Because working on editing all my existing writing on my setting into a more readable form apparently gives me anxiety attacks (Brains are incredibly poorly engineered chemical dispensers, i have to say), let's talk about a different bit of Terror Incognita I've referenced by not yet expounded upon:
Ogres.
Ogres in this setting are drawing on hippos for a fair chunk of their inspiration - both for some of the physical capabilities and habitats, but also for hippos nature as Terraformers.
They're big - 3 meters tall on average, and over a ton body weight wise. Smooth dark grey bodies that are mostly hairless (though they do have hair on their heads), with distinctive incisor tusks. Short stumpy legs and stocky arms. They excrete a thick sweat that acts as a natural sunscreen to boot.
They're amphibious mammals, and spend most of their time submerged in water. Your only clue an Ogre is in the river may the top of their head cresting above the waters - eyes and nostrils. Excellent swimmers, capable of wading along the bottom of lakes and rivers and holding their breath for extended periods.
They live in rivers, swamps, lakes and coastal seas.
They're long lived, and mature slowly. Ogres reach adult maturity around 25 years old, and can live for close to two centuries.
They're FAST. In bursts, but they're fast as hell when they want to be. Invade ogre territory at your peril, least they combine their speed with their clubs to introduce you to the Ogre Space Splatter Program.
They have trouble communicating with other races - Ogre speech is designed to be spoken with your mouth half in/half out of water - and to be heard by people standing in the water. This contributes to a perception of them as dumb brutes. Actually quite intelligent, just... rather alien to most other sentient races. They can learn to speak other languages, but it's hard for them.
They're terraforming farmers by nature - They modify their habitats to support a wide variety of vegetation. This also leads them to be pretty damn territorial - their "farms" are the works of decades, and they're not much fond of intruders fucking it all up. Or other ogres with different ideas on how this stretch of river should be farmed. That said, they're not idiots - various villages have formed incredibly prosperous alliances with Ogres. Ogres adore farming tools (especially when they're built to ogre size and specification), and their expertise in farming is unrivaled. No one knows as much about land management as the ogres. Not to mention the raw physical might they can bring to farming.
it's rare for them to go anywhere near cities - it's simply not a comfortable place for them. let's not even touch on the sanitation issues. In multi-species situations, they'll mostly live with farming villages on the outskirts.
Not strict herbivorous - they supplement a mostly vegetable diet with with various aquatic creatures. Myths of them being man-eaters come from the fact they're not exactly shy to bite the fuck out of someone when provoked. Ogres maddened by the loss of their land, family and/or tribe have however been known to go full in on the man eater thing as they enter a self-destructive rage spiral.
They're a mostly oral tradition based culture. Ogres "tribes" are incredibly distributed affairs - loosely aligned family groups spread across hundreds of miles. This is partly practical from their farming needs, and partly because Ogrespeech travels incredibly well through water. They do however have some level of written language - Pictogram and symbology based, and used on their menhir and tattoos.
Limited to no metal working - Ogres shape the land with their own might and some level of inherent magic (Though this may just be an instinctive understanding/expertise in how they can terraform the land for their needs)
Very little use for clothing, and armor (their own bulk makes for fantastic natural armor. Plus it'd require an immense amounts of metal. An Ogre in full knight plating is a terrifying thought, however). They do however weave carrybags for seeds and harvest, or build storehouses for their harvest. Very skilled at both of these things - This is where cultural expertise has gone instead of say, developing metal working. Very skilled at Lacquring as well, i'd bet
Ogre land is marked by sculpted natural monuments, the odd carved Mehir. These are often interrogated together. Trees or vines growing up around a menhir, or a menhir carved out of a water feature.
They decorate their bodies with vast amounts of tattoos - favorite myths, family lineages, totems... (I need to do more thought here, but i like the imagery)
(If it's not obvious, they're drawing on a mix of Polynesian and Celtic sources for what they were like culturally. I need to make sure i dont trip over any unintentionally racist tropes here - they're meant to be an intelligent, capable race, they just have different set of priorities/needs to other races, which has driven their tech development in very different areas)
Side note: I love the visual image of ogres wearing the lacqured straw hats known as Jingasa when they're out of water, probably to help keep themselves cool. They might wear big cloaks for modesty when amongst other races?
In terms of how they fit in... I'm thinking they're one of the oldest races on Terra Incognita. They were there before the Roman-elves came... which sadly lead to tragedy - many ogres were exterminated, others were captured and enslaved. Ogres might be individually mighty, but they weren't culturally setup to resist an organized, militarized colonial force. Ogre slaves were even shipped off Continent (Yes, this is going to lead to the horror of the invading Conquistadors having Ogre slaves to do their heavy lifting. if there's any faction that's pure evil in this setting, it's the fucking Conquistadors).
The survivors were forced into the swamps and rain-forests of Terror Incongita, where they endured and contributed to the founding of Monferrina. Since the extinction of the roman elves, they've started to re-surge and are spreading back out across the continent, reclaiming their native habitats and rebuilding their culture. They've also additionally formed strong alliances with various orc tribes - the two races have proved to be naturally complimentary, and share territory well.
So yeah! That's ogres. I'd love thoguths on these, and also - any of you got any suggestions for a name for the Roman Elves? obviously something latin/latin inspired would be great. I am the worst at naming things.
I'm having trouble working out the in-game logic for why monthly costs would drop so much over time. I'd think my crew would still want to get paid, but going by the Acquisitions Incorporated rules I'm apparently getting more people to work for free or something.
They're probably interns on a summer placement working for free
11th to 16th level franchises cover an area half the size of the Sword Coast - you're going to be one of the major employers in the region, and with that come all those delicious power imbalances of the corporate world
Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
I wasn't so much interested in having a campaign where the characters run a business as much as I was in having rules for paying a crew and keeping up a ship. However, considering how expensive a ship is and the fact that there are many businesses along Wildemount's Menagerie Coast, maybe I could begin the campaign with the characters working for such a company to defend merchant vessels from pirates and sahuagin before eventually gaining control of the company itself for some reason.
I still think the presence of dozens of interns (ones probably coming from well-connected noble families, no less) serving as the crew of a sailing ship is kinda silly, though.
I just DMd our first game of https://amazing-tales.net/ for my 4yo daughter and she loved it. It's very kid friendly, big focus on the narrative. As little or as much combat as you want (0 in my daughter's case). She played a mermaid (not officially in the book but easy enough to adapt for anything) and swam around talking to sea animals and following a treasure map to a talking necklace that lets her swap between fishtail and legs. Do next time we play we can do land stuff too. I highly recommend this for anyone that wants to get their kid into roleplay but might be too young for D&D or Pathfinder or whatever.
Say that the party is adventuring along a shore and are attacked by pirates. If they wipe out the pirates and want to take over the pirate's ship, what kind of reception could they expect if they manage to get it to port? "Oh, this ship isn't registered to us, but we killed all the pirates who were using it so it's okay."
