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Right, boppers - word from the street is Shadowrun's coming back swinging. Catalyst Game Labs and Black Book Editions drop Anarchy 2.0 this summer, streamlining corporate espionage for when you need less crunch, more running. Can you dig it? https://l.d20.ninja/2p85fvt7 #Shadowrun #Anarchy2 #TabletopRoleplaying #Kickstarter #CatalystGameLabs #Cyberpunk

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The idea that buying WotC and expecting it to help the FLGS is totally delusional.

Diversity is what will save FLGS and RPGs in general.

WotC has been reaching for the monopoly for a while.

#WotC #WizardsoftheCoast #DungeonsAndDragons #DnD #RPG #TTRPG #roleplayinggames #tabletoproleplaying

Viewing Dragonlance Through a Daggerheart Lens

In high school, every summer, I would reread the Dragonlance Chronicles and the Dragonlance Legends novels. By my senior year, I was including The Legend of Huma and Kaz the Minotaur. Considering I used to read almost every D&D related novel that came out, I used to read a lot in high school. I developed some serious feelings over these characters.

Getting Dragonlance to the Table

My favorite D&D setting was the Forgotten Realms, but my favorite D&D novel series was Dragonlance. I ran several campaigns using the Dragonlance setting, but I think part of what made Faerun a better home for my games than Krynn was that none of my players had read the novels, and it was hard to translate the gravitas of certain setting elements to them.

“There was no divine magic for 300 years.”

“Oh, so kind of like the Time of Troubles.”

“No, not at all. It was like . . . the Cataclysm.”

“You’re using a tautology to explain why something in the setting is important.”

No, that’s not an actual conversation I had. It just feels like I had it. I don’t know if I can even picture any of my high school friends saying tautology. That was my job. All of this might also explain why Taladas felt like it was going to be a better region of the setting for ongoing campaigns, because there was less weight being conveyed in the fiction, plus the kits did a good job of framing the various cultures. 

For years I wanted to run an alternate reality version of the War of the Lance, and by “alternate reality” I mean, the PCs 100% replace the Heroes of the Lance. Despite that, I also really wanted to see what players would do with the iconic characters in the iconic campaign of the setting. Because one of the foundational trilogies of the setting is about time travel and potential alternate realities, Dragonlance always felt a little like a superhero setting in that manner, where playing a game where history unfolded differently but started in a similar manner felt completely in line with the setting.

Alternate Reality/Alternate Game Engine

Because I have opinions about these characters and an emotional connection to them, I often think about them when I look at a new fantasy game system, especially if those games include classes/archetypes that at least partially line up to D&D conventions. That brings us (finally) to what I wanted to talk about. Within Daggerheart, I created the Heroes of the Lance. I did this in Demiplane, which is important for reasons I’ll get to. I’m going to include links to each of the characters, because it would be a lot to include them all in the post in their entirety.

General Conversion Notes

I’m trying to avoid doing too many rules tweaks. I want to see if I can make satisfying versions of the characters without creating house rules for the game. That doesn’t mean I may not make some choices informed by the setting (like not giving Raistlin much in the way of Splendor versus Codex domain cards). 

There are a few things I may go back and tweak, because I was being a little more literalist than I need to be. For example, I can give Raistlin better armor by re-flavoring that armor as warded robes. There were many examples of wizard robes in the novels that were cited as having protective runes and sigils on them, and very few rules have ever been added to the official D&D material to reflect what those robes actually did, other than saying just assuming standard D&D magic robes reflect what was being described.

There are a few classes that get overtly magical abilities that I’m going to squint and treat as just extreme talent. That’s a big deal with the rogue, especially. Some characters might have benefited from multi-classing, even if they weren’t in D&D rules, but rules as written, you can’t multi-class in Daggerheart until 5th level, and I picked 3rd level as a better feeling of where the Heroes of the Lance were at the beginning of Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

I renamed a lot of Domain Cards for flavor, but I feel like it was less necessary for the Domain Cards than it was for basic equipment. For example, Flint traditionally carries an axe and shield. Battle axes default to two handed weapons in Daggerheart, and the only one handed axe is a magic weapon. In Daggerheart, that doesn’t mean a starting character wouldn’t have it. It just means that it should be taken by classes that more overtly use weapons that do magic damage instead of physical damage. But all we really need is a one handed weapon that does physical damage and uses strength as the trait used to attack with it. That means we give Flint a mace and call it a one handed axe.

This isn’t really a hack, because the core rules mention that things like weapons are examples to be described as needed, and gives examples in the text. Axes and maces don’t do slashing and bludgeoning damage, they both do physical damage in Daggerheart, so there is no reason not to call a mace a one handed axe.

The Heroes of the Lance, as traditionally presented, are really fighter heavy. Tanis, Flint, Caramon, and Sturm are all fighters. That means even if we make some of them Guardians and some of them Warriors, one or both classes is going to have to support multiple characters to make them distinct.

There was one last thing about the conversion process that was interesting to me. There are no Communities that reflect growing up in a crossroads town, or even a rural community. These both feel like they would be natural additions to the Community offerings, and while many people are excited about new Domains and new cards for existing Domains, I really hope we see a few more Communities. Despite that, it’s not too hard to find communities that fit with some aspect of how various characters were raised, so it’s not a major sticking point.

