[QUOTE=Nerts;50336744]Gryphons are pretty furry though, and playing any race that doesn't have fingers or isn't able to talk is a pain. Unless you just handwave all that I guess.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure how they are but I'm not exactly going to contest it. I just like the idea of playing a distinctly nonhuman character.
I've also played a character who didn't know anything but basic parts of normal language and that was a bit difficult (I'm not about to go hard mode that way again any time soon) but it was still pretty interesting.
[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;50336875]I'm not sure how they are but I'm not exactly going to contest it. I just like the idea of playing a distinctly nonhuman character.
I've also played a character who didn't know anything but basic parts of normal language and that was a bit difficult (I'm not about to go hard mode that way again any time soon) but it was still pretty interesting.[/QUOTE]
Well I'll just say that they're pretty popular among furries. And yeah, it can be interesting for an individual character, but I don't think it'd work out very well with the whole party being like that without having nearly no interaction with them and normal society.
One of the characters in my Shadowrun game grew up in a jungle, only recently learned any kind of language and can't read or write or has any understanding of computers or technology and it's caused a few amusing situations, but it only works out because they rely on the other people in the team to make phonecalls, buy food, and they're crashing at someone else's rented apartment.
Unless you're going to run it with the PCs mostly interacting with other animals and stuff like it's Animal Farm but I don't think that's what you mean?
[QUOTE=BoxinShrimp;50336150]Lizard and bird men are race types that do generally interest me, also ratmen for some reason.[/QUOTE]
You could play a Tiefling.
[QUOTE=GastricTank;50336100]5e is streamlined and makes a lot of things quicker and simpler imo.
As for race, Dragonborn is a neat non-humanlike choice. You could ask the DM if they're open to homebrew or using races from other versions.[/QUOTE]
Please don't use homebrew unless you know what you're doing. An overpowered race/class can really fuck up a game.
You can just use stats for an existing similar thing and describe it as something else, not exactly homebrewing but you can play pretty much what you want without unbalancing things
Or just look at simple guidelines. Don't know how it is in 5th but in 3.5 and PF building custom races was basically just a matter of another kind of point-buy, so you knew that something like a +2 to one stat, or +2 to a physical and mental with a -2 to another physical was balanced, with maybe some little features like a natural weapon, or a basic spell-like ability, or a point of natural armor, was generally fine
as long as you're not using custom races for the express purpose of being 'most powerful' there shouldn't really be a problem
Yeah Homebrew is a lot easier then people make it out to be. You can use already-made things as a base for what you create, and it doesn't take an expert to know that if something they're designing is OP.
I gave each of my players a few inherit traits and a custom cantrip that is relevant to their character's design/background.
[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;50336713]I don't know if this is considered weird, but I'd like to be able to play a game with races that are just straight up non-humanoid but still intelligent, like giant spiders or griffins or something. Not furry, just smart animals. I once saw a picture of a spider in a wizard's hat and holding a staff (might have been photoshopped) and really wanted to play an illusionist wizard spider. Also griffins in general are pretty neat.[/QUOTE]
Not sure if they might be your thing, but intelligent spellcasting spiders have been around since the AD&D days; [url]http://www.lomion.de/cmm/aranea.php[/url]
could be some doing to ask your DM if you could play one, though
It actually does require an expert to know what is OP. If you can tell when something is bordering OP you've probably played enough games to know what is and isn't OP. A new player to the game isn't going to understand why and how the cool homebrew race/spell/class they found is OP.
Don't get me wrong; I homebrew EVERYTHING. It makes a game considerably more interesting when a lot of the content is custom made for your particular gaming group... But only if you know what you're doing. Otherwise you get stupid shit like gravity warriors and bullshit like that.
[QUOTE=Nerts;50337662]You can just use stats for an existing similar thing and describe it as something else, not exactly homebrewing but you can play pretty much what you want without unbalancing things[/QUOTE]
Yea, reflavoring things is much better and easier.
[QUOTE=GastricTank;50338140]Yeah Homebrew is a lot easier then people make it out to be. You can use already-made things as a base for what you create, and it doesn't take an expert to know that if something they're designing is OP.
