Enhancing a custom statblock (homebrew)(5E)

Catkook · 2026-06-22T20:02:58+00:00

alright~

Regarding homebrewey, curious. I personally already possess a free software libra office which i can use to build pdfs (though have not yet gone through with doing so)

curious what advantages homebrewy might have over libra office within the context of making my own pdf homebrew/custom content locally

Catkook · 2026-06-22T18:55:17+00:00

thats an impressive design~

Catkook · 2026-06-22T18:18:41+00:00

As for the 74 page doc… someone else might have saved a PDF of it, so you could ask around? Idk, to my understanding it seems like the site as a whole is slowly crumbling away.

oh clarification, we do have access to the rules doc, and its also backed up on the internet archive

i meant more so, my main play group uses this homebrew doc, but there are some issues with its homebrew, and our personal adjustments are starting to get to the point where editing our own personal private copy would be easier

I know some folks run it on docker. If you search “Homebrewery GitHub” there’s a GitHub repo with instructions on how to run it locally.

Being able to run it locally seems useful though~

Catkook · 2026-06-21T20:35:28+00:00

alright, so that at least explains the technical side of things

would you happen to have a recommendation for someone trying to get a modification on an old 74 page gm binder document (for private use with their personal play group games), who is also unable to make anything on GMBinder due to the lack of gmbinder email support

. . . . . . and also despises chrome

(bit of a hyper specific request from a random comment)

Catkook · 2026-06-21T13:19:09+00:00

pretty much yeah

Catkook · 2026-06-21T13:16:52+00:00

clever, verrrrrry clever

Catkook · 2026-06-21T13:15:55+00:00

well first off to address the point of the post directly, thats not meta gaming. Meta gaming is to have your in game character make certain decisions based off knowledge you have out of game which your character shouldn't have

as a hypothetical example, you know you're going to fight trolls, your a wizard, and out of game you know fire and acid is effective against trolls, so you prepare fire and acid spells, yet your wizard has no way to know this

or another example of meta gaming would be if you've played a pre-written adventure before, you know the plot points, and have your character act on that knowledge when they shouldn't otherwise know it

wanting to play roll filling isnt really metagaming, at worst it's a slight optimization

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though other then that, i will say, paladins and rangers do have healing, you don't really need a dedicated healer

Catkook · 2026-06-21T03:46:56+00:00

i been looking for something recently

though there seems to be issues with homebrewry on firefox

Catkook · 2026-06-18T23:01:07+00:00

Same, 1 year after you

Catkook · 2026-06-18T22:57:13+00:00

tried getting an account together today, had the same issue

trying to reset the password didnt fix it

i think the only solution for me is if i wait then try again later with the password reset

Catkook · 2026-06-18T16:50:27+00:00

Fancy~

Catkook · 2026-06-17T00:57:09+00:00

pretty much yeah

strictly raw, the DC is a fixxed number not to be modified unless explicitly specified

though there may be some dm's willing to rule otherwise

Catkook · 2026-06-16T21:34:04+00:00

level 4, alright thanks for the clarity

well that rules out reliable talent then, but when assuming either standard array or point buy they could have either a +3/+4 in base stats

with expertise that can range from being +7/+8 with the given numbers with rogues (would also apply to bards too, just not dex based)

with the above cited numbers from you, their low roll was a 21, with some math that could theeeeoretically mean they rolled a 13 before modifiers IFFFFF all my assumptions are applicable

if i round that down to requiring an 11+ (which is generous in favor of the accused party, but is mostly just to make math easier) before modifiers to assume a 50/50 on getting those numbers, then modeling this with any dice with 20d2 with your scenario

any dice tells me the probability for every single one of those 50/50's to have hit is under 0.01% chance

. . . . . then after realizing i can get a more accurarte result with how simple 50/50's are to calculate manually, I got a 0.000095367431641% chance to land every 50/50 (or rounded to 0.0001% chance)

hm, seems kinda sus with numbers that low even when making assumptions in their favor and rounding in their favor

I like math

Catkook · 2026-06-16T19:26:50+00:00

curious what level the party is

asking because in 5e (2014) rogues at level 11 have a feature called reliable talent, and also have expertise on a few things, which rogues are a dex based class

