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| by Eksafael |
Tired of prostrating yourself before the false idol of well-written, structured classes? Try RATGLoG: toss all your favorite templates into a random table, blend for 30sec, and watch your PCs grow into burly, pseudo-magical, mutant freaks! (Made with Spwack's generator generator, as always)
Whenever you advance, roll 3 options for your next template and pick one.
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| Pascal Blanche |
You get +1 to save for each Cog template you have.
The Pre(Cog)nitive
A: Sequence, Inscrutable Agenda
B: Subordinates
C: Calamity
D: Shared Fate
Δ: The Index, Buck the Reins, It is Written, The Stars Align
A: Sequence
At the start of the session, roll two d20s and note the results in sequence. Whenever you would roll a d20, use the result of the next number in sequence instead. Then, roll a d20 and add it to the end of the sequence.
The sequence must be visible at all times to all players. Remember, the DM decides whether an action is risky enough to necessitate a roll.
A: Inscrutable Agenda
You are burdened by the universe’s inscrutable agenda. Roll for a cryptic mission. Whenever you complete a cryptic mission, your sequence length increases by 1.
If you have no active missions, receive one the next time your mind wanders in a crowded place; it is delivered by one of the Subordinates (see below). You may also receive new missions in dreams at your DM’s discretion.
B: Subordinates
In the city, you have a chance of encountering Subordinates in a dark alleyway. They are (1d4) supplicatory; baboon-esque; baroque; all elbows. So long as they do not speak, no one pays them any heed.
They offer a gift of (1d4) strange black fruit; royal gossip; a severed finger; a silver gear. Whatever it is, it will be extremely useful within the next 24 hours, so long as you are in the right place at the right time.
C: Calamity
When you visit a location, you know the exact time of the next great calamity to befall that location. You have a vague sense of its magnitude, but not its nature. Anything more than a week away is vague.
D: Shared Fate
You may share your fate with another by sharing an embarrassing secret with them. Those who share your fate may use your sequence as you do, with your permission. They are not obligated to do so; only you are bound by fate.
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| Ben Sack |
Δ: The Index
Prevent at least three others from cheating fate.
When you die, pass your fate on to whomever is emotionally closest to you. (A good friend, your kin, or the enemy who strikes you down.) They become a Cog and inherit your sequence.
Δ: Buck the Reins
Cheat fate at a critical juncture.
Once per day, you can reroll your sequence. Fate despises you; if a 1 leaves your sequence, add a 1 to your sequence instead of rolling for a new result.
Δ: It Is Written
Foresee a sequence of 7 or more dice.
You know your exact cause of death. Nothing else can kill you (except poison).
Δ: The Stars Align
Foresee an ascending sequence of 13 dice, from lowest to highest.
Receive your final mission. It is time-sensitive.
If you fail, fate is cast into disarray. One fundamental rule of reality breaks forever.
If you succeed, you lose all your Cog templates, and your sequence disappears. You are free.
As per usual, generator made using Spwack's generator generator HERE.
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| Yoshitaka Amano |
Magic rolls uphill, searching for the quickest route to the highest point, like lightning in reverse. This may be because spells love the sun (which is made of magic) or abhor the earth (where the Dark dwells).
This means that in any structure that is taller than all other nearby structures, magic will slowly accumulate over time. This magical buildup makes the structure weird; the older and taller it is, the weirder it gets.
1d6
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What's Wrong With The Tower You Built Last Year?
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1
| The tower begins to animate. Gargoyles, mimics, and other “trap” monsters
are born. In severe circumstances, the tower may pick itself up and
attempt to climb the nearest mountain.
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2
| The tower begins to grow, both upward (approaching the sun) and downward
(to set strong roots). The rooms are unsettlingly “organic”, and
nothing is as it should be; the ceilings are too high, the walls slope
inward, the stairs are all different heights.
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3
| The tower attracts 1d4 demons; goblins; shades; pigs, who grow fat and dangerous lapping up the excess magic. |
4
| The tower’s inhabitants change. The bats, the rats, and the lichen on the cobble grow dangerous, intelligent, or downright odd. |
5
| The tower is levitating upwards at a glacial pace. It’s currently 30 ft
off the ground and rising faster with each passing month.
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6
| The tower is slowly filling itself with riches, inciting all sorts of
brigandry and territorial disputes between nobles. The madness of greed
settles over the countryside
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Yes, this happens to non-tower things too: tall trees, mountain peaks, etc. Frequent "venting" can prevent a tower from weird-ing, although it's a dangerous and mishap-prone process.
SPEAKING OF...
When a tower falls down, all that built up magic is suddenly released, causing any number of magical catastrophes.
1d6
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What Happened To The Tower You Knocked Down Last Week?
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|---|---|
1
| The nearby land becomes haunted. dead things buried here start waking up.
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2
| a FRACTURE opens: a tiny crack between two realities. Left alone, it will expand into a full-fledged portal to another plane
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3
| Time or spatial distortion; infinite labyrinthine woods and impossibly huge lakes. May cause backwards aging |
4
| Chimeric fusion zone. Bifurcated stone-trees and liquid hillsides. Owlbears come from these |
5
| Everyone in a ten mile radius has nightmares about the same
previously-unknown figure. If enough of them gather in one place, a
sermon begins and a god is born.
