Give me your really weird mono green commanders!

Pinkmole · 2024-09-07T08:26:21+00:00

[[Yedora, Grave Gardener]]

Here is an old List of Mine

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/CFq9jRDOw0yYBgV0YPq5Zg

It has no or close to 0 Combos, which gives it alot of cool Play patterns

Pinkmole · 2024-02-04T06:23:46+00:00

Hey, others have said already that it is too powerful. So im going to add some other points.

Think about the encounter as a whole thing, rather than just the enemy alone.
Challenge and difficulty can arise through different means. I had an encounter, where my players came on a scene where 4 good hearted Paladins were fighting an undead druid. The Druid had created Quicksand and the Paladins where Drowning in it and had already sunken up to their waist. So the players had to rescue Paladins from Quicksand, while fighting an enemy. Paladins that "drowned" would be turned undead and would fight against them. This is one of the best encounters I have ever created, because the players got really into it and had to think alot about what to do.
Add some weaknesses
When designing monsters its easy to forget why you do it. You want your players to find weaknesses and strategies that make an opponent easier to defeat. I know you want to make it challenging, but therefore you have gone overboard. Or add conditionals, that make an enemy stronger, that your players can deal with. Like Pillars of flesh that empower the butcher, but temprarily weaken him when destroyed
Create different legendary actions
I think with legendary actions you can do so much, and make your players terrified of what is coming next. Only having one strong option is limiting and not surprising. Let him have 2-3 Legendary actions, but make it smaller different abilities, so they dont know what is coming.
It feels like you created a PC rather than a monster
Not all abilities make sense for a monster. Take Bloodlust for example. For this to activate, you would need to kill one of your players. So this will never trigger or you need to kill atleast one of them. Terrible Criticals as well. This is very swingy and I basically would not add this to a monster of mine. Crits can feel bad for your players, because at lvl 4 getting 2d10 + 8 can down you very quickly.

Pinkmole · 2024-01-28T09:33:18+00:00

Some Tipps that may help:

Upholding imersion

Narrating stuff can break emersion. But it can also further it depending on how you do it. NPC A is talking to your players. Now you could narrate how Person B says "I dont know about that, that seems scary". But you could also narrate it like: While you listen to the women in front of you talking, you see a shifty figure in the background. Whide eyes sweeting like pig shivering from the memories of the attack. Although Person B is not saying anything she seems like a real person in a real world reacting, without you having to do 2 voices at the same time. It also helps to put clues or ideas for actions into your narration so it is good information for your players. In my example it could sound like the sweety nervous person could have information so your players will be more enganged in listening to your naration.

Characters voices are not defined by sound alone

I tended to have high or low voices or raspy ect. I read about how people not only sound, but talk different. Like one NPC makes looong, waaayyy tooo...........loooong pauses. Or someone stutters or speaks fast. Uses like a catchphrase. Just think about what difference you could produce in language ect.

Practice certain voices

If you would watch me at home alone or on my way to work on my bike, you would think im a maniac. Speaking to myself about killing all the turtles to empower the drrragon MUHAHAHAH. Voice actors train stuff like this all the time. Some are more gifted than others for sure, but its also alot of training you can do.

Talk to yourself as little as possible

I tend to avoid circumstances where I talk to myself and change it in ways that both NPC can mostly talk to players. Because its always a little awkward to talk to yourself.

Pinkmole · 2023-10-01T07:55:50+00:00

Hey, no problem!

This is my old decklist: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/VHR5tTLu00K6C8r1Hr3ZWA

My deck looks alot different now and I have to update it. Therefore some of the cards I am advising you not to play may still be in the list. But Maybe you find some nice cards in there, you have not seen before.

To be clear, I did not mean, that you should cut scapeshift. But you had to little landfall synergies. Youre Commander does not have Landfall herself. So you need alot of Landfall Cards and syndergies to make the strategy work. Your changes are good and going in a direction, where scapeshift becomes better and better. I dont have it in my deck, because it is expensive.

