RACE: GNOMES

Gnomes in our games are heavily influenced by two things: David the Gnome and the gnome artwork of Jakub Rozalski.

 GNOMES

 

(art by Pedro Krüger Garcia)
 

 

Gnomes get +1 to CON and +1 to WIS. (1)

Gnomes get +1 to Fortitude and Reflex saves. (1)

Gnomes are Small-sized. (2)

Gnomes get +2 to AC due to their size and quickness. (3)

Gnomes add their level as a bonus to all damage rolls. (4)

Gnomes have a +2 bonus to all climbing and jumping rolls. (5)

Gnomes can talk to wild animals. (6)

1. Gnomes are quick, tough, and wily. You have to be when everything is bigger than you and wants to eat you.

2. Most PC races are Medium or at least Medium enough that it doesn't rate any rules considerations. Gnomes are Small. In game terms that means they have half as many inventory slots as another character with the same Strength (so if the gnome has a STR of 16 she only has 8 slots). In practical terms gnomes have to use equipment that is sized for them, although I have never actually let this be a big problem at the table. Also a Small creature is supposed to get an AC bonus against Large-sized or bigger enemies but, uh, I always forget that.

3. Part of the reason I forget the Small-guy AC bonuses is because this one is baked in for gnomes.

4. This is why gnomes have survived living in a world where they have to worry about getting eaten by feral cats or badgers or owls. Because these little bastards are vicious.

5. I have tinkered with this one for a long time, I settled on a plain +2 for now.

6. Gnomes can speak the language of wild animals (like normal animals, not displacer beasts). This isn't "charm wild animals" or "tame wild animals" but it can help if that's what you're trying to do.

 

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CLASS: BARBARIAN! SMASH! CRUSH! KILL!

 BARBARIAN

 

(art by Maciej Kuciara and D. Alexander Gregory)

 

HIT DICE: D12

ATTACK BONUS: +1 for every turn of combat until the fighting is finished. (1)

Barbarians get +2 to Fortitude saves and +1 to Reflex saves. 

Barbarians can use simple weapons. 

Barbarians add their STR bonus to their AC. (2)

Barbarians deal double damage when they are at half hit points or lower. (3)

They deal triple damage when they are at 1 hit point or lower. (3)

Barbarians are not downed at 0 hit points or lower. (4)

Barbarians get a bonus to climbing, jumping, and swimming rolls equal to their level. (5)

 

1. A barbarian's attack bonus starts at plain old +1. But then! It goes up by 1 every turn of combat. Combat lasts 10 turns? That's a +10 attack bonus. There is no upper limit because THEIR RAGE IS INFINITE. "Until fighting is finished" is a vague term but it should be pretty obvious when combat is over.

2. Base unarmored AC starts at 12 (LotFP-style). So a barbarian's AC is generally between 12 and 15. Good thing they have the biggest hit dice.

3. This plus the increasing attack bonus is how we do "barbarian rage" in our games. Lower than 1 hit point is possible not just because of the next barbarian ability but also because a PC can be at 0 hp and still functioning under specific conditions (see the next bullet).

4. Most PCs are incapacitated at 0 or fewer hit points. The way we do healing and first aid means you can be at 0 hp and still do stuff, but at a -4 penalty. I'll cover all that stuff in another post. For now just know that a barbarian at less than 0 hit points is dying but not all the way dead until they hit "negative Constitution" (so like if their Constitution score is 15 then they are dead-dead at -15 hit points). They also don't get the -4 penalty to actions at 0 or fewer hit points. (I gotta post the death and dying rules so this all makes more sense.)

5. This seems pretty useful and also I don't think it has ever come up. My players never read their own character sheets.

 

 

 

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ART & SONG & CULTURE & SHIT

Here's more of my scattered ideas. These are pieces of art or songs to sprinkle the game world with. I like art as treasure, it adds to the game in a way that "you find 20 gold pieces" doesn't. I also like to put named songs that "everybody knows" in for color. I have no musical talent so there's no original melodies or anything, mostly we find something on YouTube and waste game time doing bad song parodies.

"THE BALLAD OF THE BLOODY BREWERS": A classic Dwarven drinking song with magical properties. If it's sung heartily by drunk people carrying weapons then everyone that hears the singing becomes drunk too (Will save to resist).