Say that the party is adventuring along a shore and are attacked by pirates. If they wipe out the pirates and want to take over the pirate's ship, what kind of reception could they expect if they manage to get it to port? "Oh, this ship isn't registered to us, but we killed all the pirates who were using it so it's okay."
Probably different real world/fantasy expectation answers here. A big thing is that pirate ships/crews didn't tend to be all that stable. For most sailors a single successful pirate voyage would set them up for life. A pirate that has been pirating for 20 years isn't really in it for the money. So the PCs not being the established pirates of the ship wouldn't really go very far. Realistically it is gonna be real hard to prove that known pirate ship is no longer pirating, at least not in the ports that it is known. In a fantasy setting? I don't think I'd really bring that up as a GM. They stole a ship, it was awesome, you've got a ship now! Just another hook to sink in stories with.
I think you’d need to bring in the head of the pirate captain, hoist a flag other than the Jolly Roger and maybe do a bit of painting? That’s all it’d take for a game I was running.
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
Ah, I should have posted in this thread for the ship discussions. I'll just copy and paste from the SE thread
==
The economy aspect of roleplaying games is almost always tacked on. GP in DND or jade in Exalted, the numbers are made up and the use doesn't matter. DnD has this core problem with magnitude. The stated economy balloons wildly out of control as you level, and eventually you get the kings on piles of gold. In earlier editions those would get converted to magic items as a money sink. (In 5th edition, they go out of their way to try and decry this...then give economic information on how to do it)
You may benefit from changing how you conceptualize the ship building and ownership. Instead of using raw gold pieces, maybe use something like Build Points? Then you can have a conversion rate of either manpower, magic, or gold pieces into Build Points based on the local factors. For example, "you want to fix your ship in this rustic port. There are plenty of willing hands available, and the local economy is in a slump, so you will only need half the normal GP. However, the hands aren't well trained, so you will have to actively supervise them..."
In general, with a feudal or feudal-like economy, I would expect most Build Points to come out of labor rather than capital. This gives you a way to hook PCs: if they can get in good with the lords who command the peasants, than they can spend favors to get their equipment repaired. No need for hauling around 50k gold.
Last time I had players buy a ship, the local lord offered to handle the costs but he wanted a potion to make him younger - in every game I run in at least a traditional setting, Potion of Longevity and Headband of Intellect are worth a kings ransom because every single rich human in the entire world wants them, leading them to be all but unavailable on the open market, and you have to have one ordered or make one yourself.
In my Storm King's Thunder game in Exandria, I have the Potion of Longevity explicitly a creation of evil magic - it can only be created by stealing the youth from a living person, or from the life essence of a goodly celestial and thus it's kind of forbidden. I did this mostly to give the rogue mobster something for her character to do that was unique, selling valuable illegal goods that the party had nothing to do with creating.
So when they got to the court of the sovereign for some nonsense and she dismissed her guards, the rogue immediately plopped it on the table and said "So you're looking a little grey there sovereign, how would you like to be young again"
I decided to try out Matthew Colville’s Stronghold rules for the campaign I’m currently running and the way I let players afford it at level 4 was that I honestly just gave them enough money. There isn’t exactly much else they can do with it so it couldn’t break the game.
I decided to try out Matthew Colville’s Stronghold rules for the campaign I’m currently running and the way I let players afford it at level 4 was that I honestly just gave them enough money. There isn’t exactly much else they can do with it so it couldn’t break the game.
Is that buyable if you didn't kickstart?
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I decided to try out Matthew Colville’s Stronghold rules for the campaign I’m currently running and the way I let players afford it at level 4 was that I honestly just gave them enough money. There isn’t exactly much else they can do with it so it couldn’t break the game.
Is that buyable if you didn't kickstart?
yea it's available in book and PDF from his store I do believe.
I decided to try out Matthew Colville’s Stronghold rules for the campaign I’m currently running and the way I let players afford it at level 4 was that I honestly just gave them enough money. There isn’t exactly much else they can do with it so it couldn’t break the game.
Is that buyable if you didn't kickstart?
yea it's available in book and PDF from his store I do believe.
I'm having trouble working out the in-game logic for why monthly costs would drop so much over time. I'd think my crew would still want to get paid, but going by the Acquisitions Incorporated rules I'm apparently getting more people to work for free or something.
They're probably interns on a summer placement working for free
11th to 16th level franchises cover an area half the size of the Sword Coast - you're going to be one of the major employers in the region, and with that come all those delicious power imbalances of the corporate world
Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
I wasn't so much interested in having a campaign where the characters run a business as much as I was in having rules for paying a crew and keeping up a ship. However, considering how expensive a ship is and the fact that there are many businesses along Wildemount's Menagerie Coast, maybe I could begin the campaign with the characters working for such a company to defend merchant vessels from pirates and sahuagin before eventually gaining control of the company itself for some reason.
I still think the presence of dozens of interns (ones probably coming from well-connected noble families, no less) serving as the crew of a sailing ship is kinda silly, though.
Market it as an experience holiday, and you'd be turning them away
Say that the party is adventuring along a shore and are attacked by pirates. If they wipe out the pirates and want to take over the pirate's ship, what kind of reception could they expect if they manage to get it to port? "Oh, this ship isn't registered to us, but we killed all the pirates who were using it so it's okay."
Change the flag and the figurehead, repaint the name and chances are no one will know it's the same ship unless they've seen it before close up. Even less so with a bit of extra paint.
More experienced sailors might know that there was a dutch sloop in the area that belonged to a famous pirate, but might not put two and two together unless the ship was exceptional. I wouldn't expect to be able to turn up in a foreign warship without a good story (and plenty of rum to tell it over).
Plus if it was a pirate ship, and they took it to a place were someone might recognise it, it's probably the kind of disreputable harbour that you might be able to pay to get the harbour master to doctor the history a little even without knowing the true origins of the ship. So if challenged you've already got proof that they could be the same.
Ship registries are something you can track, they're certainly not updated in real time.
Say that the party is adventuring along a shore and are attacked by pirates. If they wipe out the pirates and want to take over the pirate's ship, what kind of reception could they expect if they manage to get it to port? "Oh, this ship isn't registered to us, but we killed all the pirates who were using it so it's okay."
Change the flag and the figurehead, repaint the name and chances are no one will know it's the same ship unless they've seen it before close up. Even less so with a bit of extra paint.
More experienced sailors might know that there was a dutch sloop in the area that belonged to a famous pirate, but might not put two and two together unless the ship was exceptional. I wouldn't expect to be able to turn up in a foreign warship without a good story (and plenty of rum to tell it over).
Plus if it was a pirate ship, and they took it to a place were someone might recognise it, it's probably the kind of disreputable harbour that you might be able to pay to get the harbour master to doctor the history a little even without knowing the true origins of the ship. So if challenged you've already got proof that they could be the same.
Ship registries are something you can track, they're certainly not updated in real time.
Say that the party is adventuring along a shore and are attacked by pirates. If they wipe out the pirates and want to take over the pirate's ship, what kind of reception could they expect if they manage to get it to port? "Oh, this ship isn't registered to us, but we killed all the pirates who were using it so it's okay."