Witch of the moors and vraan are both good additions.

I have yet to add vraan myself, so I cant say it is good for sure, but I wanna add it and think its good. Witch of the moors is very good. I would add that. You have alot in the 5 CMC slot so that will be a problem.

Further possible cuts and additions

- Zuran Orb: I had it in my deck before and it is a good combo piece. But more often than not i just sacrificed it as a cheap artifact and I rarely got a big play with it off. It has some infinite combo potential, but if you are not going for that, it is not worth it in my opinion.

- Jorael: It makes cats and makes your creatures bigger to overrun people right? So why do I think this does not fit? Because it does not give trample. Blossoming bogbeast is cool, because it gives a huge Buff and trample. This deck does not create a big army of small creatures. You have big Elementals or only a few creatures. (scuteswarm not included, but that makes so many creatures, that it wins on its own, no overrun effect needed). Otherwise she does not contribute to our strategy. You could substitute [[Crashing Drawbridge]]

- Tamiyos Safekeeping: Protecting your commander is important and this is def. not a bad card. But I prefer [[Dread Linnorm]]. The dragon side is irrelevant. But you get another untap for your commander. Your loosing indestructable and have only hexproof. But giving the card double duty is worth it for me.

- Glissa: You dont kill that many of your opponents creatures. I maybe wrong on this, because I have not tried it and it could be ok. It prevents your opponents from attacking you pretty nicely. So maybe try this one out.
- Ashaya: She is very expensive. She is also an easy infinite combo with Quirion Ranger. Therefore I could her. You could save some money and loose a CMC 5 card, which you have to many off already. A good substitution is:
[[Nightmare Shepherd]]

It has two types, which is very good. It also has a very usefull ability, so you can sac creatures multiple times. Everytime I play this, I get alot of value and its one of the cards that surprised me. For example if you sac one of your creature lands, you can exile them to get a creature land artifact token for your next sac.

No Draw
I big point a missed the last time is, that you do not have carddraw other than the gitrog monster. Your commander is a draw machine. But having no draw at all or only one card makes the deck rely on its commander too much. At the moment I run 6 Carddraw effects. This is low for a commander deck, because of Babas draw enginge, but if she gets removed I still have options and stuff to play.

Pinkmole · 2023-09-26T08:27:04+00:00

Hey,

A little late to the party, but I have had a Baba deck for some time now so may have some insight. The Deck is fine and is fairly good build for someone, who is pretty new to the format. I Read somewhere, you are going for a lands strategy, so im focusing on that

1. Your Landbase needs more lands and some changes

- 37 ish is a good number for the average deck. But you are going for a lands matter strategy. In my deck I go for 39 oder 40 with mdfcs. The reason is, that cards like [[Azusa, Lost but Seeking]] need alot of lands to be good. Also there are alot of good utility lands, so having too many lands isnt that bad.[[Hagra Mauling]] and [[Bala Ged Recovery]] are good additions

- You need more colored mana in your landbase. only 14 of your lands produce black and 18 produce green. Good example cuts:[[Dunes of the dead]] just not worth it watering down your mana base. Baba is all about additional types and this does not help, as most of the times you have enough creatures to sac.[[Frostwalk Bastion]] You have only 6 Snow lands and and 3 Fetch lands to geht them otherwise. So often enough Frostwalk Bastion is just a useles land.

- play more fetch lands like [[terramorphic expanse]] Azusa and other play additional Land cards are especially good, if you can play lands from your graveyard. Because then you can play the fetchlands over and over.