CHORD OF DISHARMONY: A song-spell created by Sabra the Snake. If played on an instrument of ruby & bone, anyone hearing it must save or attack their allies.

“THE FAILURES OF PIETY”: Oil on canvas, depicts a laughing red demon amidst hellfire & burning clergy and paladins. Servants of evil covet it, legend says the owner will have the favor of hell. Owning or obtaining the painting is always associated with trails of bodies, assassins, poison, slaughter -- the usual wages of evil. The painting itself is just a painting & Hell has no taste for art.

“DREAMS OF THE UNDERWORLD”: 11 line poem, overwrought & melodramatic like a moody teenager wrote it. Written long ago by a failed necrosage candidate before she was thrown into the Abyssal Labyrinth. Anti-Paladins reading or hearing it will think it fucking rules & continuously weep black tears for 24 hours afterward, they'll also get +2 to their attack bonus and armor class.

"THE FISTS OF SIR FOWLER": Rollicking pub song ostensibly about a knight that likes to punch people, most of the lyrics are just nonsense words. If sung by someone riding a drunk horse then all who hear the singing must save or begin punching themselves in the face. (This is pretty dumb and I love it.) 

TAPESTRY OF THE BATTLE OF KELVDOK: Beautiful, richly detailed tapestry depicting famous long-ago battle between elves & dwarves. Worth 30000 gold pieces to an art collector, or 7000 if damaged. Any dwarves or elves within that get a good look at it must save or attack nearest elf (for dwarves) or dwarf (for elves) until they're dead or attacker is unconscious. If the enemy species isn't nearby then no obvious effect until they are.

"THE ENIGMA OF SELF": Interactive art piece by long-dead cleric. It's a circular chamber with a polished floor covered in white and purple concentric lines. Clerics & paladins praying here for at least two hours gain +2 to all saves for next 24 hours as long as they (and their player) only refer to themselves in the 3rd person.

“A VISION OF COSMIC HORROR”: Crude sculpture by unknown Slavic artist, depicting an amorphous hairy creature with multiple eyes, mouths, & tongues that are also hands. The first time you view it you get a horrifying vision of your own cosmic insignificance. You get +1 Wisdom and -1 Constitution permanently.

I have no idea who Sabra the Snake is or what exactly you have to do to become a necrosage. I do have house rules for drunk PCs because my players are incorrigible dirtbags so we'll get to those another time.

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RACE: HALF-ORC BUT ALL-BADASS

 HALF-ORC

 

(art by unknown artist and meteorite8 respectively)

Half-Orcs get +2 to STR. (1)

Half-Orcs +2 to Fortitude saves. (1)

Half-Orcs get +2 additional hit points at every level. (1)

Half-Orcs have a +1 bonus to attack rolls made with axes. (2)

Half-Orcs can smell spilled blood within 100 feet. (3)

Half-Orcs can see in the dark as if it were daylight in anything but total darkness. (3)

Half-Orcs are immune to magical fear effects. (4)

Half-Orcs deal triple maximum damage whenever they roll a critical hit. (5)

Half-Orcs may start with a random Greenskin Quirk. If they do, they get -1 Charisma and -1 Wisdom. (6)

1. Half-Orcs are beasts.

2. Half-Orcs are brutal.

3. Half-Orcs are metal.

4. Half-Orcs don't give a shit. Yes, this is the same ability that halflings have, so when the Deathlord Iron Mouth of Hell uses his Gaze of Crippling Horror on the party, only the halfling and the half-orc will be left standing.

5. We do critical hits like this: a natural 20 on an attack roll means you do double the maximum damage for the weapon you're using. Half-Orcs do that but even more so.

6. Some Half-Orcs are more orky than others. This option is available once at character creation (but I would probably let the player take it once at any time they gained a level, this represents their orc heritage coming out). They roll on the table provided below and get a weird power befitting their goblinoid heritage. The tradeoff is greener blood means it's harder to get along in polite society.

 

 

GREENSKIN QUIRKS

So I'm pretty sure I got the majority of this table from someone else's blog but for the life of me I can't find it, I think maybe it was Goblin Punch. Sorry original creator, please let me know who you are and I will tell the world. Also go read Goblin Punch anyway.