Change the flag and the figurehead, repaint the name and chances are no one will know it's the same ship unless they've seen it before close up. Even less so with a bit of extra paint.
More experienced sailors might know that there was a dutch sloop in the area that belonged to a famous pirate, but might not put two and two together unless the ship was exceptional. I wouldn't expect to be able to turn up in a foreign warship without a good story (and plenty of rum to tell it over).
Plus if it was a pirate ship, and they took it to a place were someone might recognise it, it's probably the kind of disreputable harbour that you might be able to pay to get the harbour master to doctor the history a little even without knowing the true origins of the ship. So if challenged you've already got proof that they could be the same.
Ship registries are something you can track, they're certainly not updated in real time.
You could however do a magical version of such, which opens up some fun and interesting options!
---
Further Ogre thoughts:
Ogres were colourful. Their mastery of farming and weaving in turn lead them to master dyes. Tyrian Purple, Celtic Blue, Kermes Red - Ogres had all of theese and more.
Their tattoos were not simple black ink affairs, but incredibly vivid. Like wise ogre monuments were draped in riotously coloured cloths, or painted in vivid hues.
While ogres generally shunned clothing, they were known to weave broad conical straw hats and immense cloaks. These were designed to absorb water on their insides, and keep the weather off on the outsides - allowing ogres to stay cool and comfortable when they needed to work out walk the land around their water homes. Like their tattoos and monuments, these were dyed in a riot of colours.
Ogres had an extensive trade network, enabled by how Ogre source traveled through water. Dyes, alcohol, cloth, dried fruits... This in turn was built in the back of Ogres fantastic skills at weaving and lacquering, letting them easily create waterproof storage they could haul through their water ways. They probably had a complicated barter culture, rather than currency
Ogre territorialness was complicated, and shifted as climate and resources shifted. Almost certainly had strong cultural rules around guedst right as part of their trade network. This is totally confusing to outsiders. Seasonal trademoots and trade migrations probably happened.
A subculture of the Ogres are the Monferrina Ogres. These ogres are the descendants of the Ogres who helped found Monferrina, and their fellow freed ogre slaves. Recognizable by their shorter statue (a legacy of the malnutrition they suffered), their cloaks and hats dyed in natural camouflage colours, and the iron studded clubs they wield. Monferrina Ogres are noticeably more clannish and militaristic (they paid attention to how they lost and trained), as well as having a much easier time speaking . During the Roman occupation of Terror incognita, they regularly lead commando raids to free slaves and destroy Roman outposts.
Yes, this does basically make them Oni, and yes this is 110% intentional
Imagine the terror your average legionnaire would have felt when these massive, cloaked, clubbed wielding figures suddenly emerged from a swamp or rubber at speed and charged you, their clubs annihilating your shield wall in easy swipes.
The Ogres at the time of Roman invasion were reeling from one of Terror Incognitas waxing periods and never developed any kind of organized warfare - no reason to. Monferrina Ogres are a different breed, expert guerrillas who can bent their terraforming talents to trap making and studied their foes, making their techniques their own
Their relationships with their bigger cousins are strained - traditionalist Ogres are unsettled by their propensity for violence (especially because Ogres are known to enter suicidal rages thanks to trauma) - and their rejection of colour in favour of camouflage. Monferrina Ogres meanwhile view their cousins as naive, choosing to run rather than fight and caring more about art and culture than survival. Still, with the extinction of the Romans, these wounds are healing slowly... Though the appearance of the conquistadors threatens to tear these wounds open anew
So hey about S&F and Ships. The book provides rules for having a ship as a stronghold. I'm gonna warn anyone who hasn't read the book that the book in general embraces an extremely abstracted idea of its idea and that the ship rules are mostly tacked on as a bonus for reaching a stretch goal. In short the rules are short and simple.
That said I plan to eventually do a pirate based campaign(mixing PotC, Star Wars, and Outlaw Star) so I've been thinking about whether Colville's warfare rules would work for ship combat. I think that not only does it work but ship combat might be the perfect use of it. Two fundamentals of the system are that it should be abstracted and that a warfare battle should take place simultaneously with DnD combat. Its pretty simple. You'll be fighting a normal combat and it will be flavored that your armies are also battling around you. You have units which you can give an order towards each players turn. The units are not placed on any sort of grid or map. The system is too abstract with that. Further however many of, lets say, Archers you have you'll only have one unit of Archers. Instead of multiple archers you have a size die depicting how many archers are on the battlefield and that functions as a kind of HP.
So if you want to have combat on a ship this system intuitively makes sense to me. Your Ship functions as a Keep. While having a battle between ships the characters are on their ship(or perhaps the enemy ship) defending or attacking. Parallel to this but not directly interacting with this is the two ships engaging each other with their weapons. Each category of weapon a ship has could be considered a unit. Canons are the obvious example. They are two unwieldy to really be used to kill the players but can be trained at the other sides weapons or ships. If either side does too much damage to a ship or the players win or lose the deck then combat is over making the "logic" of battles happening simultaneous with combat make immediate sense.
I'm years off from such a campaign unless I find another group so I haven't done any testing or done any testing but I think the core of these rules work really well.
Say that the party is adventuring along a shore and are attacked by pirates. If they wipe out the pirates and want to take over the pirate's ship, what kind of reception could they expect if they manage to get it to port? "Oh, this ship isn't registered to us, but we killed all the pirates who were using it so it's okay."
Change the flag and the figurehead, repaint the name and chances are no one will know it's the same ship unless they've seen it before close up. Even less so with a bit of extra paint.
More experienced sailors might know that there was a dutch sloop in the area that belonged to a famous pirate, but might not put two and two together unless the ship was exceptional. I wouldn't expect to be able to turn up in a foreign warship without a good story (and plenty of rum to tell it over).
Plus if it was a pirate ship, and they took it to a place were someone might recognise it, it's probably the kind of disreputable harbour that you might be able to pay to get the harbour master to doctor the history a little even without knowing the true origins of the ship. So if challenged you've already got proof that they could be the same.
Ship registries are something you can track, they're certainly not updated in real time.
That's not a thing for a fantasy/medieval pirate adventure - feels a bit much like DM fiat saying "you can't have a pirate ship". Sure you could come up with some quest to disable the tracking gems, but you're doing that rather than making them customise their own ship to give it a new identity.
Plus introducing the idea of a unified tracking database into your world, which will extend a lot further than just recording the comings and goings of boats (even if you don't plan to use it, the idea that these kind of things will exist in your player's heads and influence a lot of their decisions later).
Though really the big question is do you want them to have a pirate ship?
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
So, I have been plugging away at the Eberron races and decided to tackle the Warforged today.
I like some of the ideas spread within the first UA crack at them, as well as the official model, but they weren't quite my jam.
Something about how their approach to their integrated protection wasn't working, so I thought I'd just steal the Tortle's racial feature.
How does this look? What is imbalanced? What does work?
Warforged
Warforged Features
-- Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.