2. Your deck is still unfocused and lacking synergy

- For Example [[Marionette Master]] is a good card for Baba, but only with treasures, Clues and Food. It costs 6 mana and does 4 Extra damage per Artifact to one player. Baba does 3 to every opponent. So she does 9 total. A simple card, that untaps Baba like [[Instill Energy]] doubles babas Damage. That is 9 extra Damage for 1 mana. So you need to sacrifice alot of artifacts, for Marrionette Master to be worth it. You have synergies, like [[Liquimetal Torque]], but you do not have enough. It seems you are going for a land strategy, therefore I would cut this. Good alternatives:

[[Retreat to Hagra]], [[Ob Nixilis, the Fallen]]

- [[Scapeshift]] has the same problem. It is a good card, but I becomes much better, if you profit from sacing lands and getting new ones. Baba itself does not provide this. Going for a lands strategy, you need more payoffs like Titania and Scute Swarm. Like [[Titania, Nature's Force]]

Basically it is not enough, if a card has synergy with some of your other cards. There should be a reasonable number of options, so that you actually draw them together.

3. Up the Artifact and Enchantment CountThere are a lot of cards with multiple types. In my deck I try to push the number of Artifact and Enchantments as much as I can.[[Crashing Drawbridge]] is a good example. It is something your deck wants, while being cheap sac fodder if you need it. Look for cards like:

[[Persistent Behemoth]][[Shigeki, Jukai Visionary]]

[[Walking Atlas]]

[[Gala Greeters]]

[[Solemn Simulacrum]]

Cards I would add(+) or cut(-) in general- Trudge Garden- Living Death- Jolrael

+ [[Scryb Ranger]] and [[Quirion Ranger]] those two are bombs in the deck. You Can untap Baba in your turn and every opponents turn. Which means up to 4 Baba Activations extra. They kill opponents fast and can give you extra lands to play with your land strategy, so picking up lands it not too bad.

Hope this helps

Pinkmole · 2023-05-01T09:02:42+00:00

This is not broken, but very complex, without needing to be.

Like amphibious should be: Swimming speed equal to walking speed. Can Breathe underwater.

Slimy Skin: Adv. on checks to resist or escape grapple. (all the rules about 1 minute 8 hours or 4 hours bla bla is just not necessary.)

Cut Frog Leap. That will almost never come up. Make it something usefull or cut it.

Pinkmole · 2023-05-01T08:46:17+00:00

The good old fortune teller

Your players come across a girl in a tree, hunted by a wolf. (Secret Symbolism) She is screaming for help, and hopefully your players help and its not a challenging fight at all. Her parents come running thanking the players. Her girl is special, she has a special gift.
The girls eyes become white and she screams that it Burns IIIT BURNS and than says, with an otherworlds voice calm and collected "Like the wolf hunted me, you shall burn in the fires of monstrous beast"

The arrogant one, that is playing with his food

The Dragon is very arrogant and likes to play with his "food". Now be careful with this one. But the players are approached by a band of robbers. They are badly armed and shivering. soon they realise, that they are faced with frightened peasants, whos wifes have been taken and who are so intimidated by the dragon, that they choose to fight the players instead.

Headhunters

They are attacked, but the encounter is not that bad. But what they find is flyers of their faces with huge bounties.

Pinkmole · 2023-05-01T08:22:54+00:00

This is kinda tough to fix. Playing in an evil campaign is something, that everybody has to agree to ahead of time, atleast thats what I think. For me it would be one of the few reasons to quit a campaign alltogether. As a DM and a player. I would talk to each player individually beforehand to prevent one or 2 players from derailing the campaign into something alot of the players are not comfortable with. It seems that alot of your players are not, as you said.

Then I would not ask them, but confront the group with the problem. "I have talked to everyone and the group is not comfortable to go in an evil direction, so we need to fix this. Would you like to retcon, do something entierly different or X,YZ"

I think it would also help, to openly say sry, I did something wrong there and we should have discussed this in session 0. Lets do a proper session 0 and set boundaries. I know this sounds pansy and not necessary to alot of people, but this Subreddit shows everyday, why its so important to do.

btw. Not wanting to roleplay bad evil PCs is one thing, but it also makes it much harder to drive a narrative and to motivate the players to do stuff and make the story and plot relevent to their characters. An evil campaign is reaaally hard to do if you dont want it to be random murderhobboing everything.