EDIT: Found it! It's from Against the Wicked City, another blog you should read.

 

1 Firebug: You can intuitively work out what the most effective way to destroy a building or object with fire. You take half damage from fire and are unaffected by smoke inhalation.

2 Biter: You have a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, which you can use to chew through wood, ropes, etc. Your bite does d4 plus your Strength modifier in damage.

3 Rubbery: You can jump 20 feet straight up from a standing start. You take half damage from falling.

4 Coward: You gain a +4 bonus to AC when running away and screaming.

5 Bottomfeeder: You can eat anything organic as a ration, even if it's spoiled.

6 Eelskin: You're slick and slippery like an eel. Anyone grabbing or grappling you is at a -2 penalty, and you can make an electric shock touch attack once a day for d6 damage.

7 Fungal Blood: As long as you're not in direct sunlight, you regenerate d4 hit points an hour.

8 Hyperactivity: Once a day you can go completely hyper for d6 rounds, moving at double your normal speed and attacking twice per round.

9 Lunatic: Your mind is so twisted that it's very difficult for other people to control. You are immune to mind-affecting powers and spells. Also you're utterly batshit.

10 Mushroom Mystic: Pick a Wizard spell. You can cast this spell once per day, but only when you're stoned out of your head on hallucinogenic mushrooms.

11 Persistent Freak: Whenever you die, you can permanently reduce a random ability score by d4 to instantly come back to life at d4 plus your level hit points.

12 Poison Spit: Your saliva is so poisonous that you can envenom any edged weapon by licking the blade. The next person stabbed with it must save vs. poison or suffer d6 days of horrible, incapacitating sickness with penalties to all their rolls.

13 Sneaky: As long as you're not overencumbered, you can move as soundlessly as a snail.

14 Spider Climb: As long as you're not overencumbered, you can swarm up walls and crawl along ceilings like a fucking spider. This ability won't work on completely smooth surfaces.

15 Stab Frenzy: When you hit someone in combat with a dagger, you may immediately attempt to stab them again, with a -1 penalty to hit and damage; if you hit again you can attack a third time (with an additional -1 to hit and damage, for -2 total), and so on until you either miss, hit but inflict 0 damage, or kill them. You can only use this ability while screaming incoherently.

16 Stench: You straight-up stink. Anyone in close combat with you gets -2 to their attack roll.

17 Substance Abuse: You gain +2 to-hit and damage in melee while drunk and/or high.

18 Vandalism: You have a near-supernatural ability to destroy inanimate objects. As long as you're bashing things hysterically while screaming your head off, you gain +4 to Strength rolls for the purposes of breaking things only.

19 Ugly: Even for a greenskin, you are exceedingly hideous. You can make a Morale attack against anyone that can see you. You get -2 to all reaction rolls.

20 Roll twice on this table and take both quirks. If you roll another 20 do it again. Yes, with a string of 20s you could conceivably end up with EVERY QUIRK ON HERE. That's some green-ass blood you got there.

 

 

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Wondrous Things

As I discussed in my wizard post, I like my sorcery to be twisted and dangerous. I don't like magic to be just a different kind of technology. Having said that, we also have artificers in our game, which is a class that literally mixes magic with technology. I SEE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS.

Here's an assortment of artificer gadgets for players to find. (And I'll get the artificer class posted soon.)

SNAVEEN'S DILIGENT MAGICAL MECHANISMS: This is a brass treasure chest, and inside you'll find: shears, a needle with thread, a handsaw, a hammer, and a broom. Scratched into the lid is the word JOVAKU. If you open the chest and say this command word the tools will animate, hover in the air under their own power, and flit about doing chores and being generally useful. They will return to box when the second command word is spoken (ZALINGVU -- this word was written on a piece of parchment and stuffed in the chest but now it's nowhere to be found). If the second word isn't spoken within 10 minutes the tools will do increasingly harmful/deadly "chores".

