the sorcerer should get a sorcery point at level 1

so the sorcerer has sorcery points at every level except 1, and doesnt really get good stuff to do with it until level 3. my game i want it to be pretty high level is level 3, so i wanted to buff the sorcerer at level 1-2, give them sorcery points and a way to use sorcery points earlier, maybe this breaks the game if youre multiclassing but i dont think so, but it is a lot of stuff to get at level 1, maybe confusing for new players, to whom i say, hey, dont play the sorcerer

Font of Magic.

You have a deep wellspring of magic within yourself. This wellspring is represented by sorcery points, which allow you to create a variety of magical effects.

At 1st level, You have a single sorcery point, and you gain one additional point every time you level up, to a maximum of 20 at level 20. You can never have more sorcery points than shown on the table for your level. You regain all spent sorcery points when you finish a long rest.

Sorcerous Zeal.

Your body crackles with a magical energy that allows you strange boosts of skill at odd times. When you roll an ability check, you can spend 1 sorcery point to add +1d6 to the ability check, after the d20 roll is revealed but before the dungeon master announces the outcome.


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is this overpowered? you can do it once a day at level one and twice a day at level 2. or at level 2 you can get a level 1 spell slot instead for 2 sorcery points. so it kinda... builds the ramp of , hey, sorcery points, do stuff with these

at higher levels i don't expect sorcerers would use sorcerous zeal very much because it competes with metamagic and i think is less powerful than metamagic, but if they do maybe thats good, maybe youre skills more often than spells in this game and then the sorcerer gets a thing they can use in that kinda game

is it bad flavor for the sorcerer to be like a jack of all trades skills guy? does it beat the bard at the thing the bard is good at? im not sure but i think it could be good for my game, im gonna probably do something else with the bard, but i think its not better in all cases than the bard thing

fighter weapon focus

(this about 5e again)

so i wanted a thing thats more than the fighting style at level one to make the fighters seem more different than each other. ive seen a couple different approach to this - i think more likely most people would swap out the fighting style, or the battlemaster steez for this kinda stuff- but i like it stacks with fighting style, and i think swapping out the fighter's self heal for some weapon steez gives me enough space to work with, more than you get with jsut fighting style, and im playing with the essentials kit, which i like because its sort of a new basic - and essentials kit never mentions the battlemaster, so this might work in an alternate universe game where theres no battlemaster, and this 'weapon focus' ability can also round out the fighter style sidekicks in that book. ahem, 5e voice...

Weapon Focus

At first level, you can either choose a Weapon Focus or gain the Second Wind feature.  When you level up, you can choose to replace your Weapon Focus with a different Weapon Focus, or choose to swap a Weapon Focus for Second Wind, or Second Wind for a Weapon Focus.

If a Weapon focus ability calls for a saving throw, the DC for that roll is your Maneuver Save DC.

Maneuver Save Difficulty Class: 8 + your Proficiency Bonus + your Strength or Dexterity modifier (your choice).

Choose one of the following abilities for your Weapon Focus:

Trapper. When you hit a creature that is medium or smaller with an attack using a flail or whip, as a bonus action you can cause the target to either succeed on a Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. When attacking a target with a net, you do not take disadvantage on the attack from attacking at long range, or from making a ranged attack in close combat.

Secret Crossbow Arts. You ignore the loading property on crossbows. You can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding.

Blood Drinker. Your attacks with daggers and darts do 1d4 additional damage. When you reduce an enemy to 0 hp with a dagger or dart attack, or with any weapon that deals slashing damage, you can immediately gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier + 1 for each level you have in this class.

Punch Through. When you hit with a reach weapon that deals piercing damage, or with a weapon that is thrown like a javelin (including a spear, trident, or dart), you can hit a second target with the attack so long as the targets are within 5 feet of one another, and you can draw a straight line from the attacker through both targets.

Rattle Bones. When you hit a creature with an attack using a bludgeoning weapon, that creature is rattled until the end of its next turn. (A rattled creature has a -2 penalty to its attack rolls.)

XVARTS

using the sidekicks ua and xvart warlock together...

ok, so the queen of these xvarts is a xvart warlock named MAJAR the UNBLINKING as in Volo's Guide with few changes, she has boots of striding and springing, a rod of the pact keeper +1 and a shield +1
35hp, ac18 with a +1 shield

 but her champion is this guy...