-- Age: A typical warforged is between two and thirty years old. The maximum lifespan of the warforged remains a mystery; so far, warforged have shown no signs of deterioration due to age. You are immune to magical aging effects.
-- Alignment: Most warforged take comfort in order and discipline, tending toward law and neutrality. But some have absorbed the morality – or lack thereof – of the beings with which they served.
-- Size: Most warforged stand between 6 and 6 1/2 feet tall and weigh on average 280-360 lbs. Your size is Medium.
-- Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
-- Type: Your creature type is construct, rather than humanoid.
-- Constructed Resilience: You were created to have remarkable fortitude. You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage. You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe. You are immune to disease. You don't need to sleep and don't suffer the effects of exhaustion due to lack of rest, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
-- Sentry's Rest: When you take a long rest, you must spend at least 6 hours of it in an inactive, motionless state. You appear unconscious, but can see or hear as normal.
-- Integrated Protection: You have a natural armor class. Your integrated protection provides ample defense; it gives you a base AC of 17 (your Dexterity modifier doesn't affect this number). You gain no benefit from wearing armor, but if you are using a shield, you can apply the shield's bonus as normal.
-- Integrated Tool: You gain one tool proficiency of your choice, and it becomes integrated into your body. You must have your hands free to use this tool.
-- Powerful Build: You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, and lift.
-- Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.
Posting this here and in the SE++ TTRPG thread, but a player in my Spelljammer campaign has been coming up with ideas for new spells for his wizard. I'm all for homebrew spells in general since getting to create stuff and make things more personal can be really enjoyable, but I'm awful at being able to tell if something is unbalanced or has the potential to be abused. Especially since the player in question is kind of a power gamer and has a devious mind that's used to looking for synergies and loopholes in wording and stuff (he's an avid MtG player, if that tells you anything). I don't think he's explicitly creating these spells for some combo to fuck our game up since he's not malicious or anything, but I still want to ask if y'all would give your opinions on these and tell me what you think. Do they look obviously overpowered? How would you go about trying to exploit the shit out of them?
Posting this here and in the SE++ TTRPG thread, but a player in my Spelljammer campaign has been coming up with ideas for new spells for his wizard. I'm all for homebrew spells in general since getting to create stuff and make things more personal can be really enjoyable, but I'm awful at being able to tell if something is unbalanced or has the potential to be abused. Especially since the player in question is kind of a power gamer and has a devious mind that's used to looking for synergies and loopholes in wording and stuff (he's an avid MtG player, if that tells you anything). I don't think he's explicitly creating these spells for some combo to fuck our game up since he's not malicious or anything, but I still want to ask if y'all would give your opinions on these and tell me what you think. Do they look obviously overpowered? How would you go about trying to exploit the shit out of them?
@darmak these strike me as being too powerful while also having some kludgy templating. The fact that they're powerful isn't in itself a problem, as long as the rest of your party has similarly powerful tools to play with and you balance encounters accordingly. But it does put that burden on you to maintain that balance rather than on your player.
For Duplicate, the language is convoluted and it also doesn't seem to have a built-in limit on the number of times it can be used (it looks like he tried to do something like this with the last clause about long rests, but that strikes me as abusable). It just strikes me as a weird capability for a wizard to need - they can already transcribe spells to their spellbooks. There also isn't a built-in requirement for language comprehension.
Dispel Elements looks like it's modeled after Protection from Energy, but has some characteristics that lend themselves to abuse. First is the lack of concentration requirement. That's a big big deal because it drops incoming elemental damage to zero while it's active - thereby preventing concentration checks on whatever other concentration spell he's got active. Second is the numerical value for the absorption, which strikes me as high. If you compare this to something like Cure Wounds, a third level Cure Wounds will restore 3d8+MOD health, for a typical max of 27-29 for a 5th level character (range 7-29, average about 19). This is flatly above that and increases per spell level at double the rate of cure wounds. It's also proactive rather than reactive. Big no from me on Dispel Elements - just tell him to be content with Protection from Energy.
True Shield is overly broad. It's trying to do a lot of things at once and I'm concerned that it will wash out the specialization of the characters in your party. Character limitations and specializations make for interesting gameplay - it's part of what makes a group interesting to play in. Numerically it's more balanced than Dispel Elements since it only lasts a brief amount of time, but it's doing the job of a protective heal tacked together with Wall of Force, all at reaction speed.
ALSO - I just realized something else that bothered me. Those spells bend over backwards to avoid using Temporary HP, where in the case of True Shield it's basically what the spell is doing. That means as templated, they would stack with existing Temporary HP rather than overwriting it.
Posting this here and in the SE++ TTRPG thread, but a player in my Spelljammer campaign has been coming up with ideas for new spells for his wizard. I'm all for homebrew spells in general since getting to create stuff and make things more personal can be really enjoyable, but I'm awful at being able to tell if something is unbalanced or has the potential to be abused. Especially since the player in question is kind of a power gamer and has a devious mind that's used to looking for synergies and loopholes in wording and stuff (he's an avid MtG player, if that tells you anything). I don't think he's explicitly creating these spells for some combo to fuck our game up since he's not malicious or anything, but I still want to ask if y'all would give your opinions on these and tell me what you think. Do they look obviously overpowered? How would you go about trying to exploit the shit out of them?
Ok, here we go:
1) Duplicate
I really don't see the point of this spell considering its level. If a player wanted to magically copy a page of information I'd just make a new cantrip or add it to prestidigitation. It seems that the player wants to bypass the time and cost requirements of learning a new spell (level x 2h & level x 50g). Giving it a ritual component allows it to be cast for free in 10 minutes, although why he'd punish himself by making that functionality ritual only is weird (meaning: if a player wants to blow a level 3 slot to scribe a new spell, why not). Scribing a spell doesn't mean you've prepared it for the day, though. I'd ask him what the use of this spell is supposed to be.
Summary: meh!
2) Dispel Elements
This spell is weird because no dice are being rolled. I can only think of 1 other spell off the top of my head that lists a number: power word: kill. If he really wants to ensure some sort of lower bound so that the spell doesn't fizzle entirely, consider going for a X + ydz approach.
My points of comparison here would be armor of agathys and the DMG spell creation guide. armor of agathys gives you 5 temp hp per slot, so at 3 that would be 15 temp damage soaked, but that's all damage. There's the barb effect which is equal to the temp hp, it has some wonky interactions with minions but whatever. The DMG specifies that a 3rd level spell should heal for 5d10, let's consider a shield a form of preemptive healing, that puts us at 27.5 hp. a flat 35 and 15 per spell slot level is too good for what the DMG recommends but I suppose you aren't covering all damage types so padding it a bit feels justifiable. A small concern I have is the lack of a concentration requirement, AoA doesn't have it but that can only be obtained by classes that don't have many spells to cast anyway (locks and paladins). The abuse I envisage here is that he'll cast this shield and then protection from energy over it, effectively doubling the shield value. Depending on how you read the PHB and whether or not you put stock into Crawford's tweets, temporary hit point damage doesn't proc a concentration check. Even then, another player could cast PfE on him.
