Wednesday, July 27, 2022
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Saturday, July 16, 2022
Weapon Techniques for D&D 5e
So, on my ko-fi shop and patreon, I have released an updated werewolf pdf and a new pdf on weapon techniques.
The idea for weapon techniques are a combination of factors. I got to the base idea from my attempts at creating a stunt system for my campaign. Stunts were things I had put into the game all the way back in the late 90s when I was playing Advanced D&D 2nd edition! Wow! So long ago. Recently I have been codifying what was always an internal judgement of what would be too strong or not strong enough.
Thankfully, my players are capable of being munchkins about the whole thing, without actually being munchkins about the whole thing.
How to activate stunts is something that other people have come up with over time. One of the things I really liked, because I like interesting choices in games, is giving up advantage to get an effect. Now, the important part of that, is that the reward has to be greater. I aimed at 150% damage increase for giving up advantage. I applied this in different ways depending on the weapon being used.
Later I added spell casting focuses to it.
Finally, I wanted more options so I found another trigger, this time as a way to reward martial characters who already have a higher chance of appearing weak, especially in comparison to casters. So I made the 2nd trigger be on a miss. This allowed them to show off their prowess by making critical misses improbable.
My third trigger was for casters, so that their saving throw spells had a chance of doing a bit more damage or effect to those spells.
Base rules: "These special techniques can only be used Proficiency Bonus times per short rest. Once you give up advantage, you cannot gain it back on any of the attack rolls you make until the start of your next turn."
Weapon Sample for One Handed Slashing Weapons (Scimitar or Hand Axe for example)
Pass Through
When you would have advantage on an attack, you can instead move through the enemy's space to the other side, without provoking opportunity attacks. You make three passing attacks as you move, each dealing half weapon die damage instead.
Now in our campaign, we round damage up. But for most people, damage is rounded down. So you could end up dealing no damage!
Focus Sample for Bard Wind Instrument
Leaf in the Wind
When someone fails a Saving Throw against your spell save DC, with a natural 1, you can allow all your allies to move 1 space without provoking attacks of opportunity.
Now that's what I call utility!
I managed to cram 38 of these into a small and affordable pdf!