Glad to hear you guys are enjoying what you see so far, and thanks for the feedback!
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We use Inspiration constantly. Love it. We have gold d20s the DM gives out to award Inspiration, and we roll that die along with our normal d20 when we use Inspiration. We also allow it to be used after you roll your first die to gain advantage after the fact (to offset disadvantage you still have to expend it before the roll).
Tell us more about the templates. Will they be more than you get from the Bestiaries? That's the idea, yes. We're modifying the modular design Talented Bestiary system to let you create templates, not just base creatures. You'll be able to create whatever template you can think of with a solid idea of how it'll affect the CR of creatures you apply it to.
I love blade ward on Eldritch Knights/Valor Bards as mentioned previously. EKs in particular can be extremely thick by using it with their War Magic. True strike doesn't work quite as well, sadly, because it explicitly only takes effect on your next turn rather than on your next attack, so I like it less. Very situational, not generally worth it.
Spoiler: Okay, I kind of love the idea of making the encounter lethal as hell, BUT having a provision for the "dead" PCs to affect the fight, and be save-able after the fact.
Maybe they become disembodied spirits that are able to counteract the shadows in some way. They have a pool of hit points in the form of radiant energy they can either use to grant ablative shields (rather than temp hp which would still be subject to the max hp-drop of life drain effects) to their comrades, or even damage the shadows. So they essentially spend their lingering physical essence to protect their comrades or help damage the remaining foes, fading away more and more as they do. Once the pool is empty, they don't have the strength to actively affect the battle and are gone. Their souls could be drawn into and held in the aforementioned necklaces and allow for a ritual to return them to their bodies rather than needing full raise dead magic.
There are no quick-and-dirty advancement guidelines I'm aware of. It's pretty much down to adding whatever capabilities you want and recalculating average CR. That said, it's pretty easy to just plug and chug numbers given the chart without messing with it too much (for instance, don't even mess with hit dice, just give it whatever HP within expected range). As long as you're not stacking a ton of offensive/defensive traits and abilities it should work out okay in general.
If you've seen a Kobold Press title anytime in recent history, you know that Kobold products are synonymous with gorgeous visual style. Chances are you have Marc Radle to thank for that aesthetic feast! From writing products such as New Paths Compendium and Shadows of the Dusk Queen, to arranging art and layout for the Advanced Races Compendium and the upcoming Tome of Beasts, Marc is a force to be reckoned with on all sides of the product at Kobold Press. Check out the full KP-anniversary interview with Marc Radle!
You could look at it as more about being able to determine what is affecting your patient right now by discerning their symptoms. Like a medically-specialized from of Perception. Once you know what's wrong, it's a relatively simple matter to address it (usually). Honestly I think it's probably a Wisdom skill just to make sure that the typical healers are good at using it, and it's been that way since 2e at least (Healing nonweapon proficiency).
Hey, thanks for sharing, Marc!
There are a fairly large number of abilities that grant bonuses to rolls (ditto penalties) but they're often a die result rather than a single, set bonus, and they often use a limited resource to function. The trick is making sure that permanent bonuses still cut into some form of resource, like magic item attunement. You can use both a ring and cloak of protection for +2 total to AC and saves, as an example, but that's 2/3 of your attunement slots, so you're trading off for that. Similarly there's the Archery fighting style and bracers of archery, again cutting into attunement to make that happen. As far as bounded accuracy is concerned I think a single +1 is more valuable, because it's more likely to be an actual 5% increase in chance of success, like SmiloDan was saying.
Looks like 5e print versions of The Assimilation Strain and To Worlds Unknown are off to backers! Excited to get my mitts on those.
Teleportation circle isn't quite as powerful as you might think, because it can ONLY target a permanent circle. It's not the same as the 3.x version that was just an area greater teleport. That said, I would think that permanent circles would be in specific places, and reasonably controlled. I wouldn't imagine that there's a circle just in the town square, right? Though, that would be a cool angle depending on the flavor of your world. Generally I'd say you'd find them in important locations like guildhalls, temples, that sort of thing. Relatively accessible, but not necessarily just standing on the street corner.
I think it's as simple as Charisma fits the concept for bard, sorcerer, and warlock, which was what they decided to include at the get-go.
Advantage/Disadvantage pretty much replaces the plethora of +1,+2,-1, -2, etc. bonuses and penalties of the 3rd edition era. If circumstances are in your favor you have advantage. Roll 2 d20s for whatever task you are doing, take the best result. Disadvantage is the opposite. If circumstances hinder you, roll 2 dice, take the lowest result. There are some numerical bonuses and penalties scattered throughout class features and spells, but most of the circumstance type modifiers will be advantage and disadvantage.
Tiny Hut is obvious, and thus vulnerable. A rope trick is incredibly secure.
