weird table

this is like the laziest DM tool ever but it works so whatever.

for my village generator on abulafia i made this one table, that will madlibs a weird adjective in before any noun to make it more weird. I keep finding places to use it when I'm generating other stuff.

 example: [weird] wolf, [weird] wizard, [weird] sword, [weird] room, [weird] mine.

MAYBE WEIRD
1-4 regular
5-6 weird


WEIRD
1 fish
2 bug
3 egg
4 fungus
5 glass
6 slime
7 poison
8 soul
9 acid
10 salt
11 crystal
12 clock
13 vapor
14 sex
15 dream
16 sleep
17 imaginary
18 blood
19 flesh
20 bone
21 bile
22 ash
23 tentacle
24 trash
25 time
26 space
27 quantum
28 cosmic
29 extradimensional
30 non-euclidian

are things that turn into monsters better than monsters that turn into things?

me

tell me about this monster

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md96dyJ7gO1r0i205o4_500.jpg

Jack:

it's a ferret made of daggers

People are like "oh what a lovely dagger I'll just pick it up" and then it turns into a ferret and bites them.

me

what i had was:
SCATTERDOG: can turn into a swarm of needles

Jack:

Why would anyone pick up a swarm of needles?

you're not thinking straight, matt

me

well, you try to pat a dog and then OOPS swarm of needles

are things that turn into monsters better than monsters that turn into things?

Jack:

Yes.

me

discuss

Jack:

If you're looking at a monster you already expect it to attack you

you don't expect a thing to attack you

me

i still think the most boring thing to do with monsters is kill them/have them kill you

Jack:

That's what always happens though

and it keeps working

me

it gets you through

Jack:

I don't think razordogs would be better if they didn't attack you

or skinlings

or vorn, I guess

me

these are better monster things:
chases
riddle games
heists
uneasy alliances
legal situations

Jack:

Or Alien

or freddy kruger

etc

me

where you need the monster for a thing, or they're toying with you, or something - you can't kill the monster and the monster just doesn't care about you

and you're like MAN i want to kill this monster but i can't

like with vorn it wouldn't work if we just killed vorn or vorn just killed everything

Jack:

I think you're really underselling how interesting being attacked by a monster is

Aliens would not have been better if they made an uneasy alliance with the aliens

or a heist, or a legal situation

me

i disagree

i dont mean never-fighting-monsters-is-ideal

Jack:

The buddy movie thing worked well with shodan, but I don't think it's always ideal.

me

i mean you should do monster-fighting in like 25% of monster situations

Jack:

Ok, these things are worse than being attacked, because monster movies are not about the monsters.

like a zombie movie is not at all about the zombies, it's about how characters interact in an apocalypse situation

doing uneasy alliance stuff with the zombies takes emphasis away from the important stuff

IE how do you avoid being killed by this monster

which is the fundamental D&D problem

me

there's something to that

how do i get the treasure out without being killed by this dungeon

is kind of the same

but i want a d&d to be much bigger than that

i mean, diplomacy is awesome, recurring villains would probably be awesome if we didn't keep killing them

i'm not totally sure if i believe that

maybe becoming a part of the monster empire and tearing it apart from the inside is cool?

the difference between having a REFLEX save and ROLL-UNDER-DEX is kinda negligible.

ROLL-UNDER-REFLEX works maybe 10% better (like +2) for bad ability scores.
ROLL-UNDER-DEX works maybe 15% better (like +3) for good ability scores.

guard generator on abulafia

the city is guarded by:
1 d12 hooded passionate elves, in leather armor (+2) with salt axes who can breathe out a mist of fire
2  4d4 hooded blind, eyeless goblins, in studded leather armor (+3) with head clubs and smoke bombs who keep sacred the Safe of Grace
3 2 giant wild sharks (who will have been there for many years)
4 2d8 swarms of elderly rats, the Daughters of the Deserts, who devour everything who hate catwomen
5 28 humans (disguised as loveman/s) with 20 demented cats
6 d20 masked peace-loving large buffalos, the Guardians, in splint mail (+6) with dream daggers who hate tigers


( generate your own )

curse generator on abulafia

http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Curse

I'm not so sure about this one. It's supposed to output kinda DEATH FROST DOOM sorta curses but it's maybe too wild.

sample output:

save or die, and become vulnerable to frost for 1 day, and age at an unnatural rate (3 years every 7 minutes), and gain 1 point of dexterity every 5 days, this effect can be removed by a skilled healer, or through divine or arcane means, but when healed suffer a further effect: suffer 3d6 evil damage and become an avatar for a beast with lobster claws; spikes all over

a king-cat can look upon a cat-king, but never the reverse

In Arlabest it was ruled that a cat may not look at a king. Any cat found looking at the king is immediately beheaded.

In Benegon it was ruled that only a cat may look at a king. Anyone other than a cat found looking at the king is immediately beheaded.

In Creyegad it was ruled that a cat must look at a king. Any cat found not looking at the king is immediately beheaded.

In Dralmenar it was ruled that only a cat may not look at a king. Anyone other than a cat found not looking at the king is immediately beheaded.

In Elreband it was ruled that only a king may look at a cat. Anyone other than the king found looking at a cat is immediately beheaded.

In Friyadin it was ruled that a king may only look at a cat. The king, if found not looking at a cat, is immediately beheaded.

here is a new thief skills hack, a little better than the previous one.

     THIEF LVL 0 1 2 3
----------------------
         climb 0 7 8 9
    sneak/hide 0 5 6 7
    pickpocket 0 5 6 7
     pick lock - 5 6 7
         traps - 3 4 5
read languages - - 3 4
  read scrolls - - 1 2

at first level, the thief can choose a specialty (any skill available at first level) and they get an additional +5 bonus to that skill.

normally, use DC15 for thief skill checks. (30% success at d20+0, 55% success at d20+5)

CLIMB
A normal stone wall is DC15. slippery walls are DC20, etc.
A first level thief has a 65% chance to climb a normal wall. A first level thief who specializes in climb has 90%  - the same as a classic D&D thief.

PICKPOCKET
the DC to remain undetected is 5 under the DC to successfully steal - so usually DC15 to steal but DC10 to remain undetected.

PICK LOCK
A character needs to take a level of thief to be able to pick locks.
A 'class I' lock is DC15, and a 'class II' lock is DC20, and so on.
A first level thief (d20+5) has a 55% chance to open a class I lock. If they choose the lockpicking speciality (d20+10), they have a 80% chance to open a class I lock, and a 55% chance to open a class II lock.

       --------LOCK------------
       I    II   III  IV   V
       DC15 DC20 DC25 DC30 DC35
d20+5  C    D    .    .    .
d20+10 B    C    D    .    .
d20+15 A    B    C    D    .
d20+20 A    A    B    C    D

A-95%, B-80%, C-55%, D-30%, .-5%

TRAPS
A character needs to take a level of thief to be able to find and disarm traps like a thief.
A first level thief (d20+3) has a 45% chance to find and disarm traps. A first level thief who specializes in traps (d20+8) has a 70% chance to find and disarm traps.

READ LANGUAGES
A character needs to take two levels of thief to be able to read unknown languages like a thief.
Reading unknown languages is DC20.
A second level thief (d20+3) has a 20% chance of successfully reading unknown languages.

READ SPELL FROM SCROLL
A character needs to take two levels of thief to be able to read a spell from a scroll like a thief.
Reading spells from scrolls is DC20. 
 A second level thief (d20+1) has a 10% chance of successfully reading a spell from a scroll.