Each header with the character’s name is a hyperlink that leads to the “anyone can view” character sheet for that character in Demiplane.

Tanis Half-Elven

Tanis may have been the biggest challenge of these characters. The wisest sage of all Dragonlance gaming interpretation, Cam Banks, has mentioned that Tanis really should have a class like Marshal/Warlord to reflect his role in the story, but classes like that aren’t always core to various editions of D&D, especially versions that officially translate Dragonlance. 

I thought of trying to make Tanis into a Bard to reflect his ability to inspire others, but since multi-classing doesn’t come into play until 5th level, a 3rd level Tanis using Bard abilities would have to be only a Bard, and it’s really hard to make a Tanis that feels like Tanis by using the Domain Cards available to Bards up through 3rd level. Codex abilities are pretty overtly magical, and while you can pretty easily describe a lot of Grace Domain abilities as more mundane, Tanis really wasn’t exceptionally good at lying, or able to dazzle foes with his words. He was just good at inspiring and directing his friends.

In the end, I went with Call of the Brave Warrior for Tanis. There are a few Domain Cards that deal with bolstering allies, so this was a good fit for Tanis. It’s interesting to note that I thought Tanis was going to be a character that leaned hard into Presence, and I gave him a good score in that Trait, but one of the big Domain Cards you can use to direct others, Strategic Approach, runs on Knowledge. So Tanis has as much Knowledge as he has Presence. I don’t think that strains my concept of him, but it meant I wanted to make sure that some characters had their primary defining trait bump just a wee bit above other characters. For example, I felt like I needed to make sure Raistlin still had a higher Knowledge than Tanis.

Flint Fireforge

I thought Flint was going to be a kind of boring conversion, but I had a little more fun playing with things we know about Flint than I expected. I made Flint into a Vengeance Guardian, because he holds a grudge, and he’s the father figure to the group, and it makes sense to give him the combatant option about protecting others. 

I leaned toward giving Flint abilities that spent stress. This is going to be a little morbid, but knowing that Flint’s time on Krynn is going to be brought to an end by his heart failing him, pushing his stress to keep going kind of felt appropriate. The one ability that directly boosts his allies is one that triggers on a Long Rest, which feels appropriate. Flint isn’t boosting others in a fight or inspiring them. He sits around the fire and asks Tanis what’s bothering him.

Tasslehoff Burrfoot

Tasslehoff was one of the trickier Companions to translate to Daggerheart. Part of that revolves around the idea that Rogues in Daggerheart are usually willingly, intentionally good at crime, often in ways that imply organized crime organizations, or they are supernatural assassin types. Neither of these paradigms fit Tasslehoff, but no other class really makes sense, because the Rogue is still the class for doing sneaky stuff unnoticed.

Here’s some of my logic for the choices I made for Tasslehoff. One of his abilities gives him the ability to Enrapture a target. Rather than being so charming, my thought on this is that when Tasslehoff gets going on an Uncle Trapspringer story, either people are trying to keep up with the twists and turns of the story, or having their eyes glaze over at the sheer number of details and speed of the pacing. One of Tasslehoff’s abilities makes him Invisible, but D&D 2024 has already retrained my brain to read “invisible” as, “you constantly just happen not to look at someone or something” as opposed to actually being invisible. He’s just that good at sneaking around.

Troublemaker was the easiest of the abilities I picked for Tasslehoff. Stressing out an opponent by taunting them is perfect for the standard kender taunting ability. Pick and Pull was another easy choice. Yes, he’s good at picking locks and picking pockets. Deft Deceiver is all about being a good liar, and Tasslehoff isn’t a deceptive person, but I think this works for him being so convinced that he really didn’t take something from your pouch that maybe you believe him too?

Halfling works well to stand in for Kender as an Ancestry. The Luckbringer ability matches Tasslehoff’s ability to accidentally do exactly what the party needs him to do well in his story role. 

Sturm Brightblade

It’s easy to picture Sturm as a Warrior, but when you have to choose between Warrior and Guardian, Guardian is very tempting. I leaned into Warrior only because Sturm has a general desire to protect, but not as much of a personal drive within the Companions to protect any specific person, the way characters that I gave Guardian to may have. Call of the Slayer sounds more bloodthirsty than Sturm’s demeanor, but I think when you look at Call of the Slayer versus Call of the Brave, which I gave Tanis, I think Call of the Slayer works for someone drilled to fight in very specific ways, passed down through his family.

Orderborne may have been the easiest Community to assign to any of these characters. Even spending most of his childhood in Solace, Sturm had Solamnic values drilled into him. Picking three sayings or values to call on in the game is just screaming for you to write “Est Solarus oth Mithas” on your character sheet. I also had fun renaming Sturm’s Domain Cards to sound like values that would be outlined in the Measure.

Caramon Majere

The biggest challenge to making Caramon is that spellcheckers keep wanting to rename him “Cardamom Marjoram.” Once you come to an agreement with your spellcheckers dictionary, the next step is to decide on Warrior versus Guardian. In the end, I went with Stalwart Guardian, because at his core in Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Caramon is about protecting Raistlin above anything else. 