I gave each of my players a few inherit traits and a custom cantrip that is relevant to their character's design/background.[/QUOTE]
As long as the power level is consistent across the party it should be fine.
No,there are loads of people who don't understand the system at all and spew overpowered garbage onto sites like dandwiki.
In my opinion, unless you're very well versed in the system you shouldn't be doing any mechanical homebrewing at all. People tend to not understand what makes certain things powerful or how the math of the system is designed.
dragonborn could easily be refluffed to be a lizard-esque race, as nerts said
So my Half-Orc druid lost an arm during a fight.
I tried to fix it with my healing skills,my arm is back, but it seem like i can't use it anymore if i don't see a medic. :ohno:
Homebrew is easy.
Balancing homebrew is tricky and requires a mysterious combination of good instincts, experience with the feel of the system, and statistics.
Also I'm making some terrain for my xcom game of their base and it's pretty dope
[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;50338533]dragonborn could easily be refluffed to be a lizard-esque race, as nerts said[/QUOTE]
fire breathing (/cold/acid/poison/lightning) charismatic lizard race
if you wanted a race you could easily just reflavour as lizards i would choose half-orcs or wood elves (maybe change the weapons they got), not dragonborn
[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;50336713]I don't know if this is considered weird, but I'd like to be able to play a game with races that are just straight up non-humanoid but still intelligent, like giant spiders or griffins or something. Not furry, just smart animals. I once saw a picture of a spider in a wizard's hat and holding a staff (might have been photoshopped) and really wanted to play an illusionist wizard spider. Also griffins in general are pretty neat.[/QUOTE]
This reminds me of the greentext story where the Bear convinces everyone that he's a human, and he travels along with his butler which is the only person who can even remotely understand him.
For me, I like playing the "underdog" races like Ratfolk, Goblins, kobolds etc, the ones that everyone looks down on for being mostly simple races. Plus I feel like that makes for more engaging interactions with your fellow players based on the fact that they'll all probably despise you at first for being some filthy and lowly race.
Homebrewing things can be pretty fun. Case in point, our GMs have both been busy getting ready for new modules and such, so I, a humble player, got to take over for a fun little one-shot dungeon run. It had cockatrices with imaginary friends, skeletons dressed up to look and act like movie monsters, an umbrella mimic, and a gelatinous slime(that somehow got snagged in a bear trap? I still don't know how that works). The final boss? A trox version of ornstein and smough. I fully intended for the party to get whupped by the two, but they just managed to squeak by at the very end thanks to some great rolls. It was a lot of fun.
Honestly if you're just starting out, stick to book-only stuff. I really would advise against introducing homebrew stuff until you know what you're doing.
[editline]18th May 2016[/editline]
It's mostly because balance can be a real bitch and stuff that looks fine on paper can work out in practice to be sort of sucky or hilariously OP in certain conditions.
Also, I'm a firm believer that you need to learn to walk before you try to run.
yeah just stick to vanilla until you get the feel for D&D.
Is there a good way of playing D&D online? I'd rather do it in person, but right now I'm not really capable of going anywhere.
[QUOTE=BoxinShrimp;50341478]Is there a good way of playing D&D online? I'd rather do it in person, but right now I'm not really capable of going anywhere.[/QUOTE]
Check out roll20. Its browser based and free to use
[URL="http://menterart.tumblr.com/image/144524237895"][IMG]https://65.media.tumblr.com/c80dfdabb83314047a5a48a349edb30e/tumblr_o7cfl5MKml1snm6fco1_540.png[/IMG][/URL]
"finished" that piece. didn't quite finish it, but i can't spend more time on it :v:
(click on it for full res)
[QUOTE=Nerts;50336905]Well I'll just say that they're pretty popular among furries.[/QUOTE]
Ech, yeah, I know... I just thought you meant like, the actual idea of them was furry.
[QUOTE=Nerts;50336905]And yeah, it can be interesting for an individual character, but I don't think it'd work out very well with the whole party being like that without having nearly no interaction with them and normal society.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it would take some pretty specific circumstances to really work, I guess. Non-handwaved stuff, anyway - otherwise I'd just go with claws or whatever functioning reasonably similar to hands.