STRITTEN BLAXT (XVART BATRIDER HEXCASTER)
hp 10d6+10 (70hp)
a xvart warlock with 5 levels of spellcaster (cleric)
that replaces its 'spellcasting' trait
but he still has innate spellcasting which is detect magic and mage armor at will, so we'll keep him in no armor. (AC15)

xvarts have the thing where they can communicate with rats and bats, and with giant bats and rats. so i would put this guy on a giant bat mount and have him oversee fighters on the ground...

(there are like 400 xvarts in this stack, not includign the ones outlined here.)

that gives him a range of 60ft. and the bat also makes its bite attack which adds another (+4/d6+2) damage. i would let him use the xvart disengage and shove proficiency for the bat. so advantage on shoves if theres an ally in 5ft of the target. then he uses his whole move to shove and disengage, making no attacks.

give him a shortbow, so its...
(+4/d6+2) either with the bow or the scimitar ... and flavor him a sort of branding iron thing instead of a scimitar, that does burning damage.

so ill give him... does a melee attack, which is also casting a touch spell with the branding iron, the bat makes a bite attack, and disengage in the same turn.

stealth +3
give him wisdom 16 (+3) and constitution 14 (+2)
wisdom based casting (+6/ DC14)
wisdom saving throw (+6)

[1][1][1][1][2][2][2][3][3]

three cleric cantrips (thaumaturgy, guidance, resistance)
1st level spells (bane, guiding bolt, cure wounds)
2nd level spells (lesser restoration, blindness/deafness)
3rd level spell (bestow curse)

so buffs and debuffs, some touch spells, some healing.

on a short rest, recovers 5 points of spell slots.

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REXVOLT, JARN and YESRA, XVART BATRIDERs
so i'll give him some level 3 lieutenants. these guys can be based on regular xvarts rather than warlocks.. with 16 dex, so ac14(leather armor) and 30 hit points each. im giving them three levels of warrior.

proficiency (+2) in athletics, acrobatics, and animal handling

theyre also bat riders, basically to confuse which guy is the spellcaster. stritten goes into stealth, these guys pop out. so they also do the disengage and shove while on bats. im picturing a lot of narrow platforms over pits in this cave.

so shove is a str-athletics check opposed by the targets dex-acrobatics check. so these guys are the best at the shove thing, having advantage +2 if an ally is adjacent to the target. the shove knocks you prone or

they make an attack or a bat attack, not both, and theres generally no reason to use the bat's bite rather than shove or arrows.

 they make bow attacks and scimitar attacks at (+5/d6+3) and also make bat bite attacks at (+4/d6+2)
they also crit on a 19 and have advantage on dex saves they can see.

then some roguey ones on the ground...

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SALM, JISBIT, SILSBY and CLAX, XVART WHISPERERs - these ones are (level 2 expert) speakers, so they speak either common or goblin. call them 15 hp.

proficiency acrobatics, slight of hand, stealth, insight, survival, with expertise in insight and survival.

they do net attacks (+4, 10 feet) or mallet attacks (+4/d6+4)... but nonlethal. but can disengage, dash or hide as a bonus action. these guys automatically crit against a foe on the ground.

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okay, so the theme with these guys is theyre noble avatar smurf types who are just trying to maintain their secret homeland, but the place is also a beholder lair or such (who they sort of believe is an avatar of their god, the NIGHT HUNTER) and the beholder guy is starting to pull planar terrors into the world....

so they will prefer to scare off adventurers rather than kill them, the idea is to rough them up, dump them out of the dungeon and make it so that they dont come back. I think if they tpk the party, they will take 1 eye and dump the party outside.

treasure.... majar would have a bunch of gold jewelry covered in moonstones, 2000 gold worth. a +1 rod of the pact keeper. a +1 shield. and a boots of striding and springing.

TWINZEL AND DANGDELON

4es martial power has this strength rogue build which seems built for the bugbear, and also somewhere theres a feat that lets a drow fight with a crossbow and a melee weapon at no penalty, and these are pretty killer dnd guys but hard to reproduce in 5e...

im trying to convert these dudes from a document where they are halfbaked 4e pcs to be 5e monsters… because thats probably more useful…

when i was making these i wanted to make two dudes who would fight well together, a two dudes...
both have, leather and no shield, is AC15. they each have maybe like... 50 hit points? they are each level 7 dudes so maybe like a CR5 encounter if you fight them together. whatever that is.

both fight in melee and with a crossbow in one hand and a melee weapon in the other.

TWINZEL, a bugbear rogue...
dex 16 (+3)
int 16
str 16
cha 13 (+1)
con 10 (+0)
wis 8  (-1)

skills: stealth +9, thieves tools +6, intimidate +4, deception +3, insight +3
initiative: +3.