Summary: Reformat spell to require dice rolling. Add concentration to spell requirement. Give your player inspiration if he casts the shield, rolls nothing but 1s but face tanks a dragon anyway.
3) True Shield
My arguments are similar to those for Dispel Elements. It's numerically too good for for its spell slot (dmg recommends 8d10 for a 5 slot, avg 44) and doesn't require a roll. Another thought is that the other 2 spells that work in a similar fashion have a failure chance: shield will not tell you if the +5ac will protect you. counterspell will not tell you which spell is being cast at what level. this spell has no such failures. I can't think of an interesting way to include the failure chance with the spell as it is currently written. I'd simply make it a reaction spell to an attack being targetted at the caster. Your friend will then have to decide whether or not its worth the spell slot. Hilarity if he only blocks 1 arrow with it. A minor niggle would be that it also acts as a small wall of force. Given the small size of what appears to be a personal shield, I'd rather do something like give the player immediately behind him advantage on dex saves.
Summary: Reformat spell to require dice rolling. Rework reaction condition. Nerf party interactivity.
All in all it feels like he wants to hurl himself into a dragons mouth and effectively cancel out its breath weapon. I'd honestly just talk to him to see what his thoughts on these spells are. Generally, there aren't any shield type spells and healing never follows the DMG advice. The few spells that give temp hp are fairly low balled, AoA has the max of all of them and even then, it's 5 temp hp per warlock level. I don't feel that the game wants you to put shield spells into it, precisely because players can use resistance spells to obscenely increase their value.
It's an attempt to amalgamate and reconcile pretty much all officially published lore on devils, their rulers, and the Nine Hells prior to 2017 while adding in a relatively smaller number of new details. It came out before Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Descent into Avernus so none of the material presented there is taken into account, but if you want to make extensive use of the Nine Hells and its various power players there is no finer font of knowledge.
+2
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Can you use a reliable middleman mage to do a Sending for you, if he is not familiar with the recipient? Can the middleman check out your brain to "know" the target, then do a Sending from there?
Can you use a reliable middleman mage to do a Sending for you, if he is not familiar with the recipient? Can the middleman check out your brain to "know" the target, then do a Sending from there?
I'd slap a sketch artist together with an old timey wire operator.
I.e. a mage that has the spells minor illusion, sending and has a flair for being artistic.
Make a history check using your perception modifier. The mage will do his/her best to sculpt a motionless head into the likeness of the person you wish to commune with.
the likeness and name are then used as the target of the sending spell!
edit, addendum:
The spell detect thoughts could perhaps also be of interest, this would also allow for a nice side quest where the sending mage will surreptitiously invade a customer's private space and dig for valuables!
Can you use a reliable middleman mage to do a Sending for you, if he is not familiar with the recipient? Can the middleman check out your brain to "know" the target, then do a Sending from there?
I'd slap a sketch artist together with an old timey wire operator.
I.e. a mage that has the spells minor illusion, sending and has a flair for being artistic.
Make a history check using your perception modifier. The mage will do his/her best to sculpt a motionless head into the likeness of the person you wish to commune with.
the likeness and name are then used as the target of the sending spell!
edit, addendum:
The spell detect thoughts could perhaps also be of interest, this would also allow for a nice side quest where the sending mage will surreptitiously invade a customer's private space and dig for valuables!
In a developed enough setting, e.g. Eberron, you probably just have a network of mages that know each other to act as an old timey wire system; no need to try to learn a target person from your customer, just send it to Bob in Hicksville (or to Sarah in Regional Capitalsville, who can forward it to Bob) and the recipient can pick it up from them.
edit: in fact, I bet the Spellegram Guild even holds yearly conventions, so they can hang out and drink and get to know each other well enough to communicate remotely, bring new hires up to speed, etc. Possibility for intrigue, as wealthy folks try to influence members of the network to get access to confidential communications, etc.
It's an attempt to amalgamate and reconcile pretty much all officially published lore on devils, their rulers, and the Nine Hells prior to 2017 while adding in a relatively smaller number of new details. It came out before Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Descent into Avernus so none of the material presented there is taken into account, but if you want to make extensive use of the Nine Hells and its various power players there is no finer font of knowledge.
And boughteded
Helping my Dragon Heist DM out we ran into a lot of problems with the lore on the pact primeval and the cassalanter arc. He decided that, nah it doesn't make sense, they've just been bamboozled
edit: I love how this thing has the lords of the nine basically all bratty teenagers on a CW show
override367 on
0
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
So I need some thoughts and opinions on a bit for my setting:
Namely, I'm thinking that the effect that dumps people on the continent also inflicts a certain amount of amnesia.
People remember who they are, their skills, all that jazz. What they don't remember it's where they came from - they might remember 'a sandy city' or 'a cold land' but that's it.
So I need some thoughts and opinions on a bit for my setting:
Namely, I'm thinking that the effect that dumps people on the continent also inflicts a certain amount of amnesia.
People remember who they are, their skills, all that jazz. What they don't remember it's where they came from - they might remember 'a sandy city' or 'a cold land' but that's it.
Thoughts?
I haven't been keeping up with whatever it is you're doing sooo some questions from me!
1) how is this effect procced? Is it a random natural event? Or is there some sentience behind it?
2) disassociating a person's history from their personality is .. well .. tricky. Could this amnesia allow people to behave with new personalities?
3) can this world of yours be escaped? do any entities travel to and fro at will?
So I need some thoughts and opinions on a bit for my setting:
Namely, I'm thinking that the effect that dumps people on the continent also inflicts a certain amount of amnesia.
People remember who they are, their skills, all that jazz. What they don't remember it's where they came from - they might remember 'a sandy city' or 'a cold land' but that's it.
Thoughts?
Maybe even link it even more heavily to the sea. The PCs are the sense of self that has washed up as flotsam, but perhaps other memories will wash up on later tides or even further afield on a different shore depending on the current. Certain memories float at different depths and are swept up in other currents; memories of hatred and passion are thrown up on stormy nights along the most stormwracked headlands, whilst hazy memories of youth are eventually deposited on sand bars.
Extreme memories are visible to other individuals as unusual objects, you know (if you've been here long enough, or are an experienced beachcomber) that this bottle that has washed up with a message in a language you don't understand is the lost memories of someone who has ended up on the continent. But the you it's just a bottle, there's no way that anyone knows to get at the memories inside.
Alternatively it might be a strangely shaped bit of driftwood, some cloth or even a strange patch of coloured sand. It's different for everyone, though some sages and charlatans say that you can get an inkling of what the memory is and who it belonged to from the nature of the artefact.
For most, this is just a strange quirk of their new home - something that newcomers obsess over for the first year before deciding to start their new life properly. But a few can't let go, and track these lost memories down wherever they hear of them, hoping to find something that will give them a glimpse of their past life and perhaps...even suggest a way home. Others collect these artefacts and believe that if you can crack the code, infinite knowledge resides inside, whilst yet others still think all of others fools, but know that they will pay good money for the memories of their past life, or even someone of note in this world.
