Sandboxes on the Adventure Scale

I wanted to start this project off by breaking it down into tiers of play. Not every player wants to do the sandbox game on the kingdom-level, and doing it piece by piece allows me to adjust as we go up the pyramid. So let's poke at some mechanics.

As stated previously, I'm taking some inspiration from what other games do, and peppering in a bit of what I think would make it fun for a game set in Primeval Thule (or other sword and sorcery settings, such as Dark Sun or the kingdoms trodden on by a certain barbarian's sandaled feet).

The important parts to a sandbox adventure seem to be the following, as set out in traditions long before I was around:

• A stretch of territory from which players strike out and explore
• A home base of operations (or at least a small handful of places the players can offload loot, rest, train, and find work)
• Activities to carry out between adventures
• Rewards for exploring aforementioned territory and clearing it of threats

For sandboxes, it's more important to monitor the things players and DMs sometimes gloss over in more story driven or module-based adventures. Encumbrance, daily expenditures of food and water, and any lodging costs the players must pay are critical to track, because a big part of the early game is about being able to afford living to see the next day and keeping your gear in optimal condition. This kind of gameplay doesn't appeal to everybody, so if you found yourself surrounded by players who would grouse constantly about that kind of minutia-tracking, this works just fine without those rules (though some of the challenge is lost).

Games have been doing this forever, but the tack I like to take revolves around the principle of hexploration; that is, a hex mapped overland area that is uncharted (or at least little-known), contains a few settlements, and is chock-full of adventure locations. These locations range from undiscovered villages of isolated peoples to ancient sweeping ruins stalked by the servants of eldritch horrors.

A good-sized hex map for my hypothetical sandbox game for regular adventuring types would be anywhere from 25 to 50 hexes square, using the kingdom-level scale as outlined by the Dungeon Master's Guide, with each hex about six miles across. 

My hexes will have the following qualities:

• Level. Each hex has a level from 1 to 20, like a player character. This helps me determine the general difficulty of creatures and lairs present in the hex, as well as how much experience a party receives for "clearing" it (which I will go more into).
• Lairs and Dungeons. A hex can contain monster lairs (like a single small fort or small cavern complex) or dungeons (much bigger and more dangerous). These can be designed by hand or determined randomly; the DMG has great tools and tables for this already.
• Settlements. A hex with a settlement can act as a way station for tired adventurers, as well as trading posts for enterprising merchant-heroes who want to offload unusual loot.
• Natural Resources. This is everything from the mundane to the fantastical; timber, gold, iron, gems, herd animals, ancient menhirs, alien plant growth, and more are all included here.
• Law. A hex is usually lawless, but players who go out of their way to establish some kind of order in a given hex will keep it from repopulating with nasty critters as the seasons pass.

This kind of map puts a lot of work on the DM to establish what the area of play looks like, and what lives in it. If you're very meticulous, you might go out of your way to determine the qualities of every single hex in the area, but it's easy to go overboard. In reality, as anyone from the American Midwest will attest, there are huge stretches of nothing much for miles and miles and miles. There's a happy medium that I could spend a ton of articles talking about, but for sake of expediency, let's assume that only 25% of your hexes contain something interesting, like a settlement or lair/dungeon.

At the simplest level of this sandbox, adventures will take the players out of a safe location into the dangerous wilderness to perform a task for a patron, acquire treasure and fame, and return home to spend the winnings on downtime activities to improve their characters. As they go along, players will "clear" hexes of dangers and exhaust tapped resources at those locations.

Before the campaign starts, the DM should roll 1d4 for each hex to determine its level. This makes some locations much nastier for beginning players without being absolute death traps; though a particularly devious DM might include a small number of hexes that are 1d6, 2d4, or even 1d10.

Clearing a hex awards players experience equal to an encounter of the level of the hex. As such, low-level hexes don't provide much of a challenge to seasoned adventurers, and high-level hexes are naturally more dangerous adventure locations with greater rewards. Players shouldn't know what is in a given hex by number, mind you -- this is all information for the DM to keep on their copy of the map.

There's an inherent danger for players that wander into a given area if they don't know what lives in it. This creates plenty of chance for interplay and information gathering before the adventurers set out to learn from locals or guides what might dwell in a particular area. They might learn that their patron has set them on a quest that takes them through the territory of a flesh-eating chimera, or along a trail where bandits are known to prey. This could make them drive up their negotiated price.

Much of this is old hat to experienced DMs though, so next time I'll present a sample hex map for a location I might use for a sandbox and all of the supporting information for the constituent hexes. Stay tuned!

Sandbox 5th Edition Games

It's a new year and I'm excited to jump into new stuff. Today I'd like to talk about sandbox games and 5th Edition D&D.

