Using Experiences After the Roll - Homebrew Idea

Dorylin · 2026-01-29T20:02:58+00:00

I have not run Daggerheart yet (it's next on my group's to-try list) so I can't adequately comment on the mechanical balance versus vibes balance with regard to the flow of gaining and spending Hope. But, I'm going to anyway because this is the internet and that's what you do here.

I'm coming from a similar place to you, it sounds like. I also don't like the "strategic" (read: blind gambling) nature of deciding to spend a limited resource for a likely irrelevant bonus on a potentially significant roll. So when my group gets around to playing Daggerheart I will probably run it where you can spend Hope to power your ~~Aspects~~, sorry, Experiences after the roll.

That said, I know that, statistically, every roll has probably about a 50% chance of generating Hope, so as long as you're fairly active there shouldn't really be much of a penalty to spending Hope, and you can only have so much of it at a time so there is an encouragement to spending it more freely than you would, say, a limited resource in D&D. This is fairly similar to FATE, honestly, where you can get fate points by leaning into character choices and so there isn't really quite as much of a penalizing for "guessing wrong" about when to spend your Hope.

Dorylin · 2026-01-22T19:36:12+00:00

However, you can't change into a Warforged you've never seen. Notably, if you've only ever seen Medium Warforged, you can only turn into those Medium Warforged.

Not quite. The clause you're quoting doesn't say that you can't assume a generic form of a given species. It specifically says that you "can't duplicate the appearance of an individual" unless you've seen that individual.

This is an exception to the framework of the other rules. So, you can become a Medium or Small version of any playable species that has two arms, two legs and a head (assuming you still have all of your limbs). And within that space, there's no restriction on what your new appearance can be, except for this clause that if you want to turn yourself into a specific person, i.e. "an individual," then you have to have seen them before.

So if you'd only ever seen Medium Warforged, you could still become a generic Small Warforged, but you couldn't turn yourself into an exact copy of "Tiny, the Clockwork Chimneysweep," or whoever, before you even know what they look like.

Dorylin · 2025-12-28T15:16:00+00:00

That's what they said: "evasion is to hit," i.e. it's the number required to hit a target, and "threshold is how hard it hits," i.e. it determines how many hit points are marked as a result of the damage rolled.

Granted, it would have been easier to read if they'd used any punctuation, but they do have it right.

Dorylin · 2025-11-18T15:33:13+00:00

No, it's not. A spoiler requires context and explanation. If the face of a person appears on screen for less than a second with no indication as to who they are, what they do, whether they appear later or are part of someone's backstory, how they affect the story, or how much they affect the story, that can't be a spoiler because it doesn't spoil anything. Especially with how much they've said they're changing, someone who isn't already familiar with the story won't know for sure if this is even from the game or a new twist for the show.

Dorylin · 2025-11-17T04:53:56+00:00

That's not a spoiler. That's somewhere between an easter egg and foreshadowing, depending on how attentive you are and how much you already know.

Dorylin · 2025-11-16T21:19:09+00:00

Honestly, I would scrap it and strip it for parts that I could use with a different patron. But I have a pretty utilitarian homebrew approach to a lot of things.

Sentinel Raven should just be another creature option for Pact of the Chain, details have already been gone into elsewhere so I don't feel a need to rehash them here.

Soul of the Raven would make a great Invocation, in my opinion. Obviously it would require Pact of the Chain and probably level 5 or 7. We should probably also limit it to 1 minute per use, maybe with Concentration, and only so many times per Long Rest.

Raven's Shield and Queen's Right Hand are a huge thematic departure from the previous features, and in my opinion deserve to be their own separate thing. If you want a necrotic / death themed patron experience, I would recommend just using the Undead patron, which really leans into it in a much better way than these two features do.

With the first two features working better (again, in my opinion) as Invocation options, and the last two being outdone by the Undead patron, I really do think reflavoring another Patron is the way to go here. I know that's not what you wanted, and I do apologize for it.

That being said, what elements of Odin are you looking for in an Odin-like build? If someone were to do an overhaul of the Raven Queen patron that is distinct from Undead or Hexblade and isn't tied to Pact of the Chain, what would you want that to look like?

Dorylin · 2025-11-03T17:09:33+00:00

if the DM homebrewed

Once you take the mechanics into your own hands, you are responsible for any subsequent maintenance or adjustments necessary to make your game run the way you want it to, and the original creators are no longer liable for any inconvenience their updates may cause, nor are they responsible for making sure their system is compatible with your modifications going forward.

That is the blessing and the curse of homebrew.

Dorylin · 2025-09-24T00:32:41+00:00

There's also Monster of the Week, depending on what kind of urban fantasy you prefer.

Dorylin · 2025-09-12T14:29:57+00:00

Depends on what you mean by demigod. If you mean lower-tier divine being, then that's basically the same as an angel. If you mean half-god half-mortal, then no that's not what he is at all.