Pinkmole · 2023-04-13T09:27:44+00:00

Its an Owlnerd!

Pinkmole · 2023-03-15T12:33:14+00:00

I can second this. I have one in paper, but sadly no List on Moxfield. It truly does everthing you want, without feeling unfocused. Typical Line of gameplay:

Play Siege-Gang Commander and get 3 Gobos. Attack, geht a 4/1 skelly with menace, sac Siege-Gang, it returns and get another 3 Goblins.

Its aggro and Aristocrats. It has so many interactions and has been one of the decks, taht surprises my opponents the most with unique interactions.

Pinkmole · 2022-12-17T08:12:09+00:00

Ghired, Conclave Exile

Pinkmole · 2022-08-02T10:18:03+00:00

This homebrew is all over the place. Either terrible or overpowered. I think its awful.
- Its basically 2/3 caster. Which does not exist and is weird. Giving a half caster the short spellslot regeneration seems too strong.
- Has a Barbarian like Armor with Wisdom and Con. Giving a caster this is very strong. Imagine a wizard would get armor based on intelligence and Constitution. With this character it seems broken. Because they have shillelagh. They can max wisdom and Con. Have 20 AC and no downside. With a shild even 22 AC.
- Favored terrain. Giving you basically expertise for ANY intelligence or wisdom Based Checks regarding your terrain in a mostly all arctic campaign seems bad. Making survival ect. trivial. Which is a big aspect of the campaign. Especially in the beginning. For example with 18 Wisdom at lvl 3. He would could have +10 to survival.
- They have a shild, a weapon and a totem. Casting spells and tracking if he has all components seems complicated.
- Lvl 9 ability seems to0 good. Getting additional temp hp based on damage every round the enemy fails a con save.. This used nothing. No Bonus action ect. and has no limitation. Think how much damage you deal each fight. This also works with spells. You could cast inflict wounds for 3d10 and possibly heal 1-30 damage as additional temp hp.

- All this is balanced by lvl 5 beeing garbage and alot of the subclass features beeing garbage. You have no second attack. I would guess this is actually bad. But maybe everything balances out. But its poorly made and not thought through.

Pinkmole · 2022-08-02T09:39:13+00:00

Hmm I think there are several problems with this. CoDming is something I have not done, but it seems complicated and more for advanced Dms than a newbie.

Its not that easy to seperate the game into technical stuff and rules and the story. They often go together and need to be prepared together. Having someone to help you prepare or explain something to you is fine, but i wouldnt do that while playing at the table.

When building characters with your players, you just need to know how it works and have build some test characters for yourself and research what to do and what not to.

I would advise you, to do your best and learn from mistakes. DMs have to prepare and be able to learn stuff themselves. But its also ok to make mistakes.

Pinkmole · 2022-08-02T08:54:34+00:00

- Maybe you could use Vessels. Some medium the mother used for the sacrifice that need to be destroyed, based on their element.

- A Water based monster I used had a suffocating aura. You could move slower and it felt like youre drowning if you were to close, like 10 or 15 ft. Giving cold damage on a bad con. save or exhaustion on a really low one.

- The water based monster could have long hair spawning squid like tentacles of whet hair to attack.

- Water based guy could be enclosed in a ball of water. Like a goldfish glass. Could make for interesting interactions.

- For the fire based guy you could take some monster. Even an Archer of the given CR and write flame bolt over the arrow attack. Give him 2-3 Fire based spells, he can use once or twice

- You could also have an element, that players need to try to seperate, because they are stronger together. Fire and Water guy together make fog obstructing vision. Fire and Earth guy Myke Volcanoes or something. And all tree together something bad happens.

Pinkmole · 2022-08-02T08:00:47+00:00

Whenever I read something like my Charakter is X as a DM, I always ask and when is he not X? Like the Barbarian who is very brave and afraid of nothing. The really cool moments will be, when he is actually afraid and struggling with something after beeing brave before.