For clarity, when I say "sandbox" I do mean it in its typical sense; a playground in which the player characters can romp about and build their own little part of the world, going on adventures that suit their fancy in order to fund their escapades. Many games are designed with a certain degree of this in mind (AD&D's Birthright, A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign rules, and Adventurer Conqueror King System aka ACKS jump to mind since I've played all of those extensively), but I feel that some find themselves shackled to a setting in which there isn't much room to build your own stuff without rubbing the elbows of existing territories that quite simply dwarf your own.

As of yet, I don't know of any official (or third party) rules that do this for my current beau, 5E D&D. I'm sure there are plenty of kitbashed conglomerations put together somewhere, but I'd like to take my own stab at it given a setting I became enraptured with over the holiday break.

That setting is Primeval Thule.

It's been around a little while under various other system incarnations (Pathfinder, 4E D&D, and 13th Age), but only recently was I made aware there is a version for 5E D&D. So I scooped it up on DriveThruRPG and devoured it over the course of a few days, relishing the flavor of sword and sorcery with fantasy races mixed on.

It fully admits the resources that inspired it, and it definitely has a Hyborian feel to it with the serial numbers filed down. I certainly don't mean that in a damning way; it's fantastic and I love the setting. It gives you a rich world with plenty of room to romp around in, a whole bunch of nasty antagonists to set the players up against, and a peppering of common fantasy races to help augment the tofu people humans that make up most of the setting.

Okay, that's not entirely fair. The humans are culturally very diverse, just not mechanically different. I don't feel quite as strongly about it as some of my colleagues and contemporaries do, but it may bear some house ruling if that's not your cup o' tea. However, the near-human Atlanteans have their own statistics and are very much considered a separate race.

Anyway, I bring up Thule because it is fertile ground for the development of more in-depth sandbox gameplay systems for 5th Edition. My immediate reaction is to kitbash a bit of what ACKS does into the game, since ACKS is an old-school-revival system and has a lot of things in common with its D&D roots, but I don't want to just wholesale bolt on things and create a Frankenstein's monster.

And so, over the course of the next few entries, I'll be delving into some ancillary systems to support what I think are fun things to have as character goals in a sandbox game run in Primeval Thule, particularly how they relate to 5E. If you have any suggestions, resources, or pitfalls that you'd like to talk about, let me know in the comments or shoot me an email and I'll take them into account. I imagine this particular project will take me a bit longer than Council of Wyrms did, so I feel like I will have time to react to any feedback.

Cheers!

What's Next? Or, 2015 in Review

This year I restarted my blog after nuking my old one due to how long it had lain fallow and how outdated most of its ideas were; in hindsight, probably should have kept it around for posterity. But alas, what's done is done, and this new blog has given me the opportunity to start fresh and tackle the latest tabletop games.

Since starting anew, I've made attempts to bring a couple of settings up to date and tried to tackle the reimagining of a class that was struggling to find its identity. The first two I'm pretty happy with, though I'm still unsure of how the variant ranger I proposed would pan out in actual play. Purely mathematical comparisons don't always accurately portray how fun something is, and when your happy fun times roleplaying game activity with friends becomes a flexing contest then it kind of loses its meaning.

I'm really fortunate in that regard; my gaming groups are pretty boss. This year saw a great number of roleplaying adventures in which I was lucky to be a player for at least a couple of them (yeah, I'm the guy usually DMing stuff).

First up was a Pathfinder game that made use of the Ultimate Campaign features so our party of miscreants could help the founding of a small nation that was created purely to skirt the tenets of a treaty between the lords of Brevoy. As a player, I got to mess around with Pathfinder's cavalier class and act as the political figurehead of the nascent nation.

Unfortunately, as fun as the game was, it highlighted my general dislike of how crunchy that system has gotten. There are just piles of ancillary, optional rules that you always find excuses to include, and the system still carries so much baggage from its progenitor 3rd Edition D&D. While I don't begrudge those who love Pathfinder (and I'd still probably play Core if I was asked), I may be turning the page in my gaming days where I just want to sit down and play and not have to worry about keeping spreadsheets.

Concurrently, I was in the throes of my first 5th Edition campaign with my group of online gaming buddies. I mentioned how great Roll20 was, right? In this game, my players managed to thwart the machinations of a dream-projecting green dragon under the throes of an enchanted sleep, settle rising tensions between the colony of one nation on the fringes of another's territory, and reveal a traitor in a faerie court before he could scour the isles of all its human population.

On the downside, this game showed me how cumbersome trying to work within the boundaries of established settings could be. The location of the campaign was the Moonshae Isles of the Forgotten Realms, and boy is it difficult to find sources on that area that don't contradict one another, fail to describe helpful details, or fail to elaborate on the personages alive during a particular time period. I managed once I finally gave up all pretense of running a game in the "canon" Faerun; I renamed some rulers, created heirs and political figures that don't technically exist as of Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (oops), and said, "Screw it!" to the wikis, books, and old boxed sets.

The lesson learned is to not try too hard to conform to what you think people had in mind for the setting. I knew this lesson already, but I do always at least attempt to run games in the "familiar" version of the world. Also, the 1450 DR and beyond continuity really needs to be unsnarled, because I can't seem to make heads or tails of it.