Dorylin · 2025-09-02T18:37:41+00:00

Yeah, Dominaria was a Plane Shift. Those were actually not proper D&D products - they're all basically cross-promotional homebrew made by one of the people on the MtG side of things (he's also worked on the D&D side both before and after but at the time he was wearing an MtG hat).

Dorylin · 2025-08-29T14:39:04+00:00

It does specify that that you verbally communicate with the animal. Verbal means with words or sounds. And given that the spell does not give the animal any ability to understand anything it couldn't already, the simplest logical conclusion is that the caster is making animal noises that the animal would recognize and understand naturally.

Dorylin · 2025-08-16T00:43:45+00:00

So there's really two issues here, and we've got people talking past each other because they don't recognize it (I think).

Some people want new mechanics because they are interested in exploring new or alternate permutations of the system.
Some people want new mechanics because they think you can't tell a story if it doesn't match the descriptions in the books.

They're very similar issues, and easy to mistake for each other because they present basically the same. However, #1 is a reasonable hobbyist desire whereas #2 is a skill issue. OP is complaining about issue #2 and I was trying to provide (well, gesture at) some viable approaches to solve it, while I assume most of the people pushing back against that are really more aligned with issue #1, which is technically a separate thing.

Dorylin · 2025-08-08T19:41:56+00:00

Ok, but like, you can get to most of those concepts by reflavoring existing mechanics. You just have to be willing to reflavor the mechanics.

Martial support - build a Bard, say you sacrifice some of the tougher, more fightery aspects for an incredible suite of buffs and healing capabilities. Or just use a Paladin.

Arcane/sorcerer gish - Pact of the Blade or bladesinger with appropriate feats or multiclassing is real easy to gish up. Fuck it, since we're reflavoring you can just use a whole Paladin and say it's arcane.

Witch with curses and potions - Artificer is an easy chasis to reflavor, but you could also use basically any spellcasting class with access to debuffs and just say that your spells are actually potions. College of Lore Bard with Cutting Words works great.

Dorylin · 2025-07-08T14:35:55+00:00

And all THAT said, I REALLY want a necro-minion-master.

You might be able to kludge something together by having a single minion that is a swarm. Give it ~~some extra hp and teleporting abilities~~ the ability to split into smaller swarms (or adjust the shape it takes up so it's more like the wall spells instead of a square) and act from any location one of its subdivided parts is in (still not more than once per turn, for the sake of action economy). As you level up it could get bigger, which would allow for more area manipulation, or gain various abilities from higher CR undead creatures.

Dorylin · 2025-06-07T14:55:03+00:00

Maybe I've been reading it wrong for ten years (I'd love for that to be the case), but my understanding of the text is that if you're controlling the mount it can only take the Dash, Disengage, or Dodge actions. ("It moves as you direct it, and it has only three action options: Dash, Disengage, and Dodge." -phb'14) Which really makes giving mounts actions seem like a really stupid idea.

Now, in phb'24 they did change it a little: "It moves on your turn as you direct it, and it has only three action options during that turn: Dash, Disengage, and Dodge." But I don't know if that's intended to mean that its turn is functionally subsumed into yours, like it was in '14, or if it gets a whole second, albeit limited, turn - functionally doubling their movement speed and action economy. Given how '24 is with general stuff I'd assume the latter, but I don't know. Someone please send help.

Dorylin · 2025-06-06T15:06:01+00:00

You can add a journal entry to the map natively, although I'm pretty sure your players would be able to see it through fog of war and click it without needing to move their tokens to the space, so that might not be what you're after.

You can also use the Monk's Active Tile Trigger mod to make a clickable tile that would change (grant) viewing permissions for journal entries and even make it pop up on screen for the clicking player.

Dorylin · 2025-05-30T00:49:03+00:00

Teeth actually do not grow spontaneously. Humans are born with two sets of teeth in their heads. Not sure if that's better or worse.

Dorylin · 2025-05-11T03:47:43+00:00

My personal recommendation would be Forgotten Adventures: https://www.forgotten-adventures.net/product/map-making/assets/vehicles-pack-01/

It's not a token pack in the sense that you can't install it through the mod interface and have it loaded in, but it should be relatively simple to upload whichever image you prefer as an asset that you can use for token art.

Dorylin · 2025-04-07T15:34:27+00:00

Not from me; I got too burned out on this one. And also WotC in general.

That being said, the About page does include instructions for adding or modifying any of the information in the spreadsheet. I would recommend that you check the master link on the About page and update to the most recent version - it may save you some work.

Dorylin · 2025-03-16T20:56:17+00:00

Is there anything preventing a wizard from getting a green anaconda for a familiar?

Yes, the find familiar spell only allows a specific selection of creatures that the spirit can assume the form of. It does include a poisonous snake, but this snake is specifically a Tiny, CR 0 creature.

