The Hadozee, also colloquially called “deck apes”, are simian humanoids with a membrane of skin between their arms and legs that allows them to glide. Hadozee originate from lands of lush jungles, and have a deep respect for nature and it’s beauties. However they love traveling and visiting ever more exotic locations. Hadozee now inhabit many far reaches as they frequently serve as mercenary crew members for ship and naval fleets.
Like all my brews on this blog, this is a carefully balanced, peer reviewed and playtested brew of the finest malt! As always I’m glad to hear feedback and about any experiences using this brew for PCs or NPCs.
By request I wrote up a Neogi 5e player race for use with Spelljammer. This has yet to be properly play tested, it is most likely strong, but doesn’t seem inherently broken and over powered when compared with races like the Grung or even some Tieflings.
Like all my brews on this blog, this is a carefully balanced, peer reviewed and playtested brew of the finest malt! this one is 100% in early development! As always I’m glad to hear feedback and about any experiences using this brew for PCs or NPCs.
I mashed the ideas of travel from Adventures in Middle Earth with rules from Ghosts of Saltmarsh to create a streamlined travel system for my game. This is the first draft, but I figure they are good enough to start sharing and getting feedback.
Journey Difficulty and Travel Speed
Type of Travel
DC
Miles on Foot
Miles on Sled/Animals
Travel near Civilization
13
5 miles/day (1d4+3)
10 miles/day (2d4+6)
Travel in the Wild
15
4 miles/day (1d4+2)
8 miles/day (2d4+4)
Exploration in the Deep Wild
18
3 miles/day (1d4+1)
6 miles/day (2d4+2)
Forced Marches, a caravan can force up to three times their march to gain aditional 1d4 miles each time of travel distance in a day, must make a Caravan Morale check, on a success the morale decreases by 1, on a failure the morale decreases by 1d4 points
Caravan Morale & Supplies
A caravan’s skill, experience, morale, and health are defined by its quality score. A caravan starts with a quality score of 0, and that score varies over time, going as low as -10 and as high as +10. It decreases as a caravan takes casualties, suffers hardship, or endures poor health. It increases if the caravan enjoys high morale, has good health care, and receives clear, fair leadership.
Mutiny
A poorly led or mistreated caravan might turn against its leaders. Once per day, if a caravan’s’s quality score is lower than 0, a Leader must make a Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check modified by the caravan’s quality score. If the check total is between 1 and 9, the caravan’s quality score decreases by 1.
If the check total is 0 or lower, the caravan mutinies. They become hostile to the leaders and might attempt to kill them or abandon them. The crew can be cowed into obedience through violence, combat, or offers of treasure and other rewards. When the DM ends the mutiny, the caravan’s quality score increases by 1d4.
Relaxation Time
Spending time in a town allows the caravan to relax and regain its composure. If a caravan’s quality score is 3 or lower, the score increases by 1 for each day the caravan spends in town.
Supplies
The caravan is assumed to be carrying enough supplies for the travel. However details are abstracted in the Embarkation phase.
Embarkation Phase
[Int] Preparation and Supplies
Examples: Nature what do we need, what does nature provide, Investigate or Persuade to get the best supplies for the value, Survival knowledge preparations.
No Success: Insufficient (Con Save required per day, or lose a hitdie or gain exhaustion)
Partial Success: Sufficient
Complete Success: Abundant (Advantage on other Embarkation Phase rolls)
[Wis] Timing
Examples: Religion to find good omens for your journey, Nature to determine weather, Stealth laying low when you leave, etc…
No Success: Bad Timing (Disadvantage on Journey rolls until a success)
Partial Success: Appropriate
Complete Success: Auspicious (Advantage on Journey rolls until a fail)
[Cha] Spirit
Examples: Athletics get the caravan in good condition before the trip, Deception to convice everyone the journey is safe, Performance to perform a pep-talk, etc…
No Success: Low Spirit, Caravan Quality Reduced by 1d4 points
Partial Success: Good Spirit, Caravan Quality Increased by 1d4 points
Complete Success: Inspired, Caravan Quality Increased by 2d4 points
Journey Phase
For each day roll a d6 and check the following table. If you roll a no result, roll an additional d6 on the check for the next day, and take the higher value
Events of the Day
Roll
Result
1-3
Nothing happens
4
Caravan Trouble
5
1d3 Encounter
6
Caravan Trouble & 1d3 Encounters
Caravan Trouble
Roll
Result
1
Caravan Conflicts
2
Someone got lost
3
Bad weather
4
Supplies Issue
5
Animal Problems
6
Avalanche, Blizzard
Encounters
Roll
Result
1
Dragon, Giant, Abberations
2
Very Dangerous/Evil Monstruosity, Fey, Undead, Slimes, etc…
Examples: Tool Checks like Navigator or Cartographer tools, Survival to follow nature trails, Perception to find shortcuts and ley of the land, etc…
No Success: Party needs to backtrack, add an extra day of travel
Partial Success: Normal travel
Complete Success: Cuts a day, or half day of travel
[Wis] Scouting
Examples: Stealth to scout ahead of the caravan, Arcana using cantrips to gain insights, Animal Handling to benefit from caravan’s animal cunning
No Success: Party is surprised by monsters or falls into an ambush
Partial Success: Threats are spotted, but no one is surprised
Complete Success: You find threats before they affect you, monster attacks, etc…
[Cha] Morale
Examples: Medicine to make sure everyone is in optimal conditions, Intimidation to keep everyone in line, Insight to understand and help people that might have concerns early
No Success: Setbacks, Caravan Quality Reduced by 1d4
Partial Success: Morale doesn’t change
Complete Success: Inspired journey, Caravan Quality Increases by 1d4, PCs gain Inspiration
I like exciting pulp-action combat, but standard 5e D&D combat can grow stale quick. So here is my simple combat rules “plug-in” to spice up the game for everyone.