After a brief break, that same group of players, running different characters, continued adventures in the world of Faerun. This time, the setting was good old Baldur's Gate, where I ran into the same continuity issues. The events of the first game drove things going on in the second one, so I had more justification to change names, rulers, and organizations to suit my needs.

In this campaign, my erstwhile adventurers arrived in the city in response to a job posting for extra sword arms to keep the peace in the city. The two feuding powers from the previous game were in town on invitation of the Grand Duke to help hash out a reparations agreement in neutral territory. The players, unfortunately, ran face-first into a Zhentarim plot to influence the outcome of the proceedings.

The Zhents, in the meanwhile, hoisted themselves by their own petard and made a deal with a local black dragon to help supplement their agents. While she willingly supplied her own offspring to act as guard beasts and shock troops, the dragon replaced the Zhent's chief wizard and started turning the whole affair into an attempt to drive the city into chaos so she could plunder it for her hoard. One routed Zhentarim cell and one dead black dragon later, and the heroes were triumphant; a fitting end for an eight month campaign.

Here I learned to stop making my plots too complicated. Knowledge retention between weekly sessions, especially for busy working adults, isn't always the best. That two paragraph summary only scratches the surface of the stuff I had them doing (raiding illegal menageries, traipsing through Banite temples, threatening arms dealers, and dealing with belligerent watch commanders). It was probably too much, and my next game for that same group will be less convoluted so the goal is always clear (e.g., "in this game, we do X").

Homebrew settings weren't left out of the adventures, of course. A coworker is about to finish out a quest where we are trying to seal away the curse of an ancient mountain stronghold that is barfing out corrupting shadow fog. In this game, I play a mountain dwarf rogue, and I am very pleased with how the dwarf's innate toughness helps complement the rogue's combat kit. Being able to wear a mithril breastplate isn't hurting either.

This has been a good year for tabletop gaming. I'm fortunate to have the time to juggle it among the other stuff I do, and it gives me great inspiration for what I write here. Speaking of which, 2016 should be just as productive in that regard, but the question remains as to what I should be working on! I love converting settings, and I feel like I do a better job at that than I do coming up with classes or archetypes.

Presently, I am deliberating the usefulness of converting Dark Sun mechanics to 5th Edition, something I poked at earlier this year but abandoned when I realized that Wizards of the Coast is still feeling out what they want to do for this edition's psionics rules. Planescape probably runs just fine without any mechanics work, though it might do for an entry or two to convert some races over and do some faction backgrounds.

I want to stay as far away from the minefield that is Dragonlance licensing as possible, because I don't know what will get me a pat on the head and what will get me slapped with a C&D. Best to just leave it there. Way over there.

That leaves uh. Um. Hmm. Spelljammer?

Just kidding! Maybe.

Here's to a new year of gaming for all! Have a great holiday, and I'll see you in 2016.

Council of Wyrms, Version 1.0

At last, the compiled document for Council of Wyrms 5th Edition, which includes everything you would need to play a dragon of any breed and class you desire; though you'll find yourself limited on psionics until Wizards of the Coast puts out more official rules on them. And no dragon monks. It makes my head hurt to think about dragon monks.

I'll make updates and posts as I fix entries. There are already a couple weird bits I found after I stamped the PDF, such as a fighting style and feat sharing the same name (Deep Breath). Too many nights chewing glass on Onyxia back in my vanilla Warcraft days, I guess.

Anyway, here you go, Have fun with it!

Council of Wyrms: More Errata and Natures

It'sa me, Mario Marsupialmancer! As the year tapers off, free time is a premium at least for people with active family and social lives. Lucky for you, I'm not one of those people!

I've been working more on the Council of Wyrms stuff and have one final article for presentation before I wrap it up into PDF package. Well, that's a lie; I already made one and distributed it to a small audience for feedback, and as such I have some erratas to talk about first.

One of my old MMO buddies whose systems knowledge is sublime determined that the ability score bonus for each age category might not be enough; a dragon would need to pump four, maybe all five ability score increases throughout their career if they ever wanted to hit that 30 ability score cap at ancient age, and that felt excessive. To that point, the ability score increase at each age category is raised to two, rather than one (that is, all ability scores increase by two).

This is already a pretty high-powered conversion, so I feel like that's okay.

Secondly, the breath weapons were all out of whack. In my effort to try to cleave too closely to the power caps in the Monster Manual, some breath weapons just sucked (i.e. never getting particularly good or being nerfed by never reaching its MM value). So, endeavoring to close the gaps a bit and let some of the dragons reach their previous glory, I reworked each breed's breath weapon damages.

It'd take up a lot of space to talk about each breed, but here's good ol' red dragon for you.

Fire Breath. You can exhale a 15 foot cone of fire as your breath weapon. This attack deals 4d6 fire damage and increases by 1d6 per level. At young age, the range increases to 30 feet. At adult age, it increases to 60 feet. At ancient age, your fire breath has a 90 foot range.