Rumours also abound of a few reefs, where the very darkest secrets have sunk into the depths - some even shattered by the churning waves, unholy pressures and jagged rocks, leaking some of their essence into the environment, turning it darker still. Anyone of right mind avoids these places, but if the secret of restoring, or even stealing, lost memories does exist? It's almost certainly to be found in these foreboding regions.
Or maybe these are all just ghost stories and sea shanties, stories made to help folk cope with the idea of waking up in a strange land with no idea of who they are or how to get home?
Posts
Ogres.
Ogres in this setting are drawing on hippos for a fair chunk of their inspiration - both for some of the physical capabilities and habitats, but also for hippos nature as Terraformers.
(If it's not obvious, they're drawing on a mix of Polynesian and Celtic sources for what they were like culturally. I need to make sure i dont trip over any unintentionally racist tropes here - they're meant to be an intelligent, capable race, they just have different set of priorities/needs to other races, which has driven their tech development in very different areas)
Side note: I love the visual image of ogres wearing the lacqured straw hats known as Jingasa when they're out of water, probably to help keep themselves cool. They might wear big cloaks for modesty when amongst other races?
In terms of how they fit in... I'm thinking they're one of the oldest races on Terra Incognita. They were there before the Roman-elves came... which sadly lead to tragedy - many ogres were exterminated, others were captured and enslaved. Ogres might be individually mighty, but they weren't culturally setup to resist an organized, militarized colonial force. Ogre slaves were even shipped off Continent (Yes, this is going to lead to the horror of the invading Conquistadors having Ogre slaves to do their heavy lifting. if there's any faction that's pure evil in this setting, it's the fucking Conquistadors).
The survivors were forced into the swamps and rain-forests of Terror Incongita, where they endured and contributed to the founding of Monferrina. Since the extinction of the roman elves, they've started to re-surge and are spreading back out across the continent, reclaiming their native habitats and rebuilding their culture. They've also additionally formed strong alliances with various orc tribes - the two races have proved to be naturally complimentary, and share territory well.
So yeah! That's ogres. I'd love thoguths on these, and also - any of you got any suggestions for a name for the Roman Elves? obviously something latin/latin inspired would be great. I am the worst at naming things.
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Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
I wasn't so much interested in having a campaign where the characters run a business as much as I was in having rules for paying a crew and keeping up a ship. However, considering how expensive a ship is and the fact that there are many businesses along Wildemount's Menagerie Coast, maybe I could begin the campaign with the characters working for such a company to defend merchant vessels from pirates and sahuagin before eventually gaining control of the company itself for some reason.
I still think the presence of dozens of interns (ones probably coming from well-connected noble families, no less) serving as the crew of a sailing ship is kinda silly, though.
Say that the party is adventuring along a shore and are attacked by pirates. If they wipe out the pirates and want to take over the pirate's ship, what kind of reception could they expect if they manage to get it to port? "Oh, this ship isn't registered to us, but we killed all the pirates who were using it so it's okay."
Probably different real world/fantasy expectation answers here. A big thing is that pirate ships/crews didn't tend to be all that stable. For most sailors a single successful pirate voyage would set them up for life. A pirate that has been pirating for 20 years isn't really in it for the money. So the PCs not being the established pirates of the ship wouldn't really go very far. Realistically it is gonna be real hard to prove that known pirate ship is no longer pirating, at least not in the ports that it is known. In a fantasy setting? I don't think I'd really bring that up as a GM. They stole a ship, it was awesome, you've got a ship now! Just another hook to sink in stories with.
==
The economy aspect of roleplaying games is almost always tacked on. GP in DND or jade in Exalted, the numbers are made up and the use doesn't matter. DnD has this core problem with magnitude. The stated economy balloons wildly out of control as you level, and eventually you get the kings on piles of gold. In earlier editions those would get converted to magic items as a money sink. (In 5th edition, they go out of their way to try and decry this...then give economic information on how to do it)
You may benefit from changing how you conceptualize the ship building and ownership. Instead of using raw gold pieces, maybe use something like Build Points? Then you can have a conversion rate of either manpower, magic, or gold pieces into Build Points based on the local factors. For example, "you want to fix your ship in this rustic port. There are plenty of willing hands available, and the local economy is in a slump, so you will only need half the normal GP. However, the hands aren't well trained, so you will have to actively supervise them..."
In general, with a feudal or feudal-like economy, I would expect most Build Points to come out of labor rather than capital. This gives you a way to hook PCs: if they can get in good with the lords who command the peasants, than they can spend favors to get their equipment repaired. No need for hauling around 50k gold.
In my Storm King's Thunder game in Exandria, I have the Potion of Longevity explicitly a creation of evil magic - it can only be created by stealing the youth from a living person, or from the life essence of a goodly celestial and thus it's kind of forbidden. I did this mostly to give the rogue mobster something for her character to do that was unique, selling valuable illegal goods that the party had nothing to do with creating.
So when they got to the court of the sovereign for some nonsense and she dismissed her guards, the rogue immediately plopped it on the table and said "So you're looking a little grey there sovereign, how would you like to be young again"
I love my players
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Is that buyable if you didn't kickstart?
yea it's available in book and PDF from his store I do believe.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
It is!
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Market it as an experience holiday, and you'd be turning them away
Hell, they'd be paying you
"yeah so its a series of wheels covered in eyes, blazing across the sky in radiant fire, with a core of warm divine energy"
give me them enochian celestials
Change the flag and the figurehead, repaint the name and chances are no one will know it's the same ship unless they've seen it before close up. Even less so with a bit of extra paint.
More experienced sailors might know that there was a dutch sloop in the area that belonged to a famous pirate, but might not put two and two together unless the ship was exceptional. I wouldn't expect to be able to turn up in a foreign warship without a good story (and plenty of rum to tell it over).
Plus if it was a pirate ship, and they took it to a place were someone might recognise it, it's probably the kind of disreputable harbour that you might be able to pay to get the harbour master to doctor the history a little even without knowing the true origins of the ship. So if challenged you've already got proof that they could be the same.
Ship registries are something you can track, they're certainly not updated in real time.
Not like anyone there would be running https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_system
You could however do a magical version of such, which opens up some fun and interesting options!
---
Further Ogre thoughts:
Ogres were colourful. Their mastery of farming and weaving in turn lead them to master dyes. Tyrian Purple, Celtic Blue, Kermes Red - Ogres had all of theese and more.
Their tattoos were not simple black ink affairs, but incredibly vivid. Like wise ogre monuments were draped in riotously coloured cloths, or painted in vivid hues.
While ogres generally shunned clothing, they were known to weave broad conical straw hats and immense cloaks. These were designed to absorb water on their insides, and keep the weather off on the outsides - allowing ogres to stay cool and comfortable when they needed to work out walk the land around their water homes. Like their tattoos and monuments, these were dyed in a riot of colours.