I think Kalshane has it right. If you want hazard-free rest, that's going to cost you a spell slot.
I'm sure Queen Sarastra would be flattered, or at least act that way for the sake of decorum. I'm pleased you like the glimpse at the Queen of Night and Magic, she's a really fun character to work with, as are the rest of the Fey Lords & Ladies.
I think as long as the focus remains on organizations, orders, that kind of thing, rather than just focusing on a bunch of awesome class features, it's gonna be okay. And don't get me started on psionic ambuscade. :P
I like how the Rune Scribe is presented. Subclasses are cool, and I really enjoy that approach, but I also like the option for forgotten lore rediscovered, organizations with special skills, and things like that, to exist independent of a class. I love that you can have a Rune Scribe wizard as well as a Rune Scribe fighter with the right background.
Week 2 of our blog series is live! Tim Hitchcock (War) casts blood-soaked pearls of wisdom on running a horror themed adventure. Do take a look, and tell us what you think!
Huzzah! An announcement of bestial proportions! That's the thing, the one I couldn't talk about without risking kobold-inflicted dismemberment. :)
Much easier, and it makes low-level spells relevant at high levels in a lot of cases. In the case of cantrips, those scale off of your total character level, even if you get the cantrip from a source other than a class, or if you multiclass.
There's really no concept of caster level in 5e. Spell level, by that I mean the level of the slot used to cast the spell, is generally how you track a given spells "power." Some monsters will have a level specified in their spellcasting trait. "The so-and-so is a 15th level spellcaster..."
I have a few "back pocket" converted adventures as well. It's saved my butt more than a few times. FH-Death, it's cool to know that you are doing that work. I'm excited to see more 5th edition material from you. Can't tell you how gratifying it is to hear that, I shall endeavor to exceed your expectations! A note on Night of the Walking Dead — I did that one for my own personal use. There's no way I can convert an old TSR/WotC adventure in a professional sense at the moment. As far as upcoming 5e work, I'm doing the 5e conversion for the Legendary Planet Adventure Path from Legendary Games, and as I've mentioned in another thread, some big stuff for Kobold Press that isn't quite officially announced just yet. -Dan Dillon (Death of the Four Horsemen Writing Team)
I have to say, I really enjoyed both Midgard and Southland heroes - picked them up yesterday and am planning on using/opening the options up to my new game. Keep up the good work! So pleased to hear you enjoyed them! If you are so inclined, a review left wherever you purchased the books would be fantastic. Keep an eye on Kobold Press in the near future, exciting things approach! -Dan Dillon
This thing is gonna be a blast. We've got some cool stuff coming down the pipe!
I converted Night of the Walking Dead. I copied the full text out of the PDF into a word file, so it took kind of a long time to get it formatted correctly. The most time consuming part of the conversion (once formatting was done, that was a B) was designing a zombie lord. Sadly the game I was running only made it through the end of Part 2, so I didn't get to test the final encounter.
Good to see 5th edition getting such love, Dan. I'd love to share my thoughts on Midgard Heroes, as soon as I get the book. I will be able to very soon... Awesome! I think you'll be pleased with what you see, and I'd love to hear your impressions. And you know, 5th edition has really hit a sort of magical stride for me, blending my AD&D/2e grognard-ish roots (can I claim full grognard status for that? I'm not sure...)with some of the things I love about the 3rd edition era (meaning all the 3's, up through and including Pathfinder), and even some good things that came out of 4e (which wasn't my favorite, by far).
So glad you're enjoying Midgard Heroes! I'd welcome any specific comments or criticisms you have, and if you'd be willing to drop a review wherever you picked it up I'd be extremely grateful. Just echoing the Head Kobold's words above, there is some extremely exciting 5e stuff on the horizon from Kobold Press, and I just wish I could say more. But... there would be consequences. Probably involving spring-loaded pain. So... -Dan Dillon (Death of the Four Horsemen Writing Team)
The newly released Construct Companion, published by Rogue Genius Games also has a ton of player-centric information, including rules for construct animal companions and familiars.
Anything particularly useful here for an "Attack on Titan" inspired/flavored game? As was mentioned previously we're looking at releasing some free content to folks who purchased the book if sales back up the effort. I'm not familiar with Attack on Titan, but I've heard enough about it that I'm tempted to check it out. Anyhow, if there were some free content released, that MIGHT do something along the lines you're looking for, can you describe the sorts of things you'd like to see? I am interested.
A new 5 Star review for Gruesome Giants! Many thanks to Endzeitgeist for taking the time to share impressions!
So glad you enjoyed it, PDG!
The Genius Guide to Gruesome Giants is now available in the Paizo store! Additionally it has already received a 5-star review. We're very proud of this product. If you're looking for ways to make giant encounters interesting or infused with horror themes then this is definitely worth your time to check out! |