TWINZEL fights with a light crossbow (+5,d8+3) in one hand and an oversize mace (+5, d10+5) in the other. after attacking, he can shift 3 spaces and hide as a free action, even on a miss. he grants opportunity attacks when he attacks with the crossbow in melee (as usual) - DANGDELON does not. TWINZEL and DANGDELON each know the secret crossbow art that lets you reload a crossbow with one hand, and as a free action.

SNEAK ATTACK: +3d8 damage to one target he hits per round, that he can sneak attack. (5e monsters can't sneak attack when they have disadvantage to hit, and they need to either have advantage to hit or have an ally in 5 feet of the target, in order to sneak attack. TWINZEL often attacks from hidden, and DANGDELON is often within 5ft of enemies, so TWINZEL will likely be able to sneak attack on any given round. If attacking with the mace, he can sneak attack two targets per round.)

SURPRISE ATTACK: (bugbear) a further +2d6 damage if you surprise a creature in the first round of combat.

MACE: +5 to hit. reach 10ft. d10+5 damage, and the target is RATTLED (has -2 to hit). after attacking, he can shift 3 spaces and hide as a free action, even on a miss.

MULTIATTACK: if TWINZEL has two targets he can sneak attack with his mace, then he can use the mace to make one attack on each target, RATTLING both targets and sneak attacking both if he hits them. after attacking, he can shift 3 spaces and hide as a free action.

DIRE OPPORTUNITY: (using the reaction) when you hit with an opportunity attack with the mace against a RATTLED target, knock the target prone. and it is RATTLED again.

BAT ASIDE: 1/short rest, make a mace attack against one target. on a hit, the target takes 3d10+3 damage. slide the target up to 5 squares to be adjacent to one of its allies. that target and all its adjacent allies are knocked prone and RATTLED. after attacking, TWINZEL can shift 3 spaces and hide as a free action, even on a miss.

CROSSBOW: +5 to hit. 30/120 feet. d8+3 damage plus 3d8 sneak attack damage. after attacking, he can shift 3 spaces and hide as a free action, even on a miss.

BLINDING CROSSBOW BARRAGE: 1/short rest, hits each enemy target in a 15ft cube adjacent to TWINZEL. each target makes a dex save (dc14) - if they fail the save they take 2d8+3 damage and are blinded, if they succeed they take half damage and are not blinded. after attacking, he can shift 3 spaces and hide as a free action, even on a miss.

BRUTAL CUNNING: TWINZEL had advantage on deception and insight checks.


and DANGDELON, a drow barbarian/ranger...
str 16 (+3)
dex 16
cha 14 (+2)
con 14
wis 10 (+0)
int 10

skills: stealth +6, athletics +6, acrobatics +6, persuasion +5, intimidation +5, survival +3
initiative: +7.

DANGDELON fights in one of two modes:
two picks: with a war pick (+6,d6+3) in each hand.
crossbow and pick: with a hand crossbow (+6,d6+3) and war pick (+6,d6+3). (this is his normal style.)
and he can swap between these modes as a free action.

RAMPAGE: when DANGDELON crits on or reduces an enemy to 0 with with an attack, he can shift 3 spaces and make a melee attack as a free action. and each enemy standing within 20 feet of DANGDELON is UNSETTLED (attack rolls against that target's AC are granted a bonus +2 to hit) until the end of DANGDELON's next turn. Each target can be UNSETTLED more than once, and they stack.

and he also gets the ranger's sneak attack...
HUNTER'S QUARRY: (using the bonus action) mark the closest enemy as your hunters quarry.. deal +2d6 damage on one attack on this target, once/round. DANGDELON has advantage on survival rolls to track his quarry, and wisdom checks to learn about his quarry.

PICK: +6 to hit, d6+3 damage. DANGDELON's pick attacks crit on a 19. and any target he hits with a war pick, is UNSETTLED: attack rolls against that target's AC are given a bonus +2 to hit until the end of DANGDELON's next turn. Each target can be UNSETTLED more than once, and they stack.

CROSSBOW: +6 to hit, d6+3. DANGDELON never grants opportunity attacks when attacking with a crossbow, and can reload the crossbow one-handed and as a free action.

MULTIATTACK: DANGDELON makes two attacks, either 2 pick attacks or 2 crossbow attacks, or one of each.

RAPID SHOT: make a crossbow attack against each creature in or adjacent to a given square that the weapon can reach. these attacks all take -2 to hit.