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6
| New tower. An enormous spire of bone and mineral sprouts from the ruins
of the previous tower. It is impossibly tall, full of impossible things.
Looking directly at it is bad luck.
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| Pawel Hordyniak |
This is also why wizards always build their own towers; to gather magic more efficiently.
In bygone eras, they climbed the tallest mountains where they build the tallest towers and installed enormous vessels at the top—orbs of finely-sculpted crystal, barrels full of ghosts, whatever’s on hand really—within which they collect unstable arcane energy.
Then, they hauled these batteries into their dungeons, which were dug deeper than the deepest trenches, and release them. The upward current of magic powers all the equipment and experiments between the highest and lowest point. The deepest, weirdest dungeons are decrepit wizard-engines from before the end of the world.
You can spot them from a distance; just look for the tower.
Oh, and if you start running batteries up and down the structure, you might be able to turn on the machine again, but this would take ten armies worth of manpower.
Today's takeaway: If you're going to write magical metaphysics, make sure your players can interact with them.
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| Words to live by from https://fractalmeadows.blogspot.com/ |
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| Guillaume Singelin |
Both PCs and NPCs have Hit Dice. All Hit Dice are d6s by default.
PCs can gain HD by leveling up, drinking from the fountain of youth, and eating the hearts of dragons.
PCs can turn their HD into MD permanently, sell their HD to the devil, or lose HD to level-draining monsters.
Your HD become HP at the end of a rest.
After a long rest, roll all of your HD. If the sum is greater than your current HP, it becomes your HP. You may reroll one HD for each luxury you have.
After a short rest, roll one of your HD for each luxury you have. If the sum is greater than your current HP, it becomes your HP.
After a week of downtime, your HP becomes the maximum possible value on all of your HD.
Luxuries are any comfort items you take into the dungeon that exceed the essentialist lifestyle of an adventurer. An item doesn’t count as a luxury if bringing it into the dungeon has a negligible cost; comfort always has its tradeoffs.
Example Luxuries:
All magical and non-magical healing sets your HP to some value if it is greater than your current HP. For example: a "potion of minor healing (3d6)" sets your HP to the rolled sum if it is greater than your current HP.
The motivation behind this mechanic is entirely frivolous: i just like the idea of handing a player a hit dice more than telling them to write +4 HP on their character sheet.
I also like the idea of giving players mechanical opportunities to role-play moments of weakness. Just like how an 8 HP, 8 HD dragon might be critically injured or sick compared to the average, sometimes an adventurer just has a bad day. Narrating a low roll on HD as “This PC is looking rough today, maybe they caught a chill?” could inspire some cute moments between players: “Let me carry that for you, you’re not looking so hot” etc.
Sacrificing HD has a lot of weight because it’s a tangible loss. It could be a cool resource to spend for some class mechanics; maybe you can use hit dice as an alternative resource, like GLOG MD.
Last but not least, there's something comforting about having universal mechanics for PCs and NPCs. I don't think its a virtue by any means, but knowing that "[dice] HD target" means something similar for both PCs and NPCs feels very good somehow.
Is any of this worth using in a hack?????? Probably not. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.
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| ismail inceoglu |
Most of these houserules are pretty standard. You may already be using them.
Underlined rules are the wild ones. They aren’t for everyone.
At the beginning of the game, decide as a table whether to play with or without an inventory limit.
Regardless of which option you pick, NEVER add mundane ammunition, food, water, light sources, etc to your inventory. (If you want to run a campaign where scarcity of these resources is important, feel free to reintroduce them. By default, however, these are assumed to be on your person in quantities sufficient for expected use.)
During character creation and when leveling up, you can defer decisions about your character until later in the game. Here’s an incomplete list of deferrable character features:
Mark these on your character sheet with question marks. At any point in the game, you may make one of these decisions. For example, if you defer an extra language and stumble upon some ancient runes: “Truth be told, Abyssal was my elective back in knight school.”
You don’t gain the benefits of a given feature until the next rest if it takes you more than 10 seconds to consult the PHB and write it down. Keep the game moving.
Armor proficiencies are stupid. Ignore them.
Multiclassing prerequisites are stupid. Ignore them.
Ability score prerequisites for feats are stupid. Ignore them.
ALL players ALWAYS roll for a trinket at character creation. (it's the best piece of content in all the published 5e sourcebooks)
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| bani-chan |
DICELESS ADVANTAGE:
If you have advantage from 2+ different sources, you automatically succeed.
If you have disadvantage from 2+ different sources, you automatically fail.
If you have advantage/disadvantage from 3+ different sources, you automatically crit.
Yes, this means you can guarantee a crit an AC30 demon with some grease and a lesser invisibility spell. Smart planning will always be rewarded appropriately.
There are 3 DCs: Easy (10), Hard (20), and Nearly Impossible (30). The DM should use these exact words when describing a task’s difficulty.