SHANG SHANG'S BITTER EYE: A fist-sized multifaceted crystal. If held by a living hand the crystal emits a disintegration ray (2d6 damage, ignores non-magical armor) every turn automatically at any fungal monsters, giant insects, and/or halflings (Shang Shang the Artificer hated all those things in particular). The crystal melts away into a puddle if exposed to 1)moonlight 2)salt water 3)the sound of church bells 4)flower petals 5)elf blood 6)poetry.

JALIRA'S LAST JEST: A finely crafted glass frog filled with a shimmering blue liquid. Smash the frog open and every humanoid creature within d6 miles polymorphs into a blue frog for d4 hours (or d4 minutes with a Fortitude save).

ZEBERO'S AFFIXABLE WINGS: A matched pair of small brown bird wings. When applied to a living creature, they meld to it and grow to a proportionate size. The creature can now fly, free and clear like a bird. They also swap 2 points of Strength for 2 points of Dexterity as bones and tendons change shape. They must eat a dozen fresh bird eggs every day or the wings rot and fall off.

MALTROBIAN'S POCKET ARMOR: A dull silver ring. Anyone wearing it can turn the ring three times and it will transform into ornate silver armor. This armor is magical, gives +5 AC, only adds 1 to encumbrance, and can be used by anyone without any armor training. The armor turns back into a ring after 2d4 turns, then it must be recharged by soaking in wine for 12 hours.

JALIRA'S MYSTICAL MUDDLER: A lavender egg-shaped device, surprisingly heavy. Any spell cast within line of sight of the Muddler becomes a Create Duck spell instead: the original spell is countered and a perfectly ordinary duck appears. The Muddler has 2d6 charges left in it, after they run out it crumbles to dust.

DARMISH'S COSMIC COLLECTION: The exquisite personal collection of the Space Wizard. It's like a science fair plus an antique store. Room-sized models of celestial bodies show events transpiring on them, although you need powerful magnification to see it. (This is just one of the things in the Collection; this is really more like its own adventure than one gadget.)

CORWELLIAN'S SPECTRAL CLOAK: A heavy silvery-blue cloak. Anyone wearing it can levitate at will, gets +3 AC, and is invisible in dim light if they remain stationary. It used to be in the personal collection of Punzo the Grasping, but it was pilfered by thieves decades ago. Punzo will murder your whole family to get it back.

MAESTRO LUCA'S ENERVATING PEPPER: Maestro Luca was a culinary enchanter who created many kitchen sorceries. This gold & ebony pepper mill can be used as a melee weapon (d6 damage) or the handle can be wound up like a regular pepper mill. The mystical pepper it produces causes uncontrollable sneezing on contact. The device never runs out of pepper.

MUZZO'S MAGNIFICENT MODULAR MAN: A platinum clockwork golem, vaguely humanoid in appearance. If you touch it and make a successful Intelligence roll the golem will change into a mechanical version of whatever creature you were thinking of. It will obey the spoken commands of anyone with an Intelligence of 15 or higher. If there's no such person around to command it, the golem will try to retreat and hide. It will viciously attack if cornered or trapped.

I like these kinds of magical items that are of questionable utility and generate entertainment at the table. (I also like giving them Jack Vance-style flowery names.) The wise course of action when you find strange items in the wild is to leave them alone but my players are more curious than wise.

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CLASS: RANGERS

Time to move into the secondary-but-still-classic-feeling classes. 

RANGER

 

 (art by bryuenart and Yuzuo Dong respectively)

 

HIT DICE: D8 

ATTACK BONUS: +1 / Ranger level +1 for ranged or thrown weapons 

Rangers get +2 to Fortitude saves. 

Rangers can use simple and martial weapons. (1)

Rangers can wear chainmail and leather armor. (2)

Rangers get a bonus to attack rolls equal to their level when using ranged or thrown weapons. (3)

Rangers get a bonus to tracking and trapping rolls equal to their level. (4)

Rangers can attempt to calm and tame wild animals. (5)

Rangers begin with an animal companion. (6)

When taking a long rest, rangers are always considered to be resting in at least "Good" conditions. (7)

Rangers can move silently at half speed, or at normal speed with a Dexterity roll. (8)

 

1. Simple weapons are like swords and bows and martial weapons are fancy, complex, or difficult things like great swords and crossbows. (I still haven't posted that equipment list.) Basically rangers can use any weapon that isn't a firearm.