So now it starts out a bit more powerful and hits a 23d6 cap at level 20. It's still not quite the 26d6 that they have in the Monster Manual, but I've got an answer for that too in the form of the Deep Breath fighting style.

Deep Breath
Your breath weapon is more fearsome. You deal additional dice of damage with your damaging breath weapon equal to your Constitution modifier, based on its die type. If your breath weapon uses a d4 or d6 as its damage die, you add two dice per point of Constitution modifier. If it uses a d8 or d10, you add one die per point of Constitution modifier.

For example, a 15th level black dragon (16d8 acid damage) with a Constitution of 21 (+5 modifier) has a 21d8 acid damage breath weapon.

If you go out of your way to focus on your breath weapon, you get something pretty gnarly. Still, it might be too much, and I can always do a bit more work on it.

I talked a bit about making lair building rules, but I wasn't happy with any implementation I tried. They ended up feeling cumbersome and bolted-on, bogging down gameplay in undesirable ways. To wit, I am (wisely, I think), backing down from that idea for now unless something better occurs to me.

Finally, I wanted to introduce Natures. I spent a lot of time thinking about Backgrounds and how they really don't work for dragons as much as I would like. Dragons differ in that you generally start playing them not long after they hatch, so there's really not much time to develop a background for them what with connections, features, et cetera that are usually provided via backgrounds.

To that end, I've created a bunch of draconic natures that are innate for dragons. They provide similar roleplaying fodder, a general implied path of action for them as they grow, two supplementary proficiencies, and a tangible benefit that is in some cases slightly stronger than the features that some backgrounds provided (to help account for the fact that they won't get tool proficiencies and the like).

Here are some examples:

Ambitious

Dragons with this nature are primed for ascension into the ranks of clan politics when they come of age. They understand that to attain power, one must be willing to seize opportunities and hold them with an iron claw. While not all ambitious dragons are deceitful or belligerent, they know when to apply those two qualities to get what they want.

Bonus Proficiencies: Deception, Intimidation

Objectives and Features: Power and Influence

When interacting with individuals of station, you instinctively sense their pecking order and can deftly navigate the troubled waters of their power relationships. You can determine whether a particular creature is worth negotiating with or whether your time would be best served finding their superior. Your Dungeon Master should advise you to make appropriate skill or ability checks accordingly in order to make this determination, if the situation calls for it.

Furthermore, you can acquit yourself in such a way that clan dominates or Council representatives recognize your savvy and treat you as befits your ambition, though this rarely manifests in such a way that you gain anything more than a token audience with such individuals.

Whenever you acquire titles or accolades that bestow titles upon you, specifically those recognized by another body of influence such as a vassal tribal government or appointment as a clan dominate, you have advantage on Charisma checks made to influence individuals to which those titles apply.

For example, Scorchfang the red dragon adult is appointed as a clan dominate, after years of maneuvering and assassinating his superiors. Such devious activity earns him the grudging respect of his lord, and the unending spite of his subordinates and those who failed to climb to the same position. Nevertheless, they know not to cross him. Scorchfang has advantage on Charisma checks when dealing with his clan, up to and including his lord -- though the lord will be watching Scorchfang carefully for signs that the ambitious dragon seeks to replace him one day.

Avaricious

Though all dragons hoard treasure and can be said to have an avaricious nature, these dragons are particularly greedy. While their own moral compass may discourage them from theft or manipulating their fellow dragons, they usually feel no compunction about doing so to vassal races or humanoid tribes.

Avaricious dragons are instinctively able to sense the approximate worth of valuable objects and can determine when an object is a forgery or otherwise replicated from an original piece that they know about. These makes them shrewd customers when dealing with merchants, be they dragon or otherwise, and oft sought after for identifying the qualities of rare items.

Bonus Proficiencies: Deception, Sleight of Hand

Objectives and Features: It’s Mine!

The accrual of material wealth is tied with whatever your other goals may be, and you will rarely agree to perform a task without some form of compensation. The growth of your hoard goes beyond mere necessity -- it is the only thing that brings you true peace.

You can determine the approximate value (in gold pieces) of any object you spend an action to study. Additionally, whenever your accumulating hoard is greater than the value of your bonded hoard, you may use the identify spell up to three times before requiring a long rest.

For example, the obsessive amethyst dragon, Malvistryl, is an avaricious worm that counts his hoard daily. As the rest of his comrades acquire treasure, they bring magical items to Malvistryl in order to determine their approximate value and their mystical properties. Of course, Malvistryl then tries to negotiate a trade that will benefit him.

When Malvistryl achieves a new level, his bonded hoard subsumes a value from his accumulating hoard in order to keep him from deteriorating, and so he immediately rallies his fellow dragons to embark on another adventure, this time to sack an orcish kingdom said to be particularly fat on the riches of their plunder. That they are also decimating nearby vassal villages is simply the impetus to convince them to go.