It was really easy to find abilities that made it feel like Caramon is throwing people around, bashing their heads together, and barreling through opponents. While you can rename weapons, it made sense to give Caramon a weapon with the broadsword’s traits, but then let him use Strength to attack with it. Caramon, like his brother, is a character I felt needed to be a little better at his defining trait than anyone else in the group, so he gets a +3 Strength.

It’s a little outside of just converting Caramon to Daggerheart, but while it made sense to give Caramon a -1 to Knowledge, I like that the trait is Knowledge, not Intelligence. One of Caramon’s character developments by the end of the second trilogy learned that he was intentionally leaning into being “the stupid one” because he was defining himself in contrast to Raistlin. 

Raistlin Majere

There was never any question that Raistlin was going to be a Wizard and lean heavily on the Codex side of Domain Cards. But Raistlin is obsessed with learning new magical secrets, so why go with School of War? Because regardless of his interest in learning every magical secret he could find, Caramon and Raistlin were raised by their older sister Kitiara, who was a mercenary, and worked as a mercenary with his brother while away from the Companions. It also fits with Raistlin’s major trait. For all of his ruined health, Raistlin survives. Face Your Fear just feels exactly like something Raistlin should have. Being more dangerous when things feel the most dire? If you assume that also means doing extra damage just out of spite, that Raistlin right there.

I didn’t mention this under Caramon’s entry, but I gave Caramon and Raistlin the Slyborne Community. I mentioned above that there isn’t really a good Community for representing the crossroads that is Solace, but I think Slyborne works for Caramon and Raistlin’s upbringing. Caramon mentioned Kit taught them how to fight, but also how to kick someone when they were down. The Scoundrel ability works well for sussing out someone’s less admirable motivations and finding a place to catch your breath when people want to kill you, which leans into Raistlin’s survivability. And if you want to argue that Caramon wasn’t as wary as other people as Raistlin . . . Caramon always knew exactly how his brother felt about him and buried that knowledge. 

Some of the “standard” weapons in Daggerheart just do magic damage, because thematically, people using those items are throwing magic around. Even though Raistlin didn’t directly use the Staff of Magius to fire off spells from the staff, it still doesn’t feel wrong to give him a staff that does magic damage as his primary weapon, and flavor it as him just using the Staff of Magius as a spellcasting focus.

I’m trying not to just go into how many Wizard abilities are perfect for portraying Raistlin, because, well, that’s just means the class is functioning as expected. I had a ridiculous amount of time renaming the books referenced on the Domain Cards, and that really helps to underscore the feel of the Wizards of High Sorcery. When he picks up more cards after exploring Xak Tsaroth, it’s a perfect excuse to rename another book to represent the spellbooks of Fistandantalus that he gets from Bupu. I leaned a little away from Splendor Domain Cards, although they worked for throwing some Fistandantalus spiritual manipulation into the mix. Because of the setting itself, I took Healing Hands and Mending Touch off the table. Reassurance was great for Raistlin, but not as reassurance. It felt like a good stand in for those times when Tanis would ask Raistlin would give him the worst-case scenario. 

I complain about Raistlin eating up so much of the word count of the novels as the series wore on, and I just did the same thing. Damn you Raistlin.

Riverwind

Riverwind is right up there with Drizzt for D&D novel rangers that don’t do what the current edition of D&D assumes rangers will be doing. It’s not that the class feels like a poor fit, it just does so much more, and in so many supernatural ways, that the class can do. 

Back when I was in a game playtesting the earlier version of the Daggerheart rules, I mentioned that I really like how the Daggerheart ranger feels flexible enough to portray a lot of divergent concepts that surround the concept of a ranger, that focuses on being a survivor and a hunter, and can lean more or less supernatural. That’s good for finding some abilities that feel right for Riverwind.

One of the important elements of Riverwind’s backstory was surviving an onslaught of things trying to kill him when he first found the Blue Crystal Staff. The Daggerheart ranger has a lot of “you’re going to have to fight hard to kill me” abilities. Yeah, I know, “where was that survivability when Onyx first showed up?” Hey. Onyx is the first dragon we get to see in the books, and we needed to see the upper end of what the Blue Crystal Staff can do. Sorry for the digression. 

Goldmoon

The irony about Goldmoon is that it’s more difficult to build a more generic D&D cleric in Daggerheart than it is to build Goldmoon at the beginning of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I made her a Divine Wielder Seraph, because there isn’t a much better example of a divinely powered character that uses a weapon granted by their god. There is also a staff in the equipment section that uses Instinct for its attack Trait and does magic damage, and that works really well for the Blue Crystal Staff.

How will this play as Goldmoon moves past, discovering the Disks of Mishakal, when she isn’t carrying the Staff anymore? Honestly, if I was running this as a campaign, I’d be fine with Goldmoon manifesting a magical “echo” of the staff when she needs to have it. It’s not what happened in the books, but it also doesn’t feel drastically wrong. Since we’re just looking at the Heroes of the Lance and Dragons of Autumn Twilight, I don’t have to figure out Elistan or Crysania in Daggerheart, and you can’t make me (but I probably will eventually).

