and inflicted conditions. Now 13th Age does that a little bit as well, but 4e really made tactical combat shine. And, I suspect for some, changed the game a lot beyond just "I hit it with my axe." Before 4th edition (and the 3rd edition Book of Nine Swords, I'll wager) this sort of awesome combat was largely found in indie games. Now it's becoming necessary in the mainstream stuff.

So what we want is a way to add in some of these mechanical and flavorful benefits into 5e or even OSR combats. I think we see the lack of this in the 5e Critical Hit rules.

Critical Hits
In 5e, these simply do double damage dice on a nat 20. How unexciting is that? I think the 4e method was slightly better: max damage plus maybe an extra die. Thing is, people like rolling dice but double dice is statistically equivalent to max damage in terms of averages, but has lackluster low possibilities (2 damage on a crit?!?) and unbalancing highs (one attack is effectively two really powerful blows). I've mused before (though apparently not written about?) altering critical hits to include some of these tactical options. Like: a crit can either do max damage or you get to shove the enemy and do normal damage. I included this as an option in some weapon properties (disarming, sundering, tripping) to make combat more interesting.

One could make a table of these sorts of effects:

1. Knock the opponent back
2. Knock the opponent prone
3. Disarm the opponent
4. Sunder the opponents weapon
5. Sunder the opponents shield
6. Sunder the opponents helmet or +1d6 damage
7. Grapple the opponent
8. Inflict a level of exhaustion

Ultimately it might be satisfying if the ogre could grab or knock back an opponent (or some other weapon-appropriate option), but crits are pretty rare. And an extra table roll for a crit isn't a huge game stopper, but if we want this to be flavorful and more common than a natural 20 you don't want to always roll on the table.

Interestingly, you can make this happen twice as often simply by allowing the effects to happen when the opponent rolls a natural 1 as well. So now we're getting into a 10% chance that some of these effects are going off, even if the players are benefiting from them quite a bit as well as the enemies. No longer is that natural 1 just some random "You horribly miss" but "You leave an opening, the ogre uses its reaction to grab you."

Templates for creatures
One idea to apply a 13th age style mechanic to creatures is by adding templates. These were a third edition idea where you simply increase the power of a monster and likewise increase their challenge rating and XP value. So we could give our Grabby Ogre the ability to get a free grapple in on a successful even attack, and when an opponent is grappled the Grabby Ogre gets the ability to fling the opponent 10' feet (preferably into a wall or an ally). Given that this is random though, and that the ogre would need to survive for about 3 rounds to have a good chance of having this go off (and the PC probably gets one chance to escape the grab), I'm not sure it really necessitates modifying the XP values in this case, but if you add in something else it might. Like if this were instead a scourge-wielding priest of Ishishtu who is knocking players prone on a field of caltrops on natural even hits... You can see why this might be something to consider in encounter building if you're the type to actually count XP or even just want to inform PCs that "It is obvious that... you are outmatched in this fight."

But assuming we want to go the template route, I think it follows on those weapon properties to some extent. We can build a few templates that can be applied to give 13th Age style mechanics to these creatures. Like:

Grabby X.
Natural Even Hit - Target is grappled. (Limit the number of grapples by the creature's number of appendages probably).

If you have a grappled target, you can make the Dirty Hands attack.
Natural Even Hit - Squeeze the target for extra damage and inflict a level of exhaustion.
Natural Odd Hit - Fling the target at a nearby ally. If you hit, both take X damage.
Miss - Fling the target 10' away, can make a dex save to avoid X damage.

Scourge-weilding X
Natural even hit - Free grapple
Advantage when knocking grappled targets prone. Target takes normal damage from attempt.

Avoiding the Rules Lawyers (a.k.a. Nastier Specials)

I would apply these templates post hoc and liberally. First off, many humanoids will be equipped with weapons and should benefit from the same types of weapon properties the PCs get. So you can easily apply a Pokey X template to the three orcs with spears (meaning maybe they get to be 3 abreast in the 10' corridor because they're using spears rather than big axes). You might not describe the weapons of each combatant at first, so just deciding to give someone a Sundering Axe midway through combat isn't the worst. You can also just apply a template when a creature is enraged (or bloodied?), so the ogre could be grabby once it gets disarmed or gets hit by that annoying ranger. I'd just be careful to remember that I decided that this combat I've got a Grabby Ogre that uses odd numbers because that's when I decided to apply the template.