Ogres had an extensive trade network, enabled by how Ogre source traveled through water. Dyes, alcohol, cloth, dried fruits... This in turn was built in the back of Ogres fantastic skills at weaving and lacquering, letting them easily create waterproof storage they could haul through their water ways. They probably had a complicated barter culture, rather than currency
Ogre territorialness was complicated, and shifted as climate and resources shifted. Almost certainly had strong cultural rules around guedst right as part of their trade network. This is totally confusing to outsiders. Seasonal trademoots and trade migrations probably happened.
A subculture of the Ogres are the Monferrina Ogres. These ogres are the descendants of the Ogres who helped found Monferrina, and their fellow freed ogre slaves. Recognizable by their shorter statue (a legacy of the malnutrition they suffered), their cloaks and hats dyed in natural camouflage colours, and the iron studded clubs they wield. Monferrina Ogres are noticeably more clannish and militaristic (they paid attention to how they lost and trained), as well as having a much easier time speaking . During the Roman occupation of Terror incognita, they regularly lead commando raids to free slaves and destroy Roman outposts.
Yes, this does basically make them Oni, and yes this is 110% intentional
Imagine the terror your average legionnaire would have felt when these massive, cloaked, clubbed wielding figures suddenly emerged from a swamp or rubber at speed and charged you, their clubs annihilating your shield wall in easy swipes.
The Ogres at the time of Roman invasion were reeling from one of Terror Incognitas waxing periods and never developed any kind of organized warfare - no reason to. Monferrina Ogres are a different breed, expert guerrillas who can bent their terraforming talents to trap making and studied their foes, making their techniques their own
Their relationships with their bigger cousins are strained - traditionalist Ogres are unsettled by their propensity for violence (especially because Ogres are known to enter suicidal rages thanks to trauma) - and their rejection of colour in favour of camouflage. Monferrina Ogres meanwhile view their cousins as naive, choosing to run rather than fight and caring more about art and culture than survival. Still, with the extinction of the Romans, these wounds are healing slowly... Though the appearance of the conquistadors threatens to tear these wounds open anew
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That said I plan to eventually do a pirate based campaign(mixing PotC, Star Wars, and Outlaw Star) so I've been thinking about whether Colville's warfare rules would work for ship combat. I think that not only does it work but ship combat might be the perfect use of it. Two fundamentals of the system are that it should be abstracted and that a warfare battle should take place simultaneously with DnD combat. Its pretty simple. You'll be fighting a normal combat and it will be flavored that your armies are also battling around you. You have units which you can give an order towards each players turn. The units are not placed on any sort of grid or map. The system is too abstract with that. Further however many of, lets say, Archers you have you'll only have one unit of Archers. Instead of multiple archers you have a size die depicting how many archers are on the battlefield and that functions as a kind of HP.
So if you want to have combat on a ship this system intuitively makes sense to me. Your Ship functions as a Keep. While having a battle between ships the characters are on their ship(or perhaps the enemy ship) defending or attacking. Parallel to this but not directly interacting with this is the two ships engaging each other with their weapons. Each category of weapon a ship has could be considered a unit. Canons are the obvious example. They are two unwieldy to really be used to kill the players but can be trained at the other sides weapons or ships. If either side does too much damage to a ship or the players win or lose the deck then combat is over making the "logic" of battles happening simultaneous with combat make immediate sense.
I'm years off from such a campaign unless I find another group so I haven't done any testing or done any testing but I think the core of these rules work really well.
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That's not a thing for a fantasy/medieval pirate adventure - feels a bit much like DM fiat saying "you can't have a pirate ship". Sure you could come up with some quest to disable the tracking gems, but you're doing that rather than making them customise their own ship to give it a new identity.
Plus introducing the idea of a unified tracking database into your world, which will extend a lot further than just recording the comings and goings of boats (even if you don't plan to use it, the idea that these kind of things will exist in your player's heads and influence a lot of their decisions later).
Though really the big question is do you want them to have a pirate ship?
I like some of the ideas spread within the first UA crack at them, as well as the official model, but they weren't quite my jam.
Something about how their approach to their integrated protection wasn't working, so I thought I'd just steal the Tortle's racial feature.
How does this look? What is imbalanced? What does work?
@darmak these strike me as being too powerful while also having some kludgy templating. The fact that they're powerful isn't in itself a problem, as long as the rest of your party has similarly powerful tools to play with and you balance encounters accordingly. But it does put that burden on you to maintain that balance rather than on your player.
For Duplicate, the language is convoluted and it also doesn't seem to have a built-in limit on the number of times it can be used (it looks like he tried to do something like this with the last clause about long rests, but that strikes me as abusable). It just strikes me as a weird capability for a wizard to need - they can already transcribe spells to their spellbooks. There also isn't a built-in requirement for language comprehension.
Dispel Elements looks like it's modeled after Protection from Energy, but has some characteristics that lend themselves to abuse. First is the lack of concentration requirement. That's a big big deal because it drops incoming elemental damage to zero while it's active - thereby preventing concentration checks on whatever other concentration spell he's got active. Second is the numerical value for the absorption, which strikes me as high. If you compare this to something like Cure Wounds, a third level Cure Wounds will restore 3d8+MOD health, for a typical max of 27-29 for a 5th level character (range 7-29, average about 19). This is flatly above that and increases per spell level at double the rate of cure wounds. It's also proactive rather than reactive. Big no from me on Dispel Elements - just tell him to be content with Protection from Energy.
True Shield is overly broad. It's trying to do a lot of things at once and I'm concerned that it will wash out the specialization of the characters in your party. Character limitations and specializations make for interesting gameplay - it's part of what makes a group interesting to play in. Numerically it's more balanced than Dispel Elements since it only lasts a brief amount of time, but it's doing the job of a protective heal tacked together with Wall of Force, all at reaction speed.
ALSO - I just realized something else that bothered me. Those spells bend over backwards to avoid using Temporary HP, where in the case of True Shield it's basically what the spell is doing. That means as templated, they would stack with existing Temporary HP rather than overwriting it.
Ok, here we go:
1) Duplicate
I really don't see the point of this spell considering its level. If a player wanted to magically copy a page of information I'd just make a new cantrip or add it to prestidigitation. It seems that the player wants to bypass the time and cost requirements of learning a new spell (level x 2h & level x 50g). Giving it a ritual component allows it to be cast for free in 10 minutes, although why he'd punish himself by making that functionality ritual only is weird (meaning: if a player wants to blow a level 3 slot to scribe a new spell, why not). Scribing a spell doesn't mean you've prepared it for the day, though. I'd ask him what the use of this spell is supposed to be.
Summary: meh!
2) Dispel Elements
This spell is weird because no dice are being rolled. I can only think of 1 other spell off the top of my head that lists a number: power word: kill. If he really wants to ensure some sort of lower bound so that the spell doesn't fizzle entirely, consider going for a X + ydz approach.