I enjoy giving Goldmoon the Highborne Community to represent her regal bearing as a princess of the Que-Shu. This personality trait gets obscured by her faith and her relationship with Riverwind, but it’s definitely there, and it’s nice having a mechanical reminder of it.

The River of Time

Am I going to run the War of the Lance storyline using Daggerheart? Almost certainly not. Do I want to see if I can make a Campaign Frame that captures what I was trying to do with some of these characters and latches on to what is unique about the setting? Yes, I want to do that. I would also like to make a few signature adversaries, like Draconians, and maybe get some people together not to run all the way through the adventures, but maybe to play some key scenes from the books, like the wicker dragon encampment or the confrontation with Onyx.

While it was tricky to convert some characters, it felt less like the rules were fighting me, which I have felt in other game systems when I try to do similar conversions, and more like I needed to twist and turn game elements and connect them at different points before I got a solid feel for what the story would feel like at the table, rather than literally what every game element says it is. 

Daggerheart feels like it’s going to be a good, flexible game for heroic fantasy roleplaying to emulate a lot of inspirations. Like any game, I’m sure it’s going to be more or less suited for different stories, and I ran into a few tricky elements in this conversion, even though I think Dragonlance is probably closer to Daggerheart’s core competencies than some other settings might be. But I think Daggerheart’s strength is going to be that it’s better at making a setting that feels like Dragonlance than literally being Dragonlance. I look forward to more tinkering.

I know I haven’t been plowing through content recently, but if you still want to help me maintain the blog and continue to look at lots of different RPG content, you can pick up some of these items via my affiliate links below. Thanks!

• Daggerheart Nexus + PDF
• The Journals of Kaz the Minotaur: The Lost Colony
  
• Shadow of the Dragon Queen (Roll20)
  
• War of the Lance (3.5)
  
• Legends of the Twins (3.5)
  
• Dragons of Autumn (D&D 3.5)
  
• Dragonlance Classics (15th Anniversary Edition)
  
• Time of the Dragon (2e) 

#Daggerheart #dnd #Dragonlance #fantasy #gaming #RoleplayingGame #rpg #TabletopRoleplaying #ttrpg

Roll20, Demiplane, and Daggerheart

Oh, hey, are you still here? Lots of cobwebs I need to clear out of here. I should dust more often. But hey, as long as you’re here, why don’t we talk about something RPG related? Have you heard about this Daggerheart thing? I’ve got lots of other stuff to say, but why don’t we get a little specific? Let’s talk about how Roll20’s Demiplane implementation is going to work for Daggerheart.

Roll20/Demiplane Implementation

If you haven’t heard, Roll20 and Demiplane are integrating character sheets from Roll20’s character builder, instead of using a character sheet specifically built for the Roll20 platform. Daggerheart is an interesting game to look at, because, unlike some of the other games on Roll20, Daggerheart doesn’t have a native Roll20 character sheet. The game is basically jumping in on the deep end.

So what does this look like? Let’s start up a new game and look. We may not be seeing free character sheets, at least not created by the publisher, because it’s looking for a connection to Demiplane. You can make a character without connecting it to Demiplane, but “character sheet” in this case means uploading a token and typing some things in the blank player notes section, and maybe your DM will put some additional notes there that only they can see.

Adding Characters

Once you add “Demiplane” as your character sheet, the +Character button will also have a drop down connected to an existing character. As usual, you can make characters visible to all players, so if you’re the GM, you could make pregenerated characters that others can use. Once you link the character sheet, it works very much like any other character sheet on Roll20.

Rollable buttons and links on the character sheet come through in the chat log on in the chat tab of the VTT. Anything that is supported on the character sheet as rollable comes through in the chat log, so if the Demiplane character sheet gives you the option to add bonuses or re-roll checks, when you click on those buttons, it comes through in the chat log. 

This isn’t common for Roll20 character sheets, but to clarify, you can’t target a character and have a roll react to the statistics of that character sheet. You can highlight a token, roll a check on a different character sheet, and have the difficulty or modifications to the roll applied to the roll. The main reason I mention this is that even though it isn’t a common implementation on a Roll20 character sheet, some character sheets, like The One Ring 2e, have this functionality, and some VTTs have implemented this kind of functionality.

That said, there is a damage calculator on the character sheet, so once you know how much damage your character has taken, you can add the damage number you have taken, and toggle resistance or armor slots. 

The other reason I bring this up is that Demiplane is planning on releasing GM tools for Daggerheart on the site, which would allow you to, among other things, create and modify adversaries. Will you be able to pull those individual adversaries into Demiplane so the GM has their custom made adversaries available in the VTT? It’s hard to say until we see the tools, but given that Demiplane is asymmetrical, i.e. the GM rules for adversaries are not the same as the character building rules for player characters.

The portrait you pick for your character will come through as a token if you pull it to the map in the VTT, but you still have the same option, on the same detail page that appears for all character sheets in Roll20, where you can add a separate image for a token beyond your portrait. If you use the image from your Daggerheart character sheet, it comes in as a perfect 1 x 1 square on the grid. 

What’s Integrated and What Isn’t

About the only thing I wish the character sheet would do that it doesn’t currently do would be to let you add your experiences on a roll, may be indicated by turning on or off check boxes next to them. There is an option to click on + or – buttons when you get ready to make a roll as indicated on the character sheet, so it’s pretty easy to add two or three to the roll when you can apply your experiences, but I would still like to see a way to toggle those on other checks from the character sheet.