2. No bulky heavy plate armor for rangers.

3. So fighters get an attack bonus that increases with their level. This is because fighters do this shit for a living. The only other class that I give this level-based attack bonus to is rangers, and only for ranged and thrown weapons. "Thrown weapons" is stuff that's meant to be thrown or at least makes sense as a thrown weapon, like shuriken or knives. I suppose certain spears could fit this definition but that doesn't seem very rangery. I'd probably let a player get away with it if they were doing something cool.

4. This is pretty broad but I don't have any hard and fast tracking or trapping rules. Tracking or trapping usually involves an Intelligence or Wisdom roll -- anybody can try it but rangers excel at it.

5. No "official" rules for this either but you'll need a little time and a Charisma roll, maybe offer some treats or pull a thorn from a paw. I'm pretty lenient with this as long as the player isn't annoying about it. It helps if the animal isn't hostile, I won't say the ranger can't try to befriend a rampaging bear but it'll be a lot harder. It's also harder to calm / tame fantastical creatures like griffins or owlbears than it is plain old moose or warthogs.

6. Classic ranger stuff. Your animal companion will be a "normal" animal, like a wolf or panther or eagle or something and not a cockatrice or displacer beast. I'll give you whatever stats for it I think are neat. You can sort of order your companion around but you don't control it exactly -- it won't do anything obviously suicidal and it won't put up with you mistreating it. Also it's clever but it's an animal, it can't read or do algebra or anything like that. If it dies, that sucks, you're a terrible pet owner. You'll have to go out and tame a new friend. (This will take a little time and effort but I won't be a jerk about it.)

7. I'll put the full rules up later but this is the "eating and resting to regain hit points" stuff we use in our game. It is heavily appropriated from the excellent blog Ten Foot Polemic which you should definitely be reading if you like this blog (or even if you don't). The gist of this is that rangers can rest comfortably in any rough or wild conditions just fine and they recover hit points accordingly. 

8. This is the same as the thief ability. Rangers are excellent stalkers.

That's the ranger we use in our games. You'll see there's not a "two-weapon fighter" option, I'm not against that but I don't want it enough to include it. You will also see that rangers don't get any magic at higher levels, which is a thing in a lot of rules sets. We don't do magical rangers in our game. (But they can get totem spirits, which is something I will write up much later after I, um, finish the rules on what a totem spirit does.)

 

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RACE: HUMANS

HUMAN

(art by Bob Kehl and, uh, from Pathfinder, I couldn't find a name)

 

Humans get +1 to all ability scores. (1)

Humans get +1 to all saves. (1)

 

1. Yes this is all pretty hefty, but it's for a reason. My players never want to play humans because they are "boring" and I get it. Other races have cool abilities or flavor and humans are just the generic default. So I beef them up. My philosophy is "if it ain't fun, break it 'til it is" (which not a particularly good or even logical philosophy but I can get away with dumb shit like this because I am the Dungeon Master not the Dungeon Unpaid Intern). It fits with our conception of humans in the game world too: humans are the ubiquitous majority because while they're not the best at anything, as a species they're at least sort of good at everything.


The secret perk that humans get during game play is what we have termed "human privilege." Most places in-game are majority human, so non-humans are some combination of mistrusted, feared, hated, persecuted, or treated as second class citizens. When the city guards show up because the party is brawling in the streets, there's a good chance they will walk right past the humans waving swords around and arrest the elf who was just minding her own business. Castle dungeons are primarily filled with demihumans because there's no justice. I also call this the "infravision tax" (which is a term I feel like I didn't come up with but I don't know who did).


And with that I have posted the classic four and four. Humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings are the classic races and fighters, thieves, clerics, and wizards are the classic classes. My players and I agree that a game that didn't lean heavily on these basics wouldn't really feel dungeon-y or dragon-y enough. I'm down with whatever anybody else does in their consenting-adults game, this is just how we do ours.

 

The next races and classes I will be posting are more along the lines of "oh shit, you know what else would be cool?" Also I have some optional customizable stuff for races and classes (not table-tested) that I will be putting up later on.