(For conversion’s sake, always round up: 5 -> 10, 15 -> 20, 25 -> 30)
The DM should reveal a task’s DC or a monster’s AC when asked explicitly by the players. None of this is secret information; PCs just have a better sense of how difficult something is in-universe than anyone at the table.
FOR GROUP CHECKS, ALWAYS USE A SINGLE ROLL
One person elected by the group rolls. No other PC can attempt the check afterwards.
If everyone needs to succeed, only the character with the lowest modifier rolls.
- Example: sneaking around undetected
If only one person needs to succeed, only the character with the highest modifier rolls.
- Example: perception, remembering historical trivia
If it makes no difference how many PCs attempt the roll and for how long, don’t call for a check in the first place.
Here’s are the rules for using ability checks in social interactions:
THE GAME OCCURS IN TURNS
In combat, these are 6 second rounds.
In the dungeon, these are 10 minute crawls.
In settlement visits, these are 1 hour jaunts.
In overland exploration, these are 8 hour treks.
Each turn, each PC gets 1 action and some movement. The scale of action and movement changes depending on the turn’s scope.
For more information, read this post on turn structures.
UNLESS YOURE PLAYING ON A GRID, IGNORE ALL PRECISE MEASUREMENTS
5’ = “within reach”
10’-30’ = “in the same room”
30’-100’ = “within shouting distance”
100’+ = “visible from a distance”
If you’re 5’ short of reaching the lever on the other side of the room, you reach it anyway, because counting feet is for caterpillars.
The DM writes down your marching order. Unless you explicitly decide to change your marching order, this is it for the rest of the campaign.
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| artem demura |
NPCs/monsters don’t roll initiative. Treat all NPCs as if they rolled a 10 on their initiative. Everyone can see the initiative order; again, this isn’t hidden information.
(Alternatively, fuck turn-based initiative, do it my way instead.)
A target with half cover has advantage on Dex saves, and attacks against it have disadvantage.
A target with 3/4 cover has half cover. 3/4 cover is a myth, a kid’s tale.
Moving through another creature’s space is NOT DIFFICULT TERRAIN (seriously, who wrote this?????)
Critical failures in combat are not opportunities for PCs to fuck up; they’re opportunities for monsters to be absolutely terrifying.
When you roll a 1 in combat, the nearest/scariest enemy takes advantage of it. The dragon frightens the player, no save. The orc gets a free attack. The goblin farts in your face, poisoning you.
This is upsetting, but infinitely less frustrating than dropping your axe for the 3rd time this session. Seriously, you should get a wrist strap for that thing.
When you drop to 0 HP, you aren’t unconscious, just unhelpful. You fall on the ground, unable to do anything but clutch your wounds and maybe scream.
If you attempt to do anything helpful while at 0 HP, including shouting advice or crawling to safety, you automatically fail one of your death saves. If you’re stable, you destabilize.
You don’t kill NPCs/monsters, you defeat them.
When you defeat an enemy, they are completely at your mercy; you can send them running witless into the hills, knock them off a cliff (no save), or slay them where they stand. By default, you knock them unconscious unless you describe otherwise.
You can immediately extend a helping hand to a defeated foe, restoring them to 1 HP. Maybe this brings combat to an end, or maybe you’ve doomed yourself by putting your faith in another. That’s up to you and your DM.
Hit Dice are stupid. Don’t use them.
There are two types of rest: short and long.
Short rest: Take an hour, have a snack, catch your breath. Regain up to half your max HP.
Long rest: Rest for a solid eight hours without interruption. Regain full HP.
Recuperating in downtime takes a week of rest. Remove all non-permanent, non-magical injuries, poisons, and diseases affecting you.
Optional: Feasting! You can spend a slot of high quality food per PC (if playing with inventory limits) to turn a short rest into a long rest. It's a feast, and everyone's invited! If a monster/NPC shows up (very likely, given the smell), you must invite them to join in peacefully or forfeit the benefits of the long rest.
Any purchase that costs less than 1% of your total wealth is a trifling sum, and costs effectively nothing. This includes daily expenses, such as lifestyle and hireling costs.
Players who attempt to abuse this mechanic (for example, by buying 100 swords at 100 different shops) pay in full.
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| If this information ever becomes relevant in your campaign, just nuke it from fucking orbit. |
Ignore all the rules for long jumps and high jumps. Ignore movement rules in general.
You can move around as much as you need to, unless:
You can hold your breath for five minutes or until you get the wind knocked out of you. Make a death saving throw (+CON mod if your DM is nice) each round spent without air. You don’t drop to 0 HP and can still act while suffocating.
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| IF YOU CANT SEE, YOU CANT SEE WHY DOES THIS TAKE SO MANY WORDS TO EXPRESS |
If you ever invoke the 5e Exhaustion rules, you lose the game of D&D. Everyone packs up and goes home.
If you absolutely must use exhaustion in your game, you’re exhausted instead. (disadvantage on everything, speed = 0) You don't die from exhaustion; something else comes along and kills you instead.