I mentioned that all the rolls on the character sheet will come through. Here are all the buttons that are available on the Daggerheart character sheet:

• Directly rolling Traits
• Primary attack roll
• Attack damage
• Spellcast rolls for individual abilities
• Re-roll button for each of these rolls
• Weapon proficiency override (which changes the number of dice rolled for attack damage

There are also several dynamic tracking elements to the character sheet, which don’t specifically come through in the chat log, but are available for tracking individual variable elements on the character sheet. These include:

• Proficiency override (see above)
• Hope
• Hit Points (Update Hit Points using the damage calculator)
• Stress
• Spending Hope for your Hope Feature
• Tracking numbers or uses of unique ability based on character options
• Stress spends from various abilities that are triggered by spending stress

Is there anything that will still be an issue that the character sheet can’t track? Maybe. There are a few abilities that change the d12 you roll for your duality dice. For example, there might be an ability that makes this more desperate for the players that change their Hope die to a d10, or there may be an ability that bolsters a character that changes the Hope die to a d20. You can still use the Roll20 dice roller to roll dice outside of the character sheet buttons, but it’s a function I’d like to see.

It’s a minor thing, but for my screen size, the default size of the sidebar in Roll20 where Chat/Art/Journal/Compendium/Jukebox/Collections/Settings appear is slightly too narrow to display the entire box that shows the roll result details from the character sheet. That’s pretty minor, and it’s easy enough to left click and drag that sidebar to make it wide enough to read.

Speaking of the Compendium, when you click on the Compendium in a game with Daggerheart character sheets, the compendium opens up in Demiplane. It opens up in a separate tab on the browser. I like the compendium displayed in the sidebar when it appears in Roll20, but the compendium that pops up looks much nicer than the internal compendium that Roll20 normally shows for a game.

Exploring Other Demiplanes

As I get the opportunity, I’m really interested in exploring more of the implemented character sheets. I’m especially interested in the Marvel Multiverse RPG, especially, because GM characters and player characters are built in the same way. It is going to be significantly easier to build and change characters for the GM to use in Roll20. I’m also really curious to see what the GM tools look like for Daggerheart, and if and how it lets you import adversaries and environments, maybe even campaign frames.

#CriticalRole #Daggerheart #Demiplane #DemiplaneNexus #Nexus #RoleplayingGame #Roll20 #rpg #TabletopRoleplaying #ttrpg #VirtualTabletop

I sat down last night and began looking through the two folders that contain the world I created for my #DnD campaigns—something I started over 30 years ago (the world, not the campaigns, that is!).

When I first started playing as a non-GM, we’d often get the usual, "You're in an inn, and you hear the barkeep talk of troubles at <story link>." That was fine, but it soon dawned on me that these inns we kept visiting were rather generic—nothing ever seemed to happen until we, the adventurers, arrived.

I used to sketch maps and layouts of locations based on the DM’s descriptions as we roved from village to village, town to town, and city to city. But I quickly noticed huge inconsistencies and illogical choices.

When I became a #DungeonMaster / #GamesMaster, I wanted the world to feel real to my players.

The small town they found themselves in had a reason for existing. The people who lived and worked there weren’t just there to push the story forward. The bars were full of gossip, of course, but not just about the bands of kobolds lurking in the nearby woods. The people were three-dimensional, not just cardboard cutouts.

My first map was a crudely drawn sketch in a lined A4 notebook, but it was a start. I put it in a folder for safekeeping.

Fast forward nearly two decades, and I now have two folders filled with typed-up notes, maps, handouts (feelies), props, and more.

Most of my notes are rough—some typed, some handwritten. I even have a couple of 5¼ and 3½-inch floppies with who-knows-what on them, simply labelled "D&D Stuff."

So, to that end, I’ve decided to start organising and modernising everything.

I’m also thinking of documenting my progress on my woefully underused blog. As you can probably tell from my toots, my writing tends to veer towards verbosity, and I enjoy long-form content.

So, watch this space! I have a lot to sift through and rethink—histories and maps, religions and pantheons, socio-economic factors, and more.

It’s a lot of work, but I think other DMs might find it interesting—whether to follow my thought process or even to borrow elements for their own #TabletopRolePlaying #games.

https://covok.itch.io/magnificent/devlog/884069/work-in-progress-preview

I might boost this tomorrow because its 2am, but I decided to release a WIP preview for the setting I am working on for MHR. It's a superhero setting and I'm really enjoying working on it. This release does put some of the already completed setting into the CC-BY license. It also adds a bunch of new rules for MHR.

#TRPG #TTRPG #RPG #Roleplaying #Game # RoleplayingGame #TableTop #Table #Top #Tabletoprpg #Tabletoproleplaying

Worlds Beyond Number Witch Playtest version 3.1

This isn’t very revolutionary because I’ve already taken a look at the Witch, but I wanted to touch base on the updates because I’m really interested in this project. If my thoughts aligned with some of the revisions, I might even start to take my ability to analyze these things more seriously again.