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CLASS: OH NO WIZARDS

The main thing to know about wizards in our games is that we use the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Magic System from Vaginas Are Magic and Eldritch Cock. (Listen, once you get past the stupid titles you'll see that the spellcasting rules are metal as hell, like vicious putrid church-burning death metal.) I have slightly modified the rules as written but the basics are: there's no spell levels, so all spells are available right from first level (spells usually scale up with higher levels); you can only safely cast a number of spells equal to your level each day and after that you risk a Miscast (which is a Bad Thing); every spell is named for a metal song (I get if that doesn't matter to you but I think it's fantastic); and the spells are weird, dark, powerful, and generally fucked up. 

 

See, we don't roll with the "magic is just a different form of technology" that I think underlies a lot of dungeon-y games. Magic is terrifying and chaotic and horrible. Good, upstanding, law-abiding people do not do magic. And that's why everybody knows wizards are not to be trusted, because wizards do magic. 

 

Wizards in our game are not clever people in funny hats who studied fantastical languages to read glowing spellbooks so they could cast Feather Fall. Wizards are fucking weird, like unhealthy and sweaty and "maybe a serial killer" weird. Sure, a wizard might be charming or compelling in an unwholesome sort of way but it's with the understanding that one day they might decide that your skin is just they thing they need to try a new spell they learned from a demon. 

WIZARD

(art by Julia Kovalyova and Shar'ya Ardat)

 

HIT DICE: D4

ATTACK BONUS: +1

Wizards get +2 to Willpower saves.

Wizards can use simple weapons. (1)

Wizards start with two random spells. (2)

Wizards can safely cast a number of spells equal to their level each day. After that, they risk

a Miscast. (3)

Wizards gain new spells by discovering spellbooks or scrolls, learning them from demons or other powerful magical creatures, rolling a natural 20 on a Miscast save, and/or eating the brains of other wizards. (4)

 
1. Yup, no armor. Wizards are not trained in any kind of armor so wearing any means they're overencumbered per our house rules.

2. The "random" part is not true in practice. I usually let my players pick their spells because they gravitate toward the more entertaining ones. I use almost all of the published LotFP Weird Magic spells (sometimes with slight modifications to fit our play style and house rules) as well as some that I came up with myself.

3. Miscasting is a big deal, the potential consequences usually involve instant death and/or instant total party kill. You'd think the person playing the wizard would avoid Miscasting whenever possible right? Not my players, they push Miscasts all the time because we crave death. We use Miscast rules that are slightly modified from the original and I've put them below. Each spell has it's own d6 Miscast results table (this is also different from the LotFP rules).

4. This is why wizards go adventuring. You find the best weird stuff in old dungeons and crypts and temples. Rolling a 20 on a Miscast save represents the wizard's brain opening up to the totality of howling chaos and having a twisted new insight drop into their brain like a slippery toad. And the "learning spells by eating wizard brains" thing is my own idea that I am especially fond of. Now whenever there's two wizards in the party and an enemy spellcaster is defeated they always end up fighting over who gets to eat the brains. And I couldn't be prouder!

 

 

WEIRD MAGIC 

(adapted from Lamentations of the Flame Princess so if you like this then go buy that)

 

NO SPELL LEVELS  All spells are considered equally difficult, and a spell’s power is determined by the wizard’s level. The wizard doesn't have to cast a spell at full power; she may decide to cast it at a lower level of power.

CASTING SPELLS  Wizards have one spell slot per level each day that they can use at no penalty. They can cast every spell they know once, or one spell multiple times, or any combination thereof, as long as they don’t hit their casting limit.

MISCASTING  When one of the following conditions is met, the wizard must make a Will save with a difficulty of 13 (Intelligence modifier applies). On a failure, roll on the spell's Miscast table. Spells can't be ended early or "turned off" on a Miscast. Every additional valid condition means a –1 penalty on the saving throw.

- Casting a spell after the level-based casting limit has been reached. This is a cumulative -1 penalty for every spell over the wizard's daily level limit.
- Casting a spell while over-encumbered.
- Casting a spell while at one-quarter hit points or lower.
- Casting a spell while intoxicated.

Miscast results are rolled after the spell takes effect. Results are rolled by the DM and revealed only when the characters involved become aware of the consequences.
Wizards may miscast on purpose, but the player may never choose the Miscast result.

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