Its also important, I think, that these templates only change the rules for monsters. That is, they do get a chance to escape the grapple or maybe a dex save to avoid being tossed off the edge of a tower. Because you want to know what your character can be expected to do and you want to be able to possibly minimize some effects that you hate.

Some effects may be better off as the PC makes a save after each attack, such as poison. Dwarves get a bonus against poison, and if I played a dwarf I'd like to make use of that. So that's not as good of an option as knocking someone back, disarming them, or sundering gear. Extra rolls can slow things down, but in the case of poison and dwarves, its worth it to show off how awesome dwarves are. This might also apply in other cases, such as frosty enemies slowing you down or whatnot.

Types of effects to apply

So what types of effects can be readily used and reused?

Forced movement & prone. A staple of 4e, but I'd restrict it to shorter (5'-10'?) increments in theatre of the mind in general: some of those 4e effects could be ridiculous (beguiling strands pushing opponents 25-feet!?!). Falling rules can be applied in terms of giving additional damage as needed.

Grapple. There are already monsters in the book who auto-grapple on a hit. Gives PCs a chance to waste some actions to attempt an escape as well, and those with athletics or acrobatics type proficiency get a chance to show off. Obviously restrained is harsher, so I'd reserve that for actual criticals maybe?

Sundering and disarming. I like these, just because it teaches players to carry a back-up and also changes the nature of the combat a bit. Obviously sundering is a bit toucher compared to disarming, and would be possibly quite harsh with magic items. It might be worth saving sundering for real bad-asses and critical hits, or both of these for just natural 20 options. Then again that mending cantrip would easily fix a sundered weapon or shield, and who ever thinks mending would be a useful cantrip to have in combat? Given that this is a special action for PCs though, it seems a little less appropriate for villains unless they're wielding crazy special weapons (flindbars!!!) or are weapon masters. 

Exhaustion or wounds. I've considered using something like this with criticals in the past. Its a good way to remind PCs that combat is dangerous. These should be reserved for major bad asses though. Or possibly exhaustion for level-draining types of undead. Cause level drains are fucking nasty, but exhaustion at least is kinda similar. Aside: Obviously I think the exhaustion rules might be a good way to simulate some lingering injuries, but it may require a bit more thought.

Blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned. Sure, but it probably needs a end of the round or save ends thing. Also not at all sure what creatures would apply these effects, they're probably already built into the creatures.

Paralyzed, petrified. I feel like these effects are probably already integrated into the creatures in question by and large, more so than the others.

Poisoned. Again I really feel that, since dwarves get advantage on saves against poison it should require a save.

Difficult terrain. Don't overlook changing the battlefield. But I wouldn't let the monsters do this in ways that PCs can't (i.e. no free overturning bookcases generally) but maybe some that leave huge footprints or trails of slime...

Reduced movement. That ray of frost spell does it, so I don't see why some monsters couldn't reduce your movement. Though again... harder to imagine when to use this.

Looking at all these effects we can kinda categorize them into a two groups: normal and unusual. Forced movement, Prone, Grapple, Sunder/Disarm, and maybe exhaustion are pretty normal. You can imagine these happening a lot. They're good candidates for templates. But Heck, even a slime trail template could involve leaving oozy puddles for difficult terrain. The others though: particularly petrified and paralyzed, are poor choices for these templates. They require really specialized monsters (medusa, basilisk, etc.) and are already built into the design for those creatures.

So a lot of this kinda comes down to a few normal-ish monsters doing many of the same normal-ish things.

The end game
I'm looking at a two-way solution here which involves critical hits and fumbles, but also possibly 13th Age style templates. I'm eager to see if the Antagonizer came up with some similar thoughts as I did, but I expect to revise some ideas after we bounce things around more.

