User:Berzul
From D&D Wiki
I'm a passionate creator and I like to write mundane stuff in my free time. I also have a love/hate relationship with Role Playing Games.
If you are able to take criticism, how about asking me for help to review and improve your own ideas? You can do that on this page by writing something that would give me enough information to work with. Berzul (talk) 15:11, 25 August 2016 (MDT)
I have been thinking about the mount/animal companion design lately. There are 2 things: Large size of mounts and their Individuality with attacks, HP and every effect they would suffer.
- What if the mount dies? > You lose a lot. (You also have to spend extra money on it, so depending on the campaign your GM needs to give you extra money)
- What if you fight in a 10 foot wide corridor? > You are going to block your allies. (Regardless you are probably going to block them a lot)
- Others players will be left behind, and you can efficiently kite any enemy that movement is 30 feet. > Your speed is greater than everyone's so how would the GM compensate for that? Also having a flying mount would really mess with every enemy if they can't hit you with any ranged attacks because they suffer huge penalties for attacking vertically up)
- Who decides where you land when you fall off your mount? > If you can't control that your mount it might end up throwing you into a pit. (Additionally there is only a standard 10 DC Dex Saving Throw, it feels like that would be insignificant as characters reach higher levels)
- Controlling your mount vs independent. > Dash, Disengage, and Dodge vs GM decides? Essentially if you were able to order it to attack, you will gain a free attack. (You would also likely pick Disengage to avoid AoO because the mounts' speed are usually doubled compared to a medium creature)
- Risky maneuvers > Can you jump off your mount and onto the enemy mount in one action? Would that be considered as movement or a dash action? (I would like to know if any GM was thinking about that yet)
- Other than this rant, I was thinking of making a variant rules for riding styles, a sample for flying mounts is on the Pegasus Knight's page. Of course, those rules would include Ground and Aquatic mounts as well. Additionally, all of those saddles made for battle. They would be less effective for travelling, 3/4 or 1/2 the usual speed of the mount.
- Also, thinking about flying as movement speed. At 5th level we can have... a ground speed up to 30 with bonuses maybe +5/10ft... or 60ft flying speed. You can probably use that speed as a substitute to walking entirely. Obviously we can change that with a variant rule. I was thinking of giving an artificial altitude, let's say 400 feet, from which every flier could enjoy their full speed. Below that, in close spaces where the ceiling is lower that 400 feet, they would have to put up with their flying speed halved. Its more about the wind circulation, which is more freely the higher you get. This makes a lot of sense, as you can see birds flying/making nests high up in nature, as well as monsters or whatever that has wings.
Did you ever heard of competitive card games? Yes it's very fun, probably, and very competitive, probably, but most importantly how do you balance a turn based game? D&D is a Turn based game, it uses Initiative order to make the turns. So in an encounter which your team rolls Initiative high, most likely your team will gain a huge advantage over the other. But that's still in the realm of chances, it is not necessary true. But what I did consider lately is GM helping the dice to roll in a way that things such a random chances would be less and less, and battle be more what do you want to play than "you can do anything if you roll high". I'm going to share some concepts:
- Rolling 20 for attack and damage>Instead of having 2 separate rolls, how about to determine damage by high and low D20s roll? Further more, how about having a standard damage chart and the GM would be able to increase or decrease it by little, depending on the situation?
- 50% miss or hit makes the game less predictable>If you want a less random game you should invest some time in thinking. How about making all attacks hit if they are at least 4 less than the AC? A better way to do that is just to lower the AC of every PC and enemy by 4 (For example, you can decrease or increase it however you like it).
- Status effect can make you stop playing for the longest times> I understand that if you really want, as a GM, you can destroy the PCs by spamming status effects that would immobilize them. I figured that instead of putting PCs instantly to sleep, petrifying, or paralysing them, how about give their allies a chance to help them? I think using an Aid(Help) action should allow players to reroll any failed saving throw, at any time. Additionally you should roll on your saving throws when you start your own turn, there are actually certain setups that can be abused if your turn is right before the enemy's.
- Spells bypass any chance to miss, those that miss do nothing.> I think spells should have some kind of random chance to be less effective other than damage. For example, AoE spells should affect less zone if they roll low on damage. Additionally for status effect spells, if the target succeeds their saving throw against a status effect they could still get some very minor debuff.
- Too many enemies makes for fights going long? Collective dice rolling> You need to be aware that the more people are trying the same thing the harder is for them to succeed. When 4 NPCs roll a very low number but still manage to.. for example hit a PC, you should consider only half or less of them actually succeeded their attack roll.
- GM Initiative order. No fun in not letting your players to play> I did realise that at some point you should only keep your PCs in the initiative order and move whenever you feel like it. That way, PCs would get to move always in order, while the NPCs could decide to make collectively big move all together at some point, and you can do that without breaking the Initiative order. Further more making collective movements for PCs would be easier too, that's something to consider as a GM.
So as a summary:
- Lower everyone's AC by 4 (Or 5) so you hit more
- Roll 20 to hit, roll 20 for everything
- Damage is static, no rolls, GM determines by how much your damage modified by
- Higher the roll the more damage you deal, that's the general rule
- All saving throws are resolved at the start of the creature's turn.
- You can always use an aid(Help) action on your ally to allow them for an extra saving throw (You probably want to rule something like, you must be close, you must have a first aid kit, you must be cleric etc...)
- GM can move whenever he/she wants to in the PCs Initiative order.
- You can modify spells in such way that those that roll less still have an effect (A one round - 1 to attack or Affect less targets in case of a Fireball)
- Every spell should have a roll, which would also determine its damage (Based on previous rule)
I'm thinking of making a Mental Patient background. It would basically cover a character that had a mental experience that changed their life. However, it does include the notion that they are over it. It's kinda like okay you can play someone that is crazy, but then again you really shouldn't (For the sake of all the people who are playing the game with you).
"Mentally Traumatized" or something...