Competitive

Even dragons can have a competitive streak, and those with this nature are particularly prone to undertake challenges for which they might not be ready. While this nature does not supply the dragon with a death wish, it is likely the wyrm will seek to confront dangers rather than circumvent them -- unless, of course, the challenge is to do just that.

Bonus Proficiencies: Athletics, Intimidation

Objectives and Features: Challenge Accepted

Whenever you are presented with a task that might be deemed difficult, you are usually eager to chance it, especially if someone uses the age-old phrase, “That’s impossible!” When you do triumph, it only goads you on to try more risky endeavors. Succeeding on skill or ability checks with a DC of 20 or higher, or being part of a group that defeats an encounter with a CR equivalent to a Hard encounter or greater grants you the ability to use the guidance cantrip until you take a long rest.

Inquisitive

Particularly among crystal dragons, inquisitive wyrms have a habit of unearthing tidbits of information in such a way as to draw the ire of those who would rather see secrets buried. Driven by more than simple curiosity, dragons with this nature are almost obsessive with their need to poke their snouts where they don’t belong.

Bonus Proficiencies: Investigation, Perception

Objectives and Features: What’s This?

Whenever you are told that a place is forbidden, you simply have to know why. Your elders won’t ever fully understand or support your need to dig into abandoned ruins, seek out dragon graveyards, or unearth peculiar mysteries. As such, you should always try to spur discovery or encourage a venture to a place left yet unexplored. The Io’s Blood Isles are huge, and even its masters do not know every corner of the land.

Discovering new places or secrets is of great interest to you, and your natural inclinations give you a sense of where secrets might hide. You may use one of the following spells once: detect evil and good, detect magic, or detect poison and disease. You regain the use of this ability after completing a short rest.

If you are directly involved in any effort that uncovers a lost location or unearths some great secret, you operate under the effects of the bless spell until you complete a short or long rest.

Guardian

Dragons don’t exclusively hoard and dominate, but few are driven to actually seek out a group or place to actively protect. Those with the guardian nature are among those few, who are compelled to shepherd a small flock or watch over a particular place. The nature of that which the dragon guards may manifest as a small tribe of vassals, a natural landmark, or a precious bauble of some unknown purpose.

Players who choose the guardian nature should work with the Dungeon Master to determine the nature of that which they protect. People will not generally accompany you on endeavors, and they should never be used as cannon fodder. A bauble is typically non-magical, though throughout your adventures secret qualities may be revealed. All is up to the Dungeon Master.

Bonus Proficiencies: Perception, Survival

Objectives and Features: Protectorate

Your protectorate is deeply important to you, and anything that puts it at risk incurs your wrath. While in active defense of object, location, or people of your protectorate, you are at advantage on skill checks, saving throws, and attack rolls against aggressors. You do not gain this bonus if you are willingly putting your protectorate at risk, such as using a village as bait for a raid or placing your prized heirloom in the midst of a battlefield to draw attention.

The bond between you and your protectorate energizes you and regenerates your wounds. While resting in the presence of your protectorate, you double the amount of hit points regained by expending hit dice for a short rest and regain all of your hit dice expended after a long rest.

Should your protectorate ever be stolen, you operate under the effects of the bestow curse spell unless you are in direct pursuit of retrieving it. If your protectorate is destroyed (such as your village of vassals being completely slaughtered), you suffer the same effect until you replace it with a new protectorate after a period of mourning no less than one month.

Mediator

Dragons are creatures that quickly master any pursuit they put their mind to, and as such are notoriously adept at disagreeing with one another. The various dragon wars throughout the millennia are proof enough of this, and it takes a strong leader skilled at mediation to keep the clans from killing one another.

A wyrm with the mediator nature is one such dragon. While they may not necessarily be leaders as such, they have a knack and a desire to keep the peace between entities and prevent conflict from erupting.

Bonus Proficiencies: Insight, Persuasion

Objectives and Features: Adept Negotiator

Dragons with this nature are frequently sought out to adjudicate disputes or act as advocates on a party’s behalf. Mediators may find themselves representing a vassal village’s petition to secede from their own clan, or act as the judge in a Challenge of Claw and Wing. Regardless of their breed, a mediator dragon will be seen as an impartial party until their actions prove otherwise.

You will always be treated at least neutrally by dragons belonging to any Council-affiliated clan (that is to say, every clan that is not on the outs with the Council for some reason or another) and may be asked to intervene in some matter or other. Even when dealing with breeds at odds with your own, they will give you the respect due -- at least, until your back is turned.

If you successfully mediate a dispute that would have resulted in conflict had you not intervened, you gain advantage on saving throws and skill checks until you complete a short or long rest.

Predator

Particularly among the brutal chromatic breeds, hunting and dispatching prey is one of the greatest joys a dragon can experience. Whether it is a white dragon dragging a slain whale to shore to gorge upon it, or a copper dragon pouncing upon and outfoxing a giant scorpion, all wyrms feel this instinct.