First: On a critical hit or fumble, mirroring the weapon properties I advocated for earlier (whether they're whole-heartedly adopted or just ad-hoc adapted) I like the option of doing max damage or normal damage with the appropriate condition. These would be a free grapple, shove, disarm, shove aside, mark, tumble, or whatever attacks. Your weapon should take that into account, and canny players should ask things like "Can I do normal damage and also topple the bookcase over onto them?" I think you'd also make a ruling about whether things auto succeed or not based on how likely they are or if they do lots of effects. Like: knocking someone down with a whip or large staff seems like it'd happen no problem. Knocking someone down with a longsword or axe might require the roll. Knocking the bookcase over to block an escape or create rough terrain seems fine, knocking it onto the guy to possibly trap him or do extra damage might allow a save. The reverse should be allowed on a fumble: the knight fumbles his attack against the scourge-wielding priest and the priest gets to trip the knight. This may warrant a little revision of my weapon properties, like the sundering property activates on a 19 or 20, rather than just a 20. I can live with that probably.

In terms of fumbles, I like these less. So I'd generally advocate for something where the fumble involves a die roll (i.e. shooting into melee might force you to attack an ally) rather than simple bad things happening (your bow breaks). Also you may give the player an element of choice to avoid the fumble (you rolled a 1. Your shot is awful, you can either lose your successful attack against the ogre or you have to roll against the fighter). Still thinking about this a bit.

As an aside on probabilities, the third edition critical confirmation is actually genius, though it does slow things down. It takes actual critical hits from a flat 5% to 5% of hits, meaning they're much more common for fighters than wizards. In the flatter math world of 5e I'm not so sure it matters. Combat & Tactics gave crits on any natural 18+ that also beat the AC by 5 or more points which at least doesn't require another roll and eliminates the thing where you can only inflict critical hits against the dragon because you can't hit any other way.

Critical Hits. If you roll a natural 20 in combat, your attack deals either: a) maximum damage or b) normal damage and allows you to do something interesting. The DM may suggest some standard interesting things based on your weapons or spells (i.e. staves and flails tripping an opponent) or you can suggest something interesting yourself (i.e. disarming an opponent or knocking over a bookcase). The DM will tell you if your interesting thing will automatically succeed or if it may require a roll before hand so you may still opt for maximum damage instead.

Critical Fumbles. If you roll a natural 1 in combat, you've made a mistake. This may open you up for reactionary attacks from nearby enemies, force you to attack a different target, or make a save against some effect.

Second: Templates for more common effects. If you want a grabby ogre, or a slime that trails difficult terrain, or a frosty sword that slows enemies down... just let that happen on a natural even or odd. Well, ok, you might need to work out a slightly more complex template if you want to let the dice tell you what happens after he grabs you (rip off your helmet and try to eat your face!). But half a dozen templates or maybe even a dozen will probably go a long way and see lots of reusability. Even Grabby could be applied to the Orc when he's fighting the gnome and halfling!

So without further ado, additions to the Ogre's normal stat block based on the Grabby Hands template. I'm not 100% sure I like it all yet, but its a start and could be re-used for other creatures.

Actions:
Slam. Melee attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Natural Even Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage and the target is grabbed. Natural Odd Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage.

Dirty Hands. Melee attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one grappled target. Natural even hit: 13 (2d8+4 bludgeoning damage and inflict a level of exhaustion. Natural odd hit: Throw the target 10 ft, 15 (2d10+4) damage if the target hits a solid obstacle. If you fling the target into another creature the target takes half damage and that creature must make a dexterity save (DC 14) or take half damage. Miss: Fling the target up to 10 ft. Target must make a dexterity save (DC 14) or take 13 (2d8+4) damage.

Reactions:
Quick Grab. The ogre can make one grapple attack against one target within 5 ft. that rolls a natural 1.

The cleric is broken: or, how the eff do I give clerics (and others!) new spells...

I'll admit it: I legitimately believe that the 2nd edition specialty priest was one of the best forms of the Cleric class. But we live in a post third-edition world (and first-edition and before are part of that world too), and I have a legitimate dilemma. How the eff do I give clerics new spells..? (I've noted this before.)

Clerics, since time immemorial, have always had access to their entire spell list. The problem is that every book that expands the cleric spell list directly expands the cleric's versatility and therefore power. The conflict is: certain gods should grant certain spells, but the cleric class doesn't have a great mechanism for gods granting spells.

The genius of second edition (at least following on the heels of the 1st edition Dragonlance Adventures) was dividing cleric spells into spheres. You could easily assemble a list of spells known based on spheres, and new spells were simply added to the list of spheres. It wasn't perfect, but at least each book with new spells didn't automatically add to each priest's selection. And those that did add were reasonably appropriate.