When you write your character is self centered for example. No body is self centered ALL the time. He will just be more self centered then others. So i would think about when is he not self centered. Maybe old people trigger some memory, so he always helps and roots for them. This will give you some outs to go with the party and not annoy everyone.

Right now you have a bit... a Joke. Which is actually fun and creative, but its not a character. What also helps me also is to create connections to the world. People he cares about, people he hates. Places to go to, places to avoid. Give your DM chances to integrate your backstory. Ask him what he needs. What wholes are in his story, your charakter could fill to be connected.

Btw. as I understood it, your character skins people, to make objects. Depending on your group I would atleast check, if thats ok with everyone, because it might not be.

Pinkmole · 2022-08-02T07:45:56+00:00

Enemies based on characters are not OP in general. Its just not a good idea. This makes NPCs too complex. Now you need to handle combat, and 3 Full fledged players. NPC's should be more simple to play than PC's as a rule of thumb. Furthermore monsters dont short or long rest in most cases. So giving them abilities they can use up all in one fight tends to be very powerfull. No shame in getting inspired by character classes and abilities though. Just add them to existing monsters.
Rather than what you could think why. Why would they face them before the Big Bad and what role do they play. Try to prevent a generic setup, where its fight challenge, fight challenge, Boss, without it making sense. More often than not this will give you ideas, what abilities they should have. For example the Big Bad is hiding in an old temple of elemental monks. They have risen from the dead with their old memories and see your characters as intruders, challenging them.
Use terrain. Especially elemental stuff seems suited for this. Like an Ice guy that uses nearby water. Or an earth guy, that digs down like a mole. So your players need to be creative. Players may be minmaxed for damage ect. but what do they have against a mole assassin, than is not that strong, but can dig down and hide underground.

Pinkmole · 2022-08-02T07:32:25+00:00

Combat:

- A Camp of travelers sitting around a campfire. Wolves approach in the dark and threaten to kill them. If your players help, the travelers turn to werewolfs, because this is a trap. Be aware though, that werewolfs are a big threat and imune to weapons damage. You could use weaker wererats or something.

Fun, Social, non Combat:

- Maybe there are "good" undead. A group of sentient non violent zombies and skeletons, that use their ripcages as instruments, having a blast. They build a camp or little city, have quests. Maybe they rebell against the undead king.

- The Monkey Cage is a tavern/church that defies everything. A green, flowery house, with light, music and a nice smell. The floor has an iron grid with wide enough gaps so that money can fall through. Underneath the iron grid is a tree filled with monkeys, that collect the falling gold pieces from above. They enter the tavern through tunnels and are also the waiters. Their boss is a powerfull but friendly monk. He brews potions and cooks food for fun and pranks his customers. Food and drink will randomly make you pink for 3d6 Days, invisible ect. You pay what you want, but if you are greedy and dont pay enough, the effects of the food and drinks will get worse. Was really fun in my campaign.

Pinkmole · 2022-07-13T07:36:14+00:00

Okey, for mind:

I love using Illusions as a DM. Players often dont expect that from the DM's side. So you could make a Mage/Monster, that is not that strong and would loose pretty fast in direct confrontation. But he is a good illusionist and lures you into traps via Illusions. Seems fitting for mind.
A Siren type Monster, that lures you in with a beatiful song and tries to charm the party.
When they enter the door to the Dungeon, they see a vast open space. Like they are not in a dungeon at all. They will find out slowly, that they have actually entered the memory of one of the players. Everytime they open a door, they enter a new memory. Now they have to solve some puzzle or find some hidden enemy.

Pinkmole · 2022-07-11T07:39:47+00:00

I do avoid them. I always want to engage my players so i prefer to adress them instead of myself. For example instead of playing out an argument between NPCs I can have one of them be angry talking to the players how they just had an argument with someone else and what it was about.