For some, however, it goes beyond just instinct, and is woven into their very nature. These dragons are truly apex predators, and their ability to strike first is uncanny.

Bonus Proficiencies: Stealth, Survival

Objectives and Features: First Strike

The cohorts of a dragon with this nature may find their ally wandering off to chase small prey or toying with helpless creatures, even if they never deal a killing stroke. In some this can manifest as tormenting the poor victim, but in others it is simply harmless play that belies a pinnacle predator instinct. These wyrms are cat-like in their actions, which may seem precocious when they are young, but is terrifying when they are massive and can shred steel as easily as paper.

Predator dragons are adept at getting the drop on enemies. They have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to avoid surprise, and they may roll twice when determining initiative and choose either result.

Furthermore, when a dragon with the predator nature successfully attacks a target that is surprised or does not otherwise detect their presence (such as when hidden or invisible), that target suffers disadvantage when attacking the dragon until the end of the dragon’s next turn.

Sophont

While the vassal races establish academies of learning and institutions of magic, dragons rarely bother with such organizations. Most are naturally intelligent and have superb memories that are as sharp and long as their claws, but sophont dragons harken more to the sages and scholars of the vassal races than they do the rest of their aloof kind.

Eagerly devouring (at least, in the figurative sense) books, art, poetry, and music, sophonts spring at the opportunity to learn new things and experience new sensations. To them, the greatest wisdom is not in being the master, but being the student.

Bonus Proficiencies: Insight, Perception

Objectives and Features: Broad Knowledge

Sophont dragons eagerly seek out new experiences and are diligent learners. They rarely turn down the opportunity to try something they have not tried before, and practically never call something they do not understand “stupid” or “pointless” regardless of its absurdity. Sophonts prefer to determine that for themselves after they try.

The innate willingness to learn makes a sophont dragon pick up secrets from its handlers while still in the shell, more than that imparted by simple care and racial memory. You may pick one spellcasting class that uses cantrips, and select three cantrips from its spell list. You may use these cantrips innately, without the use of spellbooks, prayer, or material components.

Conclusion?

Am I done? I think so. I hope so! I keep waffling more than a particular American diner chain and finding more things I want to work on! It's probably best if I gather one last round of feedback, make final changes, and then tie this off for the year. Thank you all for following along so far!

Aerial Combat!

Continuing with my Council of Wyrms conversion, I felt that a couple ancillary systems might be of benefit. This entry should be considered optional for groups that desire that level of combat simulation. I've tried to keep it fairly abstract, since there's but a small subset of gamers that care to determine mass, acceleration, lift, or wind resistance coefficients. If that's your thing, more power to you.

I took a bit of inspiration from the way some other systems do their aerial combat, so if any of it sounds familiar, that's why.

As a species with natural flight, dragons are not restricted to scrapping on the ground like common humanoids. In any situation where they have the capability to spread their wings, dragons use them to their advantage. Both players and Dungeon Masters should be aware that this adds more than the usual degree of third dimension to combat.

Of course, in the world of the Council of Wyrms, most enemies that the dragons face are more than cognizant of this advantage and plan accordingly. Every hoard or egg raiding party equips itself with ranged weapons and nets to drag the wyrms back to the ground where they can be ganged up on by pikemen and axes.

Even vassal troops are drilled in combat formations that help mitigate the aerial advantage many dragons have, such as using turtle-shell formations with tower shields to provide cover against dragon breath. Just because the Council exists does not mean there are not periodic raids and blood feuds among clans, who use their vassal troops accordingly.

A flying dragon does have risks to consider, most of which involve gravity and weather.

Action Variants

There are some actions that can be performed only while in flight. They typically follow precedents set by other actions, but have special considerations in the three dimensional battlefield that is aerial combat.

Dive

A variant of the Dash action, Dive enables a flying creature to move up to five times its flight speed, but only if the dragon loses altitude in accordance with the direction it moves. Furthermore, any class abilities that enable Dash to be used as a bonus action also apply to Dive.

For example, a young crystal dragon rogue with a fly speed of 80 enters a Dive in order to surprise a dragonslayer riding a griffon. The dragon moves up to 300 feet toward the target, but loses a similar amount of altitude.

I left the language of this open in case I decide to add more action variants for aerial combatants. 

Conditions and Flight

All dragons must be able to spread their wings and beat them unhindered to remain aloft. While players and Dungeon Masters should not concern themselves with the minutia and math behind mass, lift, and minimum speed to avoid stalling, a few guidelines help simulate these conditions.

Firstly, a dragon must have a sufficient quantity of air beneath it to take off and remain flying. If a spell or other effect (such as a bizarre trip to an extraplanar realm) removes the air from a given space, a dragon cannot fly.