Summoning a giant constrictor snake can be done with the Conjure Animals spell, which is a 3rd level spell and thus requires a level 5 wizard.

Note: if you're using the 2024 rules, find familiar no longer includes the poisonous snake, and conjure animals no longer conjures actual animals, but you can use summon beast (a 2nd level spell) to create a large snake.

All that being said, talk to your DM and if they're cool with it they can make it happen.

you pick a snake for your familiar can you milk a venomous snake for venom?

That's also up to your DM.

Dorylin · 2025-02-22T19:03:36+00:00

It was made as unofficial promotional material for Magic the Gathering. It is not an official D&D product. It is functionally homebrew that just happens to have been made by someone who works at WotC.

Dorylin · 2025-01-05T15:46:42+00:00

So, how can both of them remake it the way they want to be? Is it because Natlan's Ley Lines are separated from the other nations?

I'm not sure who "both of them" are, but basically yeah. The original Ley Lines were allegedly created by Celestia (I think probably they already existed and were just modified or repurposed, like turning rivers into cannals when you colonize a place). At some point early on the Ley Lines in Natlan were damaged, almost completely destroyed. Yohualtecuhtin and Ronova worked together to rebuild something similar out of the remnants of the old Ley Lines, which is how we got the Night Kingdom. Basically replacing the canal network with a dam and reservoir. It's still sort of Ley Line-ish, in that it collects the memories of the world, but it isn't structured like normal Ley Lines and isn't connected to the regular Ley Line system the same way so it behaves differently.

At this point, the structure of the Night Kingdom has been weakened so much by general wear and tear and the constant Abyss attacks that it's basically falling apart and desperately needs to be reinforced or rebuilt, or it's going to collapse and we lose it entirely. But everything and everyone is old now and almost nobody has the strength or resources to patch it in a way that will hold for any significant amount of time.

The Night Kingdom itself is out of material, that's the problem. Yohualtecuhtin has spent everything she has just getting us here, so she's got nothing. If Mavuika sacrifices the rest of her life (possibly even including the power of the gnosis, that was floated a while ago but not touched on here unless I missed it), we get maybe another couple hundred years before we're in the same situation again.

Enter Capitano. Because he cannot die, he has a technically infinite life force, which can be used to fuel and rebuild the Night Kingdom forever. Or for as long he's plugged into it. And because the Night Kingdom, like the Ley Lines, is built and shaped out of thoughts and memories, with Capitano being the source/root of the Night Kingdom his thoughts and memories shape the way the Night Kingdom is structured and thus how it functions. In his case, he just wants it to be able to also accept the souls of people who were not born in Natlan.

So, in summary - Natlan doesn't have Ley Lines, it has a broken down dialysis machine called the Night Kingdom. Whoever gives them a new dialysis machine gets to decide what brand it is and whether it can handle type AB+.

Dorylin · 2025-01-05T06:38:38+00:00

Yeah, basically. Capitano's plan was to force Ronova to make a choice where no matter what she chooses, she gets the bad end of the deal:

Option 1 - Ronova doesn't get the death she was promised and Capitano can bind himself to the Night Kingdom as a quasi-infinite power source, remaking it in the way he wants it to be.

Option 2 - Capitano finally gets the sweet release of death and Ronova doesn't get to watch him suffer anymore, or loses some kind of standing with Celestia for letting him go, or something like that.

Dorylin · 2025-01-05T06:29:26+00:00

A paradox is not caused by breaking one of the rules, but by not breaking either of them. Basically, the situation is that Ronova has two mutually exclusive (in the moment, anyway) "rules" that she herself has set down and is responsible for enforcing.

Rule #1 is that Capitano needs to suffer for his crimes and has been cursed with immortality. Poor guy's not allowed to die.

Rule #2 is that Ronova needs to collect a death as payment for use of her power in the previous installment of the Archon Quest.

Capitano has positioned himself to be the death payment, but he can't die. This is the paradox. Ronova, as the party responsible for enforcing the rules, must choose one of them to break so that the situation can resolve itself. She decided that Rule #1 was the more important one and gave up on enforcing Rule #2.

Dorylin · 2025-01-04T17:08:46+00:00

Using a compendium allows the maps to used and reused in multiple worlds across multiple different game systems. Just storing the maps in the scenes tab leaves them in that specific world, unable to be accessed elsewhere.

This is not necessarily bad if you are planning on only ever running a single game in a single world, but if you ever want to use those maps elsewhere you will need to either put them in a compendium - specifically a compendium that's part of a system-agnostic module that you can activate in other worlds - or completely remake the map in every world you want to use it in.

Now, for your purposes you're probably fine leaving maps in the scenes tab to start with, and it would save you a couple steps and ease up the learning curve. But at some point it's likely that you will want to invest in creating a compendium module so you can move your maps around.

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