CRUCIAL ADVICE: 3/short rest (as a reaction) DANGDELON grants a creature within short range, other than himself, advantage on a skill check that uses a skill he is trained in.

and he has the drow stuff:
drow spells: dancing lights as a cantrip. faerie fire 1/long rest. darkness 1/long rest. he'd use faerie fire on or before the first round of a combat, and darkness when he wants to escape.
Superior Darkvision: Your darkvision has a range of 120 feet, instead of 60.
Sunlight Sensitivity: You have disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of the attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.

Alakra, Catcher, Taste

something ive been doing lately is rolling random characters and wherever you come to a choice just roll for it and hard go with it (like for race class background languages whatever) like your brain comes up with reasons why the character makes sense and its way more interesting than just stacking options with the same valence

and i havent really played any of these characters in the game but its fun, theyre often killer characters it makes me consider all the options in the game and it gives you a sense of what the space of the game can really be so its good for learning systems you dont understand

another thing i do is if you roll the same option twice for two characters roll again, between those two thigns it makes very varied interesting characters, i know this is not a new life hack but its still a good one

These are third level characters for fifth edition

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Alakra

Hobgoblin city watch ancestral barbarian (level 3)

athletics insight

I face problems head-on. A simple, direct solution is the best path to success.

When people follow orders blindly, they embrace a kind of tyranny. (Chaotic)

Those who fight beside me are those worth dying for.

I’d rather eat my own face than admit when I’m wrong.

16  14 14  12 10 9

con str cha dex wis int

ac 16 (10+dex+con+shield)

hp 35 (15,10,10, 3d12)

hobgoblin: medium, 30 feet. darkvision 60.

saving face: if you would miss on a d20 roll, you can add +1 for each ally in 30 feet who you can see. 1/short rest.

ancestral guardian barbarian

ancestral protection - when raging, the first character you hit each turn, is 'marked': disadvantage to hit anyone except you, until your next turn.

+ all the level 3 barbarian stuff. give yourself advantage to hit, give the enemy advantage to hit you. get rage, get advantage on dex saves you can see.

lance, warhammer.

has a camel, Macy.

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Catcher

primeval guardian goblin ranger sailor (level 3)

15  15 14  14 8 8

str wis dex con int cha

small. speed 30.

hp 28. (12,8,8. 3d10)

sailor

athletics, perception, navigator's tools, boats...

I stretch the truth for the sake of a good story.

We all do the work, so we all share in the rewards. (Lawful)

In a harbor town, I have a paramour (Tarmella, a sea hag) whose eyes nearly stole me from the sea. (i stole one of her eyes)

I’ll say anything to avoid having to do extra work.

darkvision.

blowgun (25/100, 1 damage), greataxe (d12), trident (versatile d6/d8, thrown 20/60)

mariner: swimming and climbing 30, +1 to ac. no heavy armor or shield.

scale mail: ac17. disadvantage stealth.

fury of the small: add 3 (your level) damage against a creature larger than you. 1/short rest.

nimble escape: disengage or hide as a bonus action.

favored enemy fey. advantage on survival checks to track these and knowledge checks to know them. and gain the sylvan language.

favored terrain coast

bite of steel. +d6 damage on one weapon attack on your turn.

go big. become large. your footprint is 2x2 and your reach goes up by 5 feet. your speed is 5 feet. and you gain 2 (half your level) temporary hp. dont spend them all in one place! toggle this as a bonus action whenever you want.

spells! 3 [1] slots a day! dc12/ +4 to hit

- absorb elements.

- snare.

- cure wounds.

- entangle.

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taste of fruit

dex wis int con cha str

16  14 14  13 10 8

ac 18 (10+dex+wis)

hp 24 (10,7,7, 3d8)

tabaxi kensei monk detective (investigator) level 3.

medium, 30 feet. darkvision 60.

feline agility - when you move, you can move twice your speed. recharges when you don't move on your turn.

cats claws - climb 20. your unarmed strike is a claw attack.

acrobatics, investigation, insight, perception, stealth, 1 language.

I see omens in every event and action. The gods try to speak to us, we just need to listen.

Change: We must help bring about the changes the gods are constantly working in the world. (Chaotic)

Everything I do is for the common people.