Now, I wish 3rd and 5th edition had expanded domains a bit, such that each domain granted more than a couple spells at each level. Ultimately that would be like an expanded second edition sphere of all but more distinction between deities/domains. It still suffers because there's no way to grant appropriate spells to a cleric of Isis and not to a cleric of Horus or Set. The problem remains: expand the cleric list, you do it for all or none (or specifically just to a few).

So I'm considering running a 5th edition assorted Saturdays game here in faraway and need to decide how to integrate spells from the Elemental Evil stuff or the Necromancer Games' Book of Lost Spells. I'm picking on the cleric here, but most D&D classes are now like this: bards, clerics, druids, fighters (eldritch knights), rogues (arcane tricksters), sorcerers and warlocks [Edit: forgot paladins & rangers!] all have the same basic problem. However, there's a few options.

1) Just fucking add them for everyone. This is the least satisfying option.

2) Let some appropriate spells overwrite generic spells. This is say I offer detect disease or putrefy food and drink in exchange for some spell on the regular list. This is reasonable at each spell level, and requires the DM (i.e. me) to decide which spells belong to a particular deity, patron, or whatever-the-fuck bards and sorcerers use for gaining spells. Its reasonable, but also unsatisfying.

3) Discovery. Through mystic tomes, journals from dead mages, runestones, or whatnot I could add spells to particular characters' lists. This is still in the DM's hands, and could be combined with option #2 I suppose. The thing is... there's no real reason why bards couldn't have found a particular spell anyway. For bards and sorcerers this is a bit more satisfying as they basically just add to a set list of spells known. For clerics and druids, this is less exciting because, by the rules, it seems like their god should have either granted the spell from the get-go or not.

4) Replacement. This is like #3 but without discovery. Here I (i.e. the DM) just arbitrarily replace some spells on a PC's list with others. Doesn't motivate anyone to discover new shit, but it is reasonable.

5) Bonuses. Like #4, but based on spellcasting stats. Essentially, the DM gives bonus spells to particular characters based on their spellcasting list. So a Cleric of Ptah with a +3 wisdom bonus would add 3 additional spells of the DM's choice to their list. I like this option, but it might be hard to come up with that many spells per level. Simply replacing the bonus/level with the bonus spread across levels this would be pretty manageable, or maybe double the bonus across levels (so that +3 bonus translates to six added spells of whatever levels are appropriate). The problem with this option is finding the right number of additional spells for any given priest. That's 5 or 10 depending on wisdom scores, I suppose. Thankfully the Book of Lost Spells does provide quite a few, but there might not quite be enough great options for any given priesthood (or bardhood, druidic cult, sorcererous bloodline, or warlock patron).

I'm obviously still brainstorming a bit, but option 5 seems like its the best. Its DM-sensitive, but gives some customization to different types of cleric (or bard or druid or sorcerer or warlock) without stupidly expanding each class's spell list. I'm still looking for something better. I'm thinking combining #3 Discovery with #5 Bonuses, but ultimately anything that could be discovered also feels like it could be a bonus. If deities are active in the world, I suppose one-off spell options could be given as well: Isis knows her agents may need a Detect Curse spell and offers it on one particular occasion. 

Light in 5e

Inspired by Torchbearer, I've thinking about light and vision. I got a copy in an old Bundle of Holding, though I was very tempted to pick up a hard copy last winter before I realized I had the pdf in the a bundle. It looks complex, and I can barely comprehend how all the different resources get managed. But, obviously, light is an important one.

But I'm wondering, particularly based on a conversation with the Antagonizer, how one might deal with light in your garden variety 5e. Obviously light spells in 2nd edition or earlier existed, and can similarly replace a torch (and Continual Light makes tracking torches somewhat obsolete), but 5e is a bit of a different beast.

First off, Torchbearer. In Torchbearer you might have candles, torches, and lanterns. A candle provides light for one person for four turns, a torch provides light for 2 people for 2 turns, and a lantern provides light for 3 people for 3 turns. Each light source provides dim light for a similar number of people, and the turn is an abstract unit most similar to an encounter. I like the idea. It gets light down to about the same abstract categories of Close-Quarters / Melee / Missile type ranges (I think I first encountered this in the old Dragonlance SAGA rules), so its pretty good for its level of granularity. If you set a light source down, it only provides dim light (and whoever would be in dim light while the light source is raised is now in darkness). Torches might be extinguished at the whim of the GM when they're dropped or set down. The system is relatively simple, and being in dim light provides a penalty to most rolls. This, by and large, seems very portable.