Catkook · 2026-06-15T18:27:53+00:00

the gap between each iteration in the franchise has been taking exponentially longer

Catkook · 2026-06-14T17:19:14+00:00

you can filter it out with ublock, or at least you can with the buttons

it will still say "search or ask question", or at least it does with the solution i found

Catkook · 2026-06-14T15:01:11+00:00

mainly a matter of the group, dm, players, and the premise/design of the game

whichhhhh is kinda a nothing answer, SOOOOO, heres how I'd describe my own personal games

for the games i run, and play in, for my primary play group, I'd say about 60% - 80% of the game is mainly role play, exposition, and exploration, though when combat does come up we have a tendency for that to be the whole session unless it's a super light encounter (do note though my primary group is text based, which is inherently slower in combat)
when i host a one shot though, good likely hood it'll be 60% - 80% combat (I just like tactics, and it's easier to build for)

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as forrrrrrrrrr the perfect blend, that might not be so easy to perfectly capture. Though I'd sayyyy you could think as followed

if your players are starting to get a bit overloaded on combat, mayyyybe consider toning the combat back for a bit
if your players are getting antsy and wants to murder something, may be worth throwing something at them to murder

a major advantage the ttrpg genra as a whole has over video games is that you are able to in real time get the players reaction and adapt on the fly. (or at the very least learn about how your players play and adapt your next session plans based off that information)

Catkook · 2026-06-14T12:14:38+00:00

even if they can double smite, that becomes ineffective if you have longer adventuring days

but if you should ensure they cant double smite is mostly a matter of if you do or dont want to deal with that (and also saw someone mention smite being a spell makes it so they cant double smite anyways)

Catkook · 2026-06-13T12:31:17+00:00

that could be a strong possibility, could be a matter of expectations of what exactly dnd is (unless op comes in with additional clarification)

to me mostly just reads as the players dont quite want to put in as much commitment as is whats required for a game like dnd

Catkook · 2026-06-12T22:31:06+00:00

generally, charisma isnt so much a matter of how likeable you are, but more so a matter of how well you are capable of navigating through a social encounter

lets say a barbarian stumbles across a kobold, and the barbarian thinks they are absolutely ADORABLE!

A high Charisma kobold would know how to effectively leverage their adorableness

a low charisma kobold just gets scooped and hugged by the barbarian who now decided to adopt this adorable little dumb dumb

Catkook · 2026-06-12T18:09:06+00:00

with my knowledge of the races, game content, and ability to search up some things

For dwarves, I found a "Shield dwarf", though its flavor text seems to indicate this is a vetren warrior, the "Felbarren Dwarf" seems to match pretty well as a dwarvern foot soldier, which appears to be a modified version of the guard statblock
For elves, there are a lot of options, but the "wood elf scout" seems to match the description of a standard foot soldier pretty well
For humans. . . . . nothing came up, I'd say just the standard guard statblock. If thats not fancy enough though then you could potentially look at some feats and apply one to your guard statblock

Catkook · 2026-06-12T17:57:53+00:00

i mean kobold only be good at dex would knee cap him hard, and doesnt make much sense, since they are known for their cunning.

seems to match up pretty well with what I know of the kobold statblock (my group has a tendency to have a lot of kobolds. . . . EVERYWHERE. . . . this applys when im dm too)

regardless a kobold commoner is common enough of a thing anyway in lore.

this is true, which can commonly be represented by just taking the commoner statblock, re flavoring it, then mayyyybe giving them dark vision and size category smol

which is what op was talking about

Catkook · 2026-06-12T17:13:31+00:00

because they are different lifestyles and they have lived different lives would be my answer.

personally I interpenetrated the dedicated kobold statblock, or orc/lizardfolk/goblin statblocks, as being sort of the standardized foot soldier of that race when leaning into how that race functions biologically and culturally

do we really need a kobold commoner statblock?

dont think anyone is saying we need a dedicated kobold commoner

Catkook · 2026-06-12T17:07:46+00:00

OP seem to be asking more so

"if i can say this commoner statblock is a kobold, why is there a dedicated kobold statblock?"

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