[QUOTE=Nerts;50336905]Unless you're going to run it with the PCs mostly interacting with other animals and stuff like it's Animal Farm but I don't think that's what you mean?[/QUOTE]
Nah, that would be kinda weird, to me, since Animal Farm was this weird thing where animals were intelligent but nobody had ever picked up on this before, and suddenly they have the gumption to rise up or whatever. What I was thinking of would just have intelligent non-humans in the world, much like/instead of the other stock fantasy races.
This was like literally just for one or two character ideas though, so it's not like I'm immensely bothered over having to play something normal.
So I got Burning Wheel yesterday because it was only $25. Holy shit the character creation is so in-depth.
Does anyone have any good token borders? I'm about to start a game on roll20 and wanna make some tokens for the characters.
[QUOTE=kobalt;50354502]Does anyone have any good token borders? I'm about to start a game on roll20 and wanna make some tokens for the characters.[/QUOTE]
Will this do?
[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/uweubx0mjq256ye/blanktoken.png?dl=0[/url]
Gotta a better one somewhere, I'll link it when I find it...
[editline]19th May 2016[/editline]
Can't seem to find it atm, sry.
[QUOTE=kobalt;50354502]Does anyone have any good token borders? I'm about to start a game on roll20 and wanna make some tokens for the characters.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.rptools.net/toolbox/token-tool/[/url] - Has a pile of different borders built in as well as making the process of making the tokens super quick.
[QUOTE=Vengeful Falcon;50355134][url]http://www.rptools.net/toolbox/token-tool/[/url] - Has a pile of different borders built in as well as making the process of making the tokens super quick.[/QUOTE]
Can confirm, it even has a border with automatic PC and NPC text. Very useful for quickly producing working tokens.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/r2UyweX.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/pf0cqo5.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/AaZ7Dsz.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/tNsfNAx.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/jABOw5K.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/z6yNCqM.png[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Axznma;50355468]Can confirm, it even has a border with automatic PC and NPC text. Very useful for quickly producing working tokens.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/r2UyweX.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/pf0cqo5.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/AaZ7Dsz.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/tNsfNAx.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/jABOw5K.png[/IMG][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/z6yNCqM.png[/IMG][/QUOTE]
They do have slightly jagged edges but whatever, it's good enough if you don't want to sit for hours on photoshop for each damn token.
Been using it for quite a while now, and it helps making tokens on the fly.
The jagged edges are smoothed out if you make them 1x1 sized on the default Roll20 grid.
Yeah, if you set the border as whatever you need instead and resize the token the jagged edges go away, instead of resizing the image before making it into a token which doesn't always look good.
[editline]20th May 2016[/editline]
Also if any of your players complain about a little aliasing on tokens you should put a snake in their backpack
Topic of online tabletops has come up so I thought I'd give my input.
Me and some friends shelled out for the ultimate version of FantasyGrounds, and have played through an entire campaign and a about half a dozen one offs with it (easily over 100 hours). We decided to actually move from FG to Roll20 for the next campaigns. FG, while pretty with a lot of automated stuff, feels cumbersome and outdated. Even if you carefully set up an entire character sheet, fill in your weapons to the point where you seperate individual full-attack attacks in to their own attacks (so you can roll them on different enemies rather than just one as part of a full attack) and have easy to read hotkeys for everything, you will find yourself getting frustrated when modifiers come in to play, as you'll have to type in the difference between what your hotkey is set to and what your new roll will be (without the hotkey telling you; so you'll have to open your sheet, find your weapon, and do some basic math to figure out what modifier you need) then roll your thing.
Meanwhile, if you know what the final roll you're making should be (eg, +17) all you need to do on Roll20 is type just that.
Then there's the DM side of things, having to input everything in to FG before it's actually usable (which makes perfect sense, it can just get tedious if you quickly need something and have come to rely on FG automatically processing things like saves, spell resistance, DR and so on).
FantasyGrounds doesn't even have a map ping.
The simplicity of Roll20 has won us all over. Many of the players use HeroLab to add modifiers and conditions to their character, so when they know exactly what they should be rolling, Roll20 is so much smoother to use. Oh, and Roll20 now has its own character sheet and supports custom hotkeys that are easier to edit than FantasyGrounds.
For the price tag attached to FG, you'd think they're update their program to feel like something not stuck in 2004.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