Now, let's look at lighting in 5e. I was apparently mistaken about this when I first read. Darkness is heavily obscured, so sight is blocked and folks are effectively blinded. Dim light is lightly obscured, which provides disadvantage on wisdom (perception) checks. That's it, just disadvantage on perception checks, not attack rolls or anything. If you have darkvision, you can see in dim light as though it were bright light out to a certain radius, but you can't discern color. So there really isn't a great penalty for a party of Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half Elves, Half Orcs, or Tieflings going around without a torch or any source of light at all. Well, except finding traps and secret doors, I suppose. But there's really no penalty in combat for that. Depending on your interpretation, it might not be easy/possible to read things while using darkvision or make out crucial aspects of artwork [Hat Tip: the Antagonizer for the comment.]. There's also color-specific plots you could use, but its not super relevant if one of the party doesn't have darkvision.

For spells, there's the ubiquitious light cantrip. Its hands-free and provides bright light in a 20' radius. All day long as needed. In Torchbearer terms, that's presumably enough light for 3 characters. Your run of the mill party will have at least one character with darkvision so there's really no problem here at all. The dancing lights cantrip, in comparison, requires concentration and provides four sources of dim light. Which is pretty shitty in comparison, and I'm not sure the versatility of the spell makes up for it. Produce flame isn't as readily available as the others, but likewise is a constant torch, though it does at least require a hand. Prestidigitation or Druidcraft might also be able to create a candle equivalent, but 5e isn't quite as open ended as to say that's certain. Continual flame, like in earlier editions, basically makes a flameless torch which can be covered up to conceal the light. So in any edition of D&D by 3rd or 5th level you're not tracking torches, and when you have cast continual light on a feather that you can stick in your cap you don't even need to worry about how many items you can wield in your hands. Unless your enemy has dispel magic.

So if we can imagine playing up the lighting issues in 5e for a dark dungeon, you get something like the following.

Exploring the dungeon, characters with darkvision have no real need of light at all, other than searching for things. So there's a danger that a party relying on darkvision will miss secret doors or fall into traps. There's some incentive for the scout to have a torch, even if they have darkvision. But not that much unless you really play up the trap angle. The light spell (and other light-providing cantrips) is basically one really nice torch, and continual flame spells will eliminate any need for counting torches or tracking their use really. Either could be dispelled by an enemy magician though.

In combat, there's really no penalty to relying on darkvision at all, unless someone goes invisible. Though there can be other sources of heavy obscurement such as fog clouds and the like. Technically illusions would still function just fine in the dark as far as I can tell. The one downside to relying on darkvision is if your enemy is more than 60' away from you while shooting at you. Any light source the party has would give your position away, and true underdark denizens (e.g. Drow) have plenty of range on your run-of-the-mill elves and dwarves for seeing underground. So there's one combat-related weakness.

What about some simple tweaks? I've been thinking through a couple:

1) Light Obscurement imposes disadvantage in combat. This means characters in dim light would suffer disadvantage on attack rolls. This is a huge change to parties relying on darkvision, namely that they'd need at least one source of light to function effectively. The elves or dwarves could still make an attempt at sneaking about or leading a blind party out of the dungeon, but it would be very hard to function well without some source of light for the party. Obviously one cantrip would do the trick though, and at 3rd level one continual flame spell would be plenty.

2) The light cantrip requires concentration. This would really make the cantrip virtually useless in most combats, because concentration spells are so goddamn useful. Dancing lights already requires it though, so it might not be crazy. A concentration-required light cantrip would still be quite useful for exploration. Produce flame doesn't need concentration, but does require a hand, so that's still one resource for light and its less light than the light cantrip. Ultimately once continual flame is available though, this is a big unnecessary.

3) Change light so it scales. Maybe at 1st level the light cantrip just is candle light, and at higher levels (scaling with damaging cantrips) it produces more/better light. You could also add a brief concentration rider on it, so a basic light spell is a candle, at 5th level its either a non-concentration candle or a concentration-required torch, and so on. I kinda like this option, but feel like it might mean you'd need to change some of the other cantrips to follow suit and also its still outclassed by continual flame.