Furthermore, a dragon must have enough space to keep its wings moving. Should the space around a dragon ever become insufficient, such as needing to squeeze through a place that is narrower than its base, it cannot remain aloft and will begin to fall if they end their turn in the space and are not holding onto a surface or protrusion of some kind. For example, if a Large copper dragon (10’ by 10’ space) is forced to fly through a very narrow bend in a canyon (a 5’ space), it will not be able to fly if it ends its turn within the narrow area without grabbing onto something. If the dragon cannot grab hold of something, it falls immediately.

In a circumstance that causes the dragon to lose control of its wings, it will begin to fall. Conditions that create this situation include the paralyzed, petrified, prone, and restrained conditions. If the condition ends before the dragon hits the ground (assuming they’re particularly high in the air), the dragon can catch itself and prevent a devastating crash on its turn so long as it can use its fly speed.

In the event that a dragon (or any other creature, for that matter) enters a free fall, they will plummet 600 feet per round on its turn while the condition is in effect. For example, a blue dragon is soaring 400 feet above the desert when it is attacked by a brass dragon wizard (deviously under the effects of an invisibility spell). The brass dragon banks close and casts the hold monster spell on the blue dragon, which fails its saving throw. On the blue dragon’s turn, all it can do is fall, and it hits the ground at full speed suffering maximum falling damage (20d6, for falling 200 or more feet). Ouch.

In the same example, if the blue dragon is instead at 1000 feet, it falls only 600 feet on its turn, and at the end of the same turn succeeds on its saving throw to break the hold monster effect. The dragon is no longer falling, and does not suffer falling damage when its turn comes around again (though it is only 400 feet above the ground now, at risk of being affected a second time).

This is, of course, an abstraction that only roughly considers acceleration by gravity in an Earth-like environment, but is consistent with similar abstractions from previous editions as well as prevents players from needing to determine mass, acceleration, and terminal velocity based on how big their dragon character is according to their sheet.

It is worth noting a special case scenario for the grappled condition, where both the grappler and their victim are in a clinch and fall together. In such situations, falling is done on the victim’s turn, and not on the grapple initiator’s turn.

High Winds

Flying creatures have a harder time negotiating the skies when subject to inclement weather, but the larger the beast, the less difficulty it suffers when battling against such conditions.

A Small or smaller flyer treats all flight-based movement as difficult terrain in conditions where the wind is in excess of 30 miles per hour (or 48 kph). Medium and Large flyers have a threshold of 50 mph (80 kph), with Huge and Gargantuan being unaffected up to 75 mph (120 kph). Certain creatures, such as djinn and air elementals, are not subject to the effects of high winds due to their nature as extraplanar creatures from the Plane of Air.

No flyer can engage in movement of any kind in conditions in excess of twice its threshold, becoming subject to the violent gales and possibly entering a free fall.

Minimum Flight Speed

An optional rule that some Dungeon Masters may want to use involves maintaining a minimum speed to avoid losing altitude. Dragons are huge, heavy creatures and despite their wingspan, they must maintain a forward momentum to avoid stalling.

If your DM uses this rule, you must move at least half of your flight speed each turn to maintain your altitude. On any turn which you fall to move this speed, you must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) check or begin to fall. The DC for this check is contingent on your age; 10 for wyrmling, 15 for young, 20 for adult, and 25 for ancient. The older a dragon is, the harder it becomes to remain aloft without forward momentum due to its mass.

But Wait, There's More!

I'm working on more stuff on my lair building rules, but they're seeing more an excuse to add simulationism for its own sake. I'm not terribly happy with them yet, so I'll probably break off to do another topic for an entry or two before coming back to it. When it's all done, I'll wrap it up into a handy PDF for download.

Till then!

Phat Loots

I figured I'd have a brief interlude while I'm working on Council of Wyrms ancillary systems and present a few magic items from an online campaign I've been running with friends for the last couple years. Have I mentioned how great Roll20 is? It's pretty great.

Like many Dungeon Masters who've been doing this forever and ever, I prefer to give my magic items a bit more character. Using the stuff presented in the Dungeon Master's Guide is nice as a basis, but I like giving the items backstories and history as well as some custom powers. Since the online group in question is adventuring in the Forgotten Realms, my items are themed accordingly.

Most of these were acquired over the course of the campaign and go into a generic player swag pile between chapter arcs. As characters come and go (the group isn't necessarily tied to the same characters throughout as they decide to try something new), I let them pull from the heap. They haven't seen a couple of these yet, either because they never got found in previous treasure piles or are up-and-coming loot. Spoiler alert if any of them read this blog. :P

Feel free to pinch any of these or reskin for your own games, of course, or critique as desired.

Black Sentinel

Though its blackened steel blade and ominous silhouette may lead one to believe this sword to be evil in nature, the true story behind the weapon is very different. Crafted and wielded by a fallen paladin that once served Helm, the weapon -- and its wielder -- found redemption and were purified in the light of the god's grace.

Black Sentinel is a +1 longsword that possesses powerful defensive magic. It whispers to its wielder (in an admittedly chilling telepathic voice) whenever battle is imminent, granting a +2 bonus to initiative rolls. Further, whenever the wielder is affected by a critical hit, they may turn it into a normal hit, but only once until the wielder takes a short rest. The blade shows no other signs of being intelligent.