My points of comparison here would be armor of agathys and the DMG spell creation guide. armor of agathys gives you 5 temp hp per slot, so at 3 that would be 15 temp damage soaked, but that's all damage. There's the barb effect which is equal to the temp hp, it has some wonky interactions with minions but whatever. The DMG specifies that a 3rd level spell should heal for 5d10, let's consider a shield a form of preemptive healing, that puts us at 27.5 hp. a flat 35 and 15 per spell slot level is too good for what the DMG recommends but I suppose you aren't covering all damage types so padding it a bit feels justifiable. A small concern I have is the lack of a concentration requirement, AoA doesn't have it but that can only be obtained by classes that don't have many spells to cast anyway (locks and paladins). The abuse I envisage here is that he'll cast this shield and then protection from energy over it, effectively doubling the shield value. Depending on how you read the PHB and whether or not you put stock into Crawford's tweets, temporary hit point damage doesn't proc a concentration check. Even then, another player could cast PfE on him.
Summary: Reformat spell to require dice rolling. Add concentration to spell requirement. Give your player inspiration if he casts the shield, rolls nothing but 1s but face tanks a dragon anyway.
3) True Shield
My arguments are similar to those for Dispel Elements. It's numerically too good for for its spell slot (dmg recommends 8d10 for a 5 slot, avg 44) and doesn't require a roll. Another thought is that the other 2 spells that work in a similar fashion have a failure chance: shield will not tell you if the +5ac will protect you. counterspell will not tell you which spell is being cast at what level. this spell has no such failures. I can't think of an interesting way to include the failure chance with the spell as it is currently written. I'd simply make it a reaction spell to an attack being targetted at the caster. Your friend will then have to decide whether or not its worth the spell slot. Hilarity if he only blocks 1 arrow with it. A minor niggle would be that it also acts as a small wall of force. Given the small size of what appears to be a personal shield, I'd rather do something like give the player immediately behind him advantage on dex saves.
Summary: Reformat spell to require dice rolling. Rework reaction condition. Nerf party interactivity.
All in all it feels like he wants to hurl himself into a dragons mouth and effectively cancel out its breath weapon. I'd honestly just talk to him to see what his thoughts on these spells are. Generally, there aren't any shield type spells and healing never follows the DMG advice. The few spells that give temp hp are fairly low balled, AoA has the max of all of them and even then, it's 5 temp hp per warlock level. I don't feel that the game wants you to put shield spells into it, precisely because players can use resistance spells to obscenely increase their value.
Emirikol's Guide to Devils
It's an attempt to amalgamate and reconcile pretty much all officially published lore on devils, their rulers, and the Nine Hells prior to 2017 while adding in a relatively smaller number of new details. It came out before Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Descent into Avernus so none of the material presented there is taken into account, but if you want to make extensive use of the Nine Hells and its various power players there is no finer font of knowledge.
I'd slap a sketch artist together with an old timey wire operator.
I.e. a mage that has the spells minor illusion, sending and has a flair for being artistic.
Make a history check using your perception modifier. The mage will do his/her best to sculpt a motionless head into the likeness of the person you wish to commune with.
the likeness and name are then used as the target of the sending spell!
edit, addendum:
The spell detect thoughts could perhaps also be of interest, this would also allow for a nice side quest where the sending mage will surreptitiously invade a customer's private space and dig for valuables!
In a developed enough setting, e.g. Eberron, you probably just have a network of mages that know each other to act as an old timey wire system; no need to try to learn a target person from your customer, just send it to Bob in Hicksville (or to Sarah in Regional Capitalsville, who can forward it to Bob) and the recipient can pick it up from them.
edit: in fact, I bet the Spellegram Guild even holds yearly conventions, so they can hang out and drink and get to know each other well enough to communicate remotely, bring new hires up to speed, etc. Possibility for intrigue, as wealthy folks try to influence members of the network to get access to confidential communications, etc.
And boughteded
Helping my Dragon Heist DM out we ran into a lot of problems with the lore on the pact primeval and the cassalanter arc. He decided that, nah it doesn't make sense, they've just been bamboozled
edit: I love how this thing has the lords of the nine basically all bratty teenagers on a CW show
The 2 page adventure: Oozes in the Dark from patreon.com/deusexminima
Hex Kit: a simple fantasy hex map editor. https://cone.itch.io/hex-kit
The HPS Cartography Kit bundle with more tiles for Hex Kit. https://natetreme.itch.io/cartographykit
Lancer Core Book: First Edition PDF for mech-combat TTRPG
Mu Cartographer for trippy sci-fi map-making. Expiremental, but might be up @Endless_Serpents alley
Troika! Numinous Edition: TTRPG https://melsonian-arts-council.itch.io/troika-numinous-edition
There is so much crap in there, it's worth buying it just for the novelty of it. https://itch.io/b/520/bundle-for-racial-justice-and-equality
It also has Blades in the Dark! Which between that and Lancer is an amazing deal right there, then you get like 998 other things.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I couldn't not, that's for sure!
Namely, I'm thinking that the effect that dumps people on the continent also inflicts a certain amount of amnesia.
People remember who they are, their skills, all that jazz. What they don't remember it's where they came from - they might remember 'a sandy city' or 'a cold land' but that's it.
Thoughts?
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I haven't been keeping up with whatever it is you're doing sooo some questions from me!
1) how is this effect procced? Is it a random natural event? Or is there some sentience behind it?
2) disassociating a person's history from their personality is .. well .. tricky. Could this amnesia allow people to behave with new personalities?
3) can this world of yours be escaped? do any entities travel to and fro at will?
Maybe even link it even more heavily to the sea. The PCs are the sense of self that has washed up as flotsam, but perhaps other memories will wash up on later tides or even further afield on a different shore depending on the current. Certain memories float at different depths and are swept up in other currents; memories of hatred and passion are thrown up on stormy nights along the most stormwracked headlands, whilst hazy memories of youth are eventually deposited on sand bars.
Extreme memories are visible to other individuals as unusual objects, you know (if you've been here long enough, or are an experienced beachcomber) that this bottle that has washed up with a message in a language you don't understand is the lost memories of someone who has ended up on the continent. But the you it's just a bottle, there's no way that anyone knows to get at the memories inside.
Alternatively it might be a strangely shaped bit of driftwood, some cloth or even a strange patch of coloured sand. It's different for everyone, though some sages and charlatans say that you can get an inkling of what the memory is and who it belonged to from the nature of the artefact.
For most, this is just a strange quirk of their new home - something that newcomers obsess over for the first year before deciding to start their new life properly. But a few can't let go, and track these lost memories down wherever they hear of them, hoping to find something that will give them a glimpse of their past life and perhaps...even suggest a way home. Others collect these artefacts and believe that if you can crack the code, infinite knowledge resides inside, whilst yet others still think all of others fools, but know that they will pay good money for the memories of their past life, or even someone of note in this world.
Rumours also abound of a few reefs, where the very darkest secrets have sunk into the depths - some even shattered by the churning waves, unholy pressures and jagged rocks, leaking some of their essence into the environment, turning it darker still. Anyone of right mind avoids these places, but if the secret of restoring, or even stealing, lost memories does exist? It's almost certainly to be found in these foreboding regions.
Or maybe these are all just ghost stories and sea shanties, stories made to help folk cope with the idea of waking up in a strange land with no idea of who they are or how to get home?
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
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Switch: 0293 6817 9891