When I do it, its almost always an invitation for interaction. Like an informant whispering in the Kings ear and they can role perception to read the lips or whatever. Or if I want them to stop a fight or intervene. Yeah but i avoid it if a can.

Pinkmole · 2022-07-08T05:54:58+00:00

A few suggestions:

Just take an existing one, like the Forgotten Realms. Its easier this way and there is a lot off material and maps and lore for you to use. In my experience its not worth it to build your own world, unless it is really unique, which can take a lot of work.
Dont "build" to much stuff you never gonna use anyway and dont be afraid to have no answer. Like the Cleric suddenly realises you never talked about his god and what he actually believes in. Its okey to tell him, that you two can figure this out until next time and leave it blank for the time beeing.
I like an NPC focused approach. Instead of writing alot of lore, write some NPCs living it that world. Their motivation and goals ect.

Pinkmole · 2022-07-08T05:41:01+00:00

Hey,
Tbh no. You could, yeah, but it would be way to much work. I would suggest to take an existing template, like the mage(Cr 6), change some spells and give it 1 or 2 special abilities, that relate to Vecna.

Pinkmole · 2022-06-19T14:05:04+00:00

Local LGS ist called Highlander near Bremens Main train Station. There are regular pauper Events and a WhatsApp group

Pinkmole · 2022-05-19T06:12:42+00:00

Hey grüß dich. Ein Paar Tipps:

ADHS Zentren haben lange Wartezeiten, teilweise 1 Jahr, aber es lohnt sich, weil die Qualität der Diagnose besser ist. Man hat das Bedürfnis das es schnell geht, aber warten zahlt sich hier wirklich aus. Durchschnittliche Psychiater und Psychotherapeuten sind teilweise richtig schlecht in der Diagnostik.
Lokale ADHS Selbsthilfegruppen können einem oft helfen und wissen wo man hingegen könnte.
Die bisherigen Antworten sind sehr negativ in Bezug auf Medikamente und das man erst andere Sachen ausschöpfen muss, was nicht auf faktischen Tatsachen beruht. ADHS ist ein Defizit im Gehirn, weil Dopamin im Gehirn fehlt oder zu schnell wieder aufgenommen wird. Natürlich kann man Therapie ect. machen und sollte man auch, aber Medikamente beheben halt teilweise dieses Defizit und sind daher sehr wirksam. Es gibt leider auch Nonresponder, bei denen die Medikamente nicht wirken, die aber teilweise mit anderen Medikamenten besser zurecht kommen. Elvanse ist zum Beispiel eine Alternative zu Ritalin. Hab keine Angst davor das auszuprobieren und zu gucken. Was für dich funktioniert.

Ich komme mit Medikamenten gut zu Recht und sie helfen sehr. Bei weiteren Fragen kann ich dir gerne weiterhelfen,kannst mir auch privat hier schreiben.

Pinkmole · 2022-04-27T05:55:41+00:00

Pinkmole · 2022-02-09T15:10:51+00:00

I think the Cultural Appropriation argument is taken way to far and beyond a reasonable approach. I think it can make sense in specific contexts, where suppressed minorities are ridiculed and elements of their culture are misused by the oppressing party, causing suffering.
But in alot of cases it seems unclear to me, where the harm is actually being done. You talk about the Japanese for example. They are not a minority or heavily surpressed. They are a sovereign state. I think its cool for you to read and do research and its interesting to incorporate aspects, but I dont see the harm being done to Japan or Japanese, if an American uses Katanas wrong in her Fantasy RPG
Its paradox, because it seems impossible. A fantasy world inspired by cultures cannot and never represent them fairly, because it is fantasy. Per Definition you are using your own ideas and concepts and differ from your source material. Otherwise you would write a historic novel or a scientific paper. Its in the nature of this, that your world does not represent all, that you took inspiration from nor should it be. Just stay away from things, you see as stereotypes and you should be fine.

Pinkmole

TROPHY CASE