4) Remove/modify continual flame. This option is a bit shitty, as surely a magic torch is one of the first items any party will be interested in if they could afford it. So keeping treasure low will make the first casting or three of this spell actually meaningful at least. Raising the cost per casting is another method, but also a little unsatisfying.

Ultimately I think, at the basic level, there is motivation for the party to be carrying one torch/lantern in 5e. Hit them with traps to show this, because they won't notice the secret doors unless its obvious at the end of the dungeon that they could have skipped some parts. Outside a dungeon, any scouting is still going to need a source of light, such as casing a house/castle or whatnot. Moonlight might be crucial, so the occasional new moon could also come into play. All of this is most applicable during the first 2 levels where the party is too fragile to do much of anything, much less explore the underdark. If you take option 1 and impose disadvantage on attack rolls in dim light, then there's definitely motivation for carrying one or more light sources, though it'll honestly just be one of the casters who is likely to have a free hand anyway. There's a lot of different spells that could reasonably produce some kind of light, and modifying them all is a rather large task.

Overall this seems a little unsatisfying, though I'm really wondering what the other consequences of option #1 are. If light isn't a constant threat though, you can still play it up in 5e. Traps will remind players that they need some light or risk missing a few important perception type rolls. A well placed dispel magic can eliminate their magic light sources on occasion, plunging the party into darkness. Likewise, a "dark" dungeon where light is dampened can easily be a thing to occasionally play up the need for light while you're exploring the unknown. Its no torchbearer game, but it might be enough for a little taste.


Edit: An Afterthought. There is, I suppose, an option 4 for modifying light rules slightly. This would be adopting the Torchbearer rule that anytime you set a light source down, it goes from shedding bright light to dim light. This is particularly relevant for the levels 3+ (the continual flame era) where hand economy is more important and parties are likely relying on a few magic light sources. Most light spells will be cast on helmets or shields or staves maybe, but even those can be knocked to the ground or otherwise disarmed by some clever kobolds or an enemy magician. Clever tactics are probably the hallmark of intelligent enemies, and kobolds probably know they can gain a nice advantage by getting rid of that magic light somehow. This is certainly a simple addition which could make light a little more interesting if the party isn't built around not needing light or combined with dim light imposing disadvantage.

Possible 5e House Rules to Consider

This is just an ongoing list where I can keep track of a few house-rules I've seen online and want to consider further.

Exhausting Injuries. The lingering injury rules from the DMG are interesting, but fairly harsh at low levels. But a level of exhaustion each time a PC is reduced to 0 or fewer HP seems reasonable and easy. Maybe allow Barbarians or anyone else who has class features that can grant exhaustion a difficult Con save (DC 15?) to resist this exhaustion from being knocked out.

Shorter short rests. From the DMG, basically make short rests about 10 minutes to coincide with rituals. Nicely gives the PCs a time constraint on rituals: you rest or do a ritual, but maybe not both.

Hidden death saves. The results of a death saving throw aren't public, so they party won't necessarily know if they have another round to save their friend.

Firing into melee. I generally dislike fumble rules, but firing into melee sort of demands a chance to hit your allies. Doing it on a natural 1 seems reasonable, though halflings will be strangely immune to it because of their lucky trait.

Group initiative. From the DMG. It can be super quick/easy to just sit people in initiative order and roll once for the group, then everyone adds their individual modifiers. A little complex because a barbarian, for example, might get his own die roll and jump ahead but that's probably not a big deal. Would let the players coordinate things better.

Individual initiative with weapon speeds. From the DMG. Alternately, to make combats a bit less clear, characters declare their actions first and roll each round. It could be fairly easily done with cards that say "attack" "spell", or little white boards. But you declare first and when it gets to you all you can do is your action or maybe abort for a dodge? Rolling each round would keep it a huge mystery.

Crits = max damage. Doubling the dice is effectively max damage anyway, this would just speed things up.