I judge others harshly, and myself even more severely.

kensei weapons - flail, longbow.

flail shield - when you use the attack action + hit with an unarmed strike, if you have a flail in hand, get +2 ac that turn.

martial bow - when you hit with the bow, deal an additional +d4 damage, as a bonus action. this works on multiple bow attacks on the same turn.

so the flail attack... +5, d8+3 bludgeoning. so you can do... either 2 unarmed strikes (+5, d4+3) and get the 2ac, or a flail and an unarmed, or a bow with a sort of weaker unarmed (doesnt add your dex).

at level four... you can do a flail and two unarmed strikes. for 1 ki.

at level five... two flails two unarmed. for 1 ki.

you also get either painter's tools or calligrapher's. i think the painter's tools is funny if you use it as an identikit.

sidekicks

so the https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA_Sidekicks.pdf
sidekicks ua is pretty innaresting.

basically it's a stripped down fighter, rogue and mage, that you could use wherever you have a vaguely appropriate character in the game that needs to be levelled up, but neatly. it's npc classes but its also a very vanilla version of dnd 5th, if you wanted just basic player classes.... i mean we already have one of those, is the basic rules, but...

basically this is the thing, where you could take monster stat blocks and stick levels on them...


what monsters are there that we can use this on + it'd be good? i think a goblin or skeleton or wolf would be fine but cr1 theres a lot of stuff.... what if it was good?



the first thing i tried was the quickling (from volos) but i think its too good. a quickling with the first level of any of these classes is super deadly.

..nilbog no way....

pterafolk?

the modron (quadrone) option is good even if it has no real synergy, its ... good

yuanti pureblood....

xvart warlock...!

shitty robots as characters

i like how in portal each panel - the walls and floors - is a shitty robot - these characters have no effect on the outcome of the story but it shows a bit of life in the scene, and we want more than this but its good to have, cosmic background robots, in a robotics story, or like, any other story

(theres the obvious douglas adams example)

similarly in dishonored 2 with jindosh's machines - the way they fold away and come together - capturing the spirit of the inventor

but - r2d2 and c3p0 is the ultimate example of, having shitty robots as characters - having, the basic personal affect of an old modem and a phone tree respectively, being agents of chaos in the story, like player characters in a game

so when im playing a star wars game i wnat to play the 'c3p0 with a gun' archetype that you see in a lot of star warses (r2d2 is the prototypical c3p0 with a gun, but you got... the alan tudic robot from rogue one  and the one from the han solo movie, its in all the star warses)

but a lot of the character of robots coems from how shitty they are, the jankiness of their animation, the letterboxness of their faces, the limitations of what they can comprehend, and the assuredness that they are performing their task properly,

this distance between robots and people

and all of this come from - physical limitations, inexactitudes in the art of making robots, which of course its desirable in robotics to overcome. but if we move closer to being humans we lose this robotness we're trying to have, and so we have to maintain this robosity

alright, so the shittiness of c3p0 - i think even in the 70s the notion of we would build robots as these janky golden men is a throwback to like galatea from metropolis, its a neonoir pulp revival thing. thank um ralph for that, ralph star wars

so c3p0 doesnt fuckign get it, he doesnt understand whats happening in the scene. hes slow moving, he's fragile, hes only got like luck and persuasion - and hes not good at persuasion -

so what if hes like remarkably good at shooting, would that be good, c3p0 with a gun

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so the star wars stuff is all made backwards, the reason astromech droids exist is so we can have these features in the story,

so the language r2d2 speaks is called binary, he doesnt speak english which i think is called basic or something

which in an rpg is like playing an elf who insists on speaking elven and you have to know elven to speak with this elf, which i think is a bummer move as a rpg player but it does give you some grist to work in the machine, its a dramatic mechanic conveying messages between languages

r2d2 only speaks with machines, or, begrudgingly, people who can speak binary, he's a machine-facing droid where c3p0 is a human-facing droid. so these two classes of droid form like a protocol stack in between machines (like ships) and humans, carrying messages from the ship to the r2d2 to the c3p0 to the human, but this is like a sort of chinese whispers thign because c3p0 doesnt fucking get it, he doesnt know what's going on.

so the hack for this is humans learning binary, which makes sense with luke, hes learned the language of r2d2 so he doesnt have to speak to c3p0, like an ace pilot, - which i think its - too common nowadays, in star wars where all the humans in the scene can speak binary - but maybe thats a feature of the new time period, the postrepublic star wars...

idk if this star wars craze never ends will the time in star wars continue to progress, if the tech in star wars does advance in that way, where we'd have - noone speaks binary, then only specialists, then everyone, then you could return to the only-specialists republic times to tell stories at that - level, but its probably too granular to be a super cool detail of a system

anyway the shittiness of r2d2 it has a less dramatic effect on the scene, its very graphic, being a wheely bin thing that beeps, the importance of r2d2 being shitty is he sets this graphical tone for star wars, its star wars because the sort of utility background technology in star wars is - also alive and also has feelings about stuff

( like the robots in wall-e )

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c3p0 with a gun