The weapon also warns the wielder whenever an ally is about to be attacked, allowing the use of a reaction to move up to the wielder's speed towards that ally. A short or long rest must be completed before this ability can be used again.

Cloak of Dust

The Cloak of Dust is a stitched leather mantle lined with rabbit fur. If slapped or shaken, the cloak will shed a small amount of dust, as though it were hanging in a wardrobe for some years without being worn. Despite its condition, the cloak does bear a minor enchantment and is said to have been used by Cardinal, a thief of some minor renown in the city of Luskan, before he was summarily caught and hanged after a botched heist.

One will find that the cloak acts as a cloak of protection with the special quality of giving advantage on Stealth checks made while in urban environments. The enchantment seems to cause the eyes of onlookers to slide away from the wearer when they are attempting to remain hidden, or otherwise regard their presence as unremarkable.

Excelsior

The shaft of the magic arrow Excelsior is said to be crafted from a wing bone of a phoenix, and its fletching from the wing feathers of an arrowhawk. When fired, the arrow will never shatter and can always be recovered. The arrow strikes as a magical weapon, though it has no discreet magical bonuses to attack or damage.

Any target struck by Excelsior is subject to its true power, which is to burst into flame. As a bonus action, the owner of Excelsior may shout the arrow's name and cause it to erupt in fire. The victim immediately suffers an additional 8d6 points of fire damage with no saving throw allowed. The arrow is utterly consumed after this effect is used.

Excelsior will return from destruction with the light of the coming dawn, to which its ashes must be exposed. If the arrow is not reborn in the light of the sun within ten days' time, Excelsior is permanently destroyed.

The Flask of Green Glass

This bottle of unusual make is said to hail from distant Rashemen, and contains a translucent, unidentifiable liquid that fills the container about halfway. The volume of liquid approximates to about six ounces. The bottom of the bottle has a handful of etchings that appear to be command words to operate the enchantment upon the vessel.

The Flask of Green Glass can be commanded to change its contents to a substance based on the command worn chosen. To operate the flask, one speaks the command word, opens the bottle, and pours out the chosen liquid. The bottle automatically refills halfway (to its six ounce "capacity") if kept out of sight during a long rest, at which point any liquid previously poured that has not been imbibed or otherwise used will vanish immediately. This peculiarity of the enchantment leads to many questions about the bottle's origin.

The command words for the flask are as follows:

• "Zoka" will turn the contents of the flask into a sweet-smelling sleeping draught. If completely imbibed, the draught will cause the drinker to enjoy a restful, dreamless sleep. An unwitting victim of the draught is not allowed a saving throw if they drink the entire volume, but if only a partial dose is taken, they are allowed a DC 14 Wisdom save to resist the enchantment.
• "Malota" will transform the contents of the flask into a scalding acid that burns flesh and leather. Flinging the contents of the flask onto a target within 10 feet forces them to make a Dexterity saving throw (DC 14) or suffer 2d6 points of acid damage. The acid can also be used to dissolve organic material in a more controlled manner based on the situation.
• "Rulani" will turn the flask's contents into a potent purification solution, turning any other liquid into which its full volume is poured into a completely pure version of that liquid. Poisoned or stagnant water or wine returns to its natural state, free of sediment or lingering effect.

There is space on the bottom of the bottle for more words to be inscribed.

The Killing Joke

This magic wand is a glass rod festooned with colorful gems. Once the property of infamous gnome trickster and illusionist, Barnabis Mossgrove, it changed owners after a particularly displeased dragon devoured him after being victim to one of Barnabis's obnoxious pranks.

The wand possesses three charges, and regains 1d3 charges daily at dawn. A single charge may be expended to cast the Tasha's hideous laughter spell, the silent image spell, or Nystul's magic aura spell. All three charges can be expended to use the phantasmal killer spell. The saving throw DC for any effect from this wand is 15.

Wondrous Wizards' Belt

In addition to being a fashionable accompaniment to the modern adventurer's attire, the wondrous wizards' belt bears enchantment to assist those trained in the arcane. The main pouch, which rests on the right hip just above the thigh, is a specialized holding apparatus that can carry up to ten individual written items with negligible weight, regardless of its size (a "written item" includes a single grimoire, a single scroll, or any loose collection of pages and notes bound together in a binding). Any object that does not conform to this standard, including blank paper, cannot fit into the pouch. However, it can hold unusual written mediums, such as stone tablets, provided the wearer can lift the object and bring it to waist level.

Only the attuned wearer can withdraw objects from the pouch; all others see only an empty container should they open or upturn the contents.

Additionally, the wearer of the belt will float in water unless dragged under regardless of their weight or carrying capacity, and can use the feather fall spell once. The flotation power is always active, but feather fall must recharge after a long rest before it can be used again.