Worlds Beyond Number Witch Playtest version 3.1

Concept Design: Erika Ishii, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Brandes Stoddard, Mazey Veselak
Design: Dan Dillon, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Hannah Rose, Brandes Stoddard, Mazey Veselak
Playtester in Chief: Erika Ishii
Layout: Ruby Lavin
Illustrators: Corey Brickley, Tucker
Donovan, Jack Jones, Lorena Lammer, Taylor Moore

Page Count, Layout, and Format

• Pages: 20
• Layout: Two-Column
• Format: Full Color, Accompanying Art
• Content Breakdown: Introduction and Witch Class—6 pages, Witch Spell Lists—3 pages, Covens (Subclasses)—4 pages, New Spells—6 pages

Disclaimer

Review Copy: No
Played: No
Run: No
Played Similar Content: Yes
Run Similar Content: Yes

Diving In

A lot of what I’m going to be doing is looking at the changelog and discussing my previous look at this class. After I touch on those, I’ll pull some thoughts together.

Class Foundations

The witch gets upgraded from a d6 casting class to a d8 casting class. The class does feel like it’s living in a similar space to classes like the druid. Most of their spells aren’t major areas of effect since their magic is more personal, so without wider “controller” abilities, it’s probably a good idea for them to be able to soak up a little more damage. To go along with this, they also get to wear light armor, should the mood strike them.

The concept of curse spells remains but means something different, and a separate list of them is provided later in the document.

Tier 1 Abilities

There is a fallback means of creating a token if you fail your Wisdom check when you make one by spending a spell slot. Kudos for standardizing the class to adopt 2024 conventions without adopting the idea that it just pops into existence when you “craft” something.

Last time around, I mentioned that Erika immediately took an animal for a familiar that wasn’t on the familiar list, so it’s kind of amusing to me that the document now includes a fox, and a few other animals that weren’t there before, and gives examples of existing animals to swap in for those that don’t have stats. The witch also has badgers, goats, and scorpions on the potential familiar list. So, if you really want, this can now be a VVitch class.

If you follow The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One actual play, I think you’ve seen some of the in-play developments that added the following familiar abilities—they have more hit points, but not so much that they’re combat ready, they can talk now, so they can communicate with more than just the witch; the familiar can’t concentrate for the witch now, except when the witch fails a concentration check, and then the familiar “catches” the concentration before it drops. I don’t know that I would have thought about that, but now that I read it, I kind of like the idea that by making this more of a thing that the familiar steps in and helps with, it makes the familiar feel more like a helper than when they can just do it. Sometimes, a slightly less open class feature can help the class express what it does better.

Retributive curses don’t interact with the curse spell list any longer. Now, there is a list of curse effects the witch can choose from when their ability to use a Retributive Curse is triggered. I was a fan of Retributive Curses, not only because curses are part of the identity they are establishing for this class, but because when the witch was squishier, it was a way for them to potentially survive something getting in their face in combat. Seeing the Retributive Curse as a class feature instead of spells, I realize I like this much better. It makes the curses feel more like they “belong” to the witch, rather than the witch having the ability to use spells differently in some situations.

I mentioned in the previous version that the Tier 1 abilities didn’t give a witch player much to play with in more traditional dungeon crawling or combat situations until 3rd level. Standardizing 3rd level as the level where subclases start bumped Retributive Curses down to 2nd level, which feels right now that they made this change.

Tier 2 Abilities

Talismans are moved to 5th level, and they have a “homing beacon” effect, which I like. I also like that witches can now shut down a talisman and recover their spell slot as an action instead of after 10 minutes. It does feel more in line with how other classes function. I don’t imagine you’ll need to yank a spell back from someone who suddenly becomes hostile, but I can see getting down to your last resources and needing that little bit of power back at a critical moment.

Willful Sanctum is the reworking of the Willful Walls ability, which previously didn’t come into play until higher level. Instead of jumping straight to the higher level functions, Willful Sanctum lets the witch set up a sanctum if they spend 8 hours after they’ve taken a long rest in a location, which feels more like an “adventuring” feature. If you know you’ll be adventuring in a location, the witch can help you set up a “base camp.” The Willful Sanctum ability now grants certain spells without the witch needing to prepare those spells, and the spells increase over time. I think the main thing that still makes this feel less like an “adventuring” feature is that it doesn’t gain the ability to grant Private Sanctum until it is at least 7 days old. I feel like it would be more functional if the sequence was more like this:

• Long Rest
• 8 hours to set up Sanctum
• Return to Sanctum
• Long Rest
• Sanctum gains bonus abilities currently reserved for 7 days

Improved Retribution gives the witch more options for her Retirbutive Curses, which I like. Since this is replacing the ability to cast spells, it’s nice to see higher-level choices that can help keep the curses as relevant as higher-level spells would be.

Tier 3 Abilities

Hallowed Sanctum attaches Word of Recall to the Willful Sanctum, which is a great spell to tie into this. Very happy with that idea. Like the previous version of the witch, most of this tier is about expanding what the witch got at lower levels, including higher-level spells for tokens and another set of curse effects for Retributive Curses.

Tier 4 Abilities

Shifting Sanctum expands your sanctum to allow you to use Imprisonment and Demiplane. Like Word of Recall, I love these as spells tied to your ability to supernaturally make a space set aside for your use. It sounds like a big deal to have access to these spells, but also, we’re talking about 18th level now.