Al-Qadim 5th Edition Patch: Ghul Lord (First Draft)

Reading over the recent Unearthed Arcana article on modifying classes, it inspired me to finish up a first draft of some of the Al-Qadim patch material I've been thinking about. The 2nd Edition Ghul Lord was from the Complete Sha'ir's Handbook, and has stuck with me as a pretty unique spellcaster from 2nd Edition. From multiple readings, its still not clear to me how this kit was intended to work (I think you get necromancy spells plus manipulations..?), but I like the idea of being innately tied to necromantic energy and manipulating it in a way different from mages who study their spells carefully. That's pretty sorcerer to me, so here's the first draft of the build:

Ghul Lord (Sorcerous Origin)

Death Master

At first level you add all necromancy spells to the sorcerer list (but not your spells known). Each necromancy spell you know adds one to your maximum hit points. All of your spells which do not normally deal necrotic damage do half of their damage as necrotic. You resist necrotic damage, and your spells which deal necrotic damage bypass necrotic resistance. You gain proficiency with the short sword, long sword, and scimitar. When you cast a spell, there is often a subtle sensory effect that reveals your spells are not normal (tears of blood, flickering or sickly light, whispers or moans of the dead, etc.).

The idea is I'm giving the ability to cast lots of necromancy, and an incentive to take those spells. At maximum it would be 15-20 bonus hp (depending on more necromancy cantrips being released), which is what the Dragon origin gets. In practice, I doubt anyone would take only necromancy spells, but two hp/spell seems high and I haven't thought of another good bonus other than duplicating the wizard necromancer benefits. Non-necromancy spells are restricted to the sorcerer list still, and get necromancy flavored. The resistance stuff just seems like a minor fix for a character that will be doing necrotic damage constantly. I considered a limited ritual casting which would allow the ghoul lord to cast necromancy rituals but that hardly seems potent given that its only feign death and gentle repose.

Disrupting Manipulations

At 6th level, you may regain one sorcery point by expending a hit die and subtracting the roll from your hit point total. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. In addition, you know the spells dispel magic and counterspell which do not count against your number of spells known. When you successfully cast either of these spells, any creature or object from which you dispelled a spell or the creature whose spell you countered takes necrotic damage equal to 1d12 plus your sorcerer level.

This is legacy stuff. Gaining a few bonus sorcery points for sacrificing hit dice is thematically appropriate, as well as the Ghul Lord's magic disrupting normal magic. While the first feature could belong to any death-themed sorcerer, here we are firmly in the domain of the ghul lord.

Necrotic Manipulations

At 14th level, as an action, you may temporarily add one evocation or necromancy spell from the sorcerer spell list to your spells known by expending sorcery points equal to the spell’s level. If that spell deals damage, half of the damage is considered necrotic damage. You lose access to the spell once you cast it or when you take a short or long rest. If the spell is an evocation spell that does not normally deal damage, it deals 1d12 plus your sorcerer level in necrotic damage to any living creature which comes into contact with the effect.

More legacy material. The idea is the ghoul lord can manipulate raw necrotic energy to cast spells. This lets them get a blasting spell they need easily, and a few utilities though they may be costly. Again, this makes this ghul lord specific, rather than just death sorcerer.

Rotting Strength

At 17^th level, you can be targeted by effects that target undead, and whenever you are subject to an effect that only affects undead you may choose whether or not you are affected. You are immune to necrotic and poison damage, and your spells that deal necrotic or poison damage deal extra damage equal to your charisma modifier.

This is obviously the "you are dead" capstone. Not sure its quite enough yet, a bit of a random grab bag of weaker effects. This feels a little less like ghul lord, but is thematically related to the ongoign loss of strength/constitution/charisma the ghul lord suffers by turning more death-like.

All in all, I'm not unhappy with this but not quite happy either. I need to go back and see if I'm missing something from the original (defensive, informative, and translocative manipulations?) or what I've got here (the grab bag of powers and all) that isn't necessarily thematic and could be simplified. For example, if the ghoul lord can only learn necromancy spells (If you draw from all lists, I think there's enough in the Player's Handbook) rather than from the sorcerer list, then the manipulation ability could be expanded and given at 6th level (i.e. Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination or Evocation spells from the sorcerer list, or any spell from the sorcerer list..? Illusions might not be bad, but Enchantments and Transmutations aren't thematic). Also I should re-compare things to the normal sorcerer options (and the new Favored Soul) to check the relative power levels, but its a start.