These are codified from a few years DMing with these rules in an informal way. But I finally codified them now, and call them Gambits. Feel free to use this concept wholesale or just steal the core concepts and run with your own. The goal is to make combat more fun and exciting without bogging down in too many rules.
Semantically a gambit is when someone sacrifices a resource or an opportunity to achieve a potential upper hand in a conflict.
Using Tactical Gambits
In nutshell gambits are small tactical choices you can take in exchange for taking disadvantage on the attack. It’s basically a gamble. You can only use one gambit per turn, AND only when you don’t already have disadvantage. Thanks to the trade-off they balance out with vanilla combat, and newer players won’t be losing out just because they are simply swinging their sword. It’s an opt-in/opt-out rule set that anyone can decide to use or not use at any time.
The design prerogative of gambits is to not change the balance of the game; and they are not meant to replace or invalidate any core rules like fighting styles, feats, existing combat actions, or classes like the battle master and their maneuvers. This works because the gambits allow a player to trade advantage or to take disadvantage on their attack roll for potential tactical benefits. This means that gambit benefits are curbed by the choice of taking a gamble. Thus both a player that actively embraces gambits, and a player that prefers to play it safe will be roughly equal in combat.
Like all my brews on this blog, this is a carefully balanced, peer reviewed and playtested brew of the finest malt! As always I’m glad to hear feedback and about any experiences using this brew for PCs or NPCs.
Here are my beta rules for spelljamming that I’m working on, wording is still rough, but these are rules I’ve been playtesting for a while. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
A bleeding man suddenly walks through the doors of the tavern.. holding his side as he extends his hand trying to perch on to a table, but slips and tumbles to the ground. The Rogue then hurries up to see what has happened to the poor sod, but it’s too late…
The above scene is something that happens in countless books, and movies, but in D&D this sort of situation doesn’t make sense and players will be forced to suspend disbelief. Because it obviously cannot happen if we follow the death and dying rules in the Players Handbook.
I prefer, and believe others do too, the possibility of a smoother transition between dying and dead. But hopefully one that doesn’t change the overall balance of the game. So I present here my current working solution:
Hitting 0 hp
When you hit 0 hp, you can roll a Constitution saving throw DC 10. On a success you remain conscious, but incapacitated and prone. If you fail the check you are unconscious. In either case you are dying and must roll death saving throw at the end of each of your turns.
Recovering from unconscious at 0 hp
When a character recovers from being unconscious at 0 hp, or being dead, they are prone, and stunned until the start of their next turn.
(The recovering character losing their immediate turn because they are stunned has an immediate, and serious, tactical consideration. Without the typical and troublesome book keeping of applying exhaustion levels to people that have fallen)
Condition: Prone + Stunned
A stunned creature is incapacitated, can’t move, and can speak only falteringly.
Incapacitated means: An incapacitated creature can’t take actions or reactions.
An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage. (This advantage and prone range counters prone ranged disadvantage)
The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
A prone creature’s only movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition.
The Dohwar, are probably one of my favorite races to come out of the Spelljammer setting. In 2e they didn’t actually get stats as a race, as they were released in the 2nd Spelljammer Monster Manual, shortly before TSR stopped working on Spelljammer. But honestly… Mind Reading Corporate Mafia Penguins are just too much fun to relegate to NPCs. So here are stats to play them in 5e. They are fun and unique enough that I think DM’s should place them on all worlds, and not relegate them to Wildspace 🐧
Like all my brews on this blog, this is a carefully balanced, peer reviewed and playtested brew of the finest malt! As always I’m glad to hear feedback and about any experiences using this brew for PCs or NPCs.
Because Spelljammer, where Illithid are actually common, I made a playable race for Illithid. They are illitihid that for one reason or another are no longer members of a colony, and lost the link with their Elder Brain.
Obviously Illithid are too powerful to fit into the budget of a normal 5e D&D race. However when you think of it, the illithid in the Monster Manual is an individual that is clearly not equivalent to a level 1 character, same as a human Veteran has abilities that are far above those of an average 1st level human. My solution? I boiled down the illithid to as basic a race as possible, while still maintaining an unmistakable illithid feel, and added 2 racial feats that unlock features that will bring a character closer to what the Monster Manual Illithid looks like. So in theory say an 8th level Illithid Wizard with both feats will feel very much like playing a Monster Manual illithid.
Like all my brews on this blog, this is a carefully balanced, peer reviewed and playtested brew of the finest malt! As always I’m glad to hear feedback and about any experiences using this brew for PCs or NPCs.
Here is the Giff race of my Spelljammer games. Most other brews out there give Giff the ability to ignore the loading property of firearms at level 1, but that is almost as good as giving them the crossbow expert feat at level 1, which when compounded with the rest of the racial package is quite a bit. Instead I have given them firearms training at level 1, and the faux crossbow expert free loading benefit at 3rd level, to keep things balanced.
Like all my brews on this blog, this is a carefully balanced, peer reviewed and playtested brew of the finest malt! As always I’m glad to hear feedback and about any experiences using this brew for PCs or NPCs.
KameBit's Helm 