Epic Boon is basically standardizing the class to 2024 standards. There aren’t any new Epic Boons included, but I wasn’t expecting that. I’m also still processing how much it really grabs me to have something like this at 19th level, but that’s not an issue with this class.

True Craft got reworded, but it looks like I already understood it to do what it does now, and I’m not sure I can crawl back into my brain to see why I may not have seen why it needed to be reworded.

Covens

Most of the changes with the Coven of the Heart are relatively minor tweaks. Curse upon the Heartless is a little more effective from 10th level on. Overflowing Heart got bumped back to (Wisdom Bonus) a number of times instead of (Wisdom Bonus + Proficiency Bonus). I don’t know if the ability needs to be reduced, but I can see where it also makes sense to bump something slightly more complicated than most features. If the witch is doing what I’ve seen most players doing, they’ll be able to use this 4 times by tier 2 and 5 times by tier 3, at the least.

Coven of the Claw

The Coven of the Claw got more extensive reworking. That was the class that I felt was doing a little more work for adventuring witches than the other subclasses. Curse of the Claw has unique effects tied to it that also act as a mark. If you want to picture me cursing about how Hunter’s Mark should be a class feature of Ranger instead of making a core concept of the class for multiple editions into a spell that isn’t even exclusive to them, you can insert that here.

Instead of getting access to medium armor, Coven of the Claw witches now get a feature that grants them a Wisdom bonus to their armor class in light armor. I think it’s an interesting aspect of the Coven to not make medium armor use the key to any Coven. They lost their ability to use Wisdom for attack and damage rolls, which was one of the big things pushing this one ahead of the other Covens, and it also cuts down on the temptation to have a Monk/Witch for optimization purposes. But fear not, the Coven of the Claw does still get access to claws that they can use their spell attack to attack with, which is probably better as a constrained ability rather than a wide open one.

The Fierce Familiar, which used to be a subclass feature, is now a spell that any witch (or Druid or Ranger) can use. The Coven of the Claw gets to have the spell always prepared, and they can flavor it to transform their familiar into a battle beast. I think that’s a fun twist. It’s nice that other witches can still decide to unleash a vicious beastie if they aren’t Coven of the Claw. The higher level abilities aren’t as tied to setting up the Coven of the Claw witch to enter a cycle of destruction with the Fierce Familiar. 

Red Frenzy doesn’t let the witch throw a cantrip into their attack routine, which seems like a good idea for something flavored as a “frenzy,” and it reframes the Coven of the Claw as “the animal fury witch” and not the “combat witch.” Steady Will got reworked and rolled into On the Hunt, which feels like it fits a little more thematically with “animal powers and hunting” than “too stubborn to be frightened or stunned.” It’s now a subset of other options the Coven of the Claw can pick with this ability. Still, instead of that, they could choose invisibility powers, an attack used as a reaction to being attacked, or increased damage on damage-dealing spells. I like that it has the limit of not working on Undead or Constructs because they aren’t really something one would naturally hunt as an animal.

Coven of the Green

Coven of the Green removed Thorn Whip from available cantrips, and I’m a little sad. I wonder if that was to help differentiate a Coven of the Green witch from a druid, even though they still get Druidcraft as a cantrip. Like the other curse effects, their Curse of the Grasping Green is now a unique subclass feature. Veil of the Green takes advantage of the “new” concept of Emanations to add a list of hindering effects to impose on opponents. I like the Wild Gifts feature, but this ability is interesting to look at in light of 2024 just adding a spell that pops out potions. I like Long Rest > Prepare Spells (Harvest Potions) > use before 24 hours passes as the sequence for this.

Like Fierce Familiar, the Coven of the Green Witch has its “long-term sleep” ability converted to a spell, and I like that since it opens it up for other witches to use as well. My assessment last time around was that Coven of the Green was a little light on the practical adventuring abilities (okay, dungeon crawling), and this feels like it’s retooled features to still feel “green,” but not quite as passive?

Coven of the Wicked

The description of this Coven has been reworked. While there is still some guidance on using this as a Coven for “fallen” witches, it is written more as a Coven that a player might intentionally choose to play when they get their subclass. I wonder if that would mean Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent didn’t take her subclass yet until after . . . that event.

Curse of Cruelty gets renamed and flavored to Curse of Spite, which I like if you’re letting people pick this as their anti-hero archetype instead of as the “fallen to evil” Coven. Loathsome Gift has been reworked a bit to make it less open-ended. Curse-Token can renew on a short or long rest.

A lot of changes to the Coven is quantifying abilities to make sure they’re clearer, but Twisted by Cruelty removes resistance to Poison and Necrotic damage. I will say that even if you want to use this as your “anti-hero” class, by the time you reach this level, you have full-on villain coding. Not many heroic people live in a location surrounded by miles of dead plants that your aura has caused. It mentions the physical changes that overtake witches of the Coven of the Wicked, which has me wondering if “impossible sharp cheekbones” is one of those changes.

Final Thoughts

I liked the previous version of the class, but I think The Coven of the Green is a better adventuring option than it was before. I feel better about the Coven of the Claw. I like that many of the abilities aren’t radically changed, but they do feel more “D&D” because of how they describe their effects, but in a way that doesn’t feel efficient to the point of storytelling sterility.

I really like the new effects for the Retributive Curse. I’m a big fan of these abilities being rolled into unique witch abilities, and I like the ones they have introduced. There aren’t any functions for Curse Spells in the core class, and only a few things trigger with them in the subclasses. I don’t think I would be sad to see the subcategory of Curse Spells just go away. If that’s not in the cards, I think the core class needs to interact with them and the subclasses.

I started putting together a witch character for playtest purposes on Roll20. Now, I think I will work on setting up the class progression in Shard so I can offer it to players who may want to take it for a spin in games where I’m using Shard Tabletop as the venue.

If you want to help support the blog, please consider following the affiliate links below—thanks! (Heads up, some of these links have some graphic content)

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#5eSRD #ActualPlay #ActualPlayPodcast #DungeonsDragons #DungeonsDragons2024 #DungeonsDragons5e #FantasyRoleplaying #magic #TabletopRoleplaying #TheWizardTheWitchAndTheWildOne #Witch #WorldsBeyondNumber

6.9: There's More to Explore: Diving Deeper Into Fully Automated! a Solarpunk RPG, With Andy Gross

Due to personal issues, Christina couldn't take part in the original interview with Andy Gross about the solarpunk role playing game Fully Automated! that made up S6E2. But she had questions. In this episode, she had a chance to ask them. Before you grab your dice and download the game (for free!) at https://fullyautomatedrpg.com/ have a listen!

https://youtu.be/rVbt259kvoY?si=X8pIWaprFex_XOqS

#solarpunk #SolarpunkPresentsPodcast #podcast #SolarpunkPodcast #Episode #seasonSix @FullyAutomatedRPG #TTRPG #RPG #postScarcity #roleplaying #tabletoproleplaying #imagination #imaginativeexpansion #games

More ESPionage NPC illustrations coming in! Here's Noah Twain, an antagonist from the adventure Sunny Days and Rain. Noah's the handyman of Paradise Round. It's a big job and he doesn’t have time to turn around to face you. #TTRPG #FateRPG
#TableTopRPG #TableTopRolePlaying #TableTopRolePlayingGame #EvilHat #FateCondensed
#ESPionageDevLog #RPGDevLog #RPGDev

Dieser Charakter wird erstellt für einen Gastspieler. Dass Star Wars D6-Zitate einfach ein perfekter Match für das Universum sind, hilft dabei, dieses Textfeld sinnvoll zu befüllen.

Der EV-Droide Namens "EV-RY" meint nur:

"Ja, mein ehemaliger Meister fand den Namen auch witzig. Ha. Ha. Ha." ***zündet Lichtbogen-Schweissgerät ***

#pnpde #ttrpg #tabletopRoleplaying #StarWars #REUP #SWREUP #StarWars #Droide

@Armand_Valemor Bienvenue ! À propos de jeux de rôle, je peux vous conseiller de suivre le mot-clé #jdr qui est très utilisé en français (même s'il y a aussi #JeuDeRole), et/ou le mot-clé anglais #ttrpg (pour #TabletopRolePlaying). Des instances comme Les Portes de l'imaginaire et Ludosphère accueillent de nombreuses joueuses et joueurs : vous pouvez parcourir le fil général de ces instances afin d'y repérer des comptes à suivre..
https://toot.portes-imaginaire.org/home

Elliot's roughs for the NPCs of the King in Giallo

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Oscar Peon's a capable field agent, but his stunning good looks limited him to honeypot work. What was a liability in the CIA is an advantage when working with the psychic agents of The Strip. His good looks often drawing attention, from phenomena civilians aren't supposed to see.
#TTRPG #FateRPG
#TableTopRPG #TableTopRolePlaying #TableTopRolePlayingGame #EvilHat #FateCondensed
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6.3: Fully Automated! A Solarpunk RPG with Andy Gross

This week on Solarpunk Presents, we’re bringing you an interview with Andy Gross, one of the brilliant minds behind Fully Automated! A Solarpunk TableTop RPG (Role-Playing Game). Don’t worry, you don’t need to know game jargon to follow along for this one - solarpunk storytelling comes in a lot of different forms, and this is yet another kind for people to use to imagine a kinder, greener future that strives towards a utopia … of sorts.

RPGs get a reputation for being all about fighting. How does that work if the RPG is solarpunk? Or utopian even? What is an RPG, in the first place? What is the usefulness of a solarpunk RPG? Join us as we discuss these questions and more.

Art from the Fully Automated website used in episode cover is by Sean Bodley as well as a few other artists and this will get updated to credit them when we track them down :)

#solarpunk #SolarpunkPresentsPodcast #podcast #RPG #roleplayingGame #gaming #gamer #GameDesign #TTRPG #TableTopRolePlaying #TableTop #CharacterCreation #economy #policy #PoliticalSystem #politics #WorldBuilding #Future #futuring #cyberpunk

Growing up homeless and often alone, Codename Dewey's best friends were books, and still are. A prolific reader with incredible memory and imagination, Dewey can channel any character she's read about, from history or fiction.
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