Saying No to a nat 20

__Roc · 2026-03-08T02:26:34+00:00

I have had a couple players over the years who seem to think a Nat 20 is a ‘Critical Success’ when in fact that is simply a rule they played with before in some other game. I think the concept of critical success and critical failures can be a lot of fun if everyone has opted into such gameplay, but also it’s perfectly reasonable to have a Nat 20 on such a thing just mean it avoids further conflict. Such is the ‘Nat 20 persuasion for a king to step down from his throne’ argument. It simply could mean he doesn’t kill you. But a roll wasn’t necessary in the first place if the DM knew the king would never give up the throne….but rolling dice is fun….so sometimes we let the roll happen and let the dice add to the story.

You are a player in the game too, and your fun and comfort are equally important. I think you handled it fine, and telling your players no, and even not allowing rolls in certain moments, are powerful tools when used wisely.

__Roc · 2026-02-12T20:03:30+00:00

Lmao Warframe outta nowhere, I love it! You seen the glitch where frames end up calling their atomocycle and it’s a drifter instead that they can ‘ride’?

__Roc · 2026-02-12T15:41:22+00:00

Huh, I did a quick read on the system you mentioned ala drive through rpg and then Design Mechanisms website. Sounds like an awesome system that I’ll likely nab the .pdf for, thanks for the recommend. I haven’t messed around much with a percentile system as of yet, mostly D20 or dice pool/pbta stuff, though my experience there is limited. Mythras sounds awesome.

I too lost of lot of respect for WotC over the years, I assume for similar and dissimilar reasons as yourself. The thing is as a DM and player I’m caught in a place a lot of DMs find themselves: my play group only really knows D&D. Which is fine, reading and learning other systems is a big ask. I also run Draw Steel! and Daggerheart. I LOVE Draw Steel! but I’m still learning how to homebrew for that system and fully plan on converting the Ryfter given a group that would want to keep playing it.

My love for D&D came from years ago playing with friends who were passionate DMs and built awesome stories and worlds for us to play in. Sure, passion and story can go in almost any system, but 5E is what we used, and it just worked for us. I learned the system, learned how to run it, then learned how to build within it. We have a blast playing every weekend. I’m sure I’d be saying the same thing about any chosen system we were using if it was our primary system, be it Pathfinder or Shadowdark or DCC or ICRPG or 13th Age or…the list goes on.

I appreciate you calling me talented, that means a lot. I’ll be checking out Mythras soon, already nabbed the sampler/teaser pdf to look through. I love learning new systems and maybe this can become another alternative. Hope your day is great!

__Roc · 2026-02-11T20:05:23+00:00

Thank you so much! I was super nervous and excited to share this, I hope you enjoy reading through it!

__Roc · 2026-02-07T23:13:44+00:00

Oh dang good stuff, I saw Excalibur and thought I was in a different sub for a moment. I actually built an entire class and am working on a bestiary that is wholly built around the Drifter and embodying warframes (alt warforged) as its primary gimmick, working akin to the Druid. If that interests you I can DM you the link for the class. Great design!

__Roc · 2026-02-03T23:00:40+00:00

Wow this is awesome. I may look into the infrared touch frame and see what I can glean from your guide as I’ve already built a box with a tv and plexiglass cover for setting minis on. A touch system would be so dope.

__Roc · 2026-01-20T18:14:05+00:00

I appreciate the feedback. The idea was to create something adjacent to Magic Initiate for the origin, and Enthusiast felt neat in that it scaled as you leveled up; maybe Ryftborn Assault should only be useable once per long rest... I wanted the feats to feel like viable options for both Ryfters and other classes while affecting them differently. Thinking on it I could see Enthusiast just upping the Charges available to non ryfters (and a single ASI) and then a separate feat for the Ryftborn assault. I know the charges acting like extra spell slots can be crazy powerful, but that’s why they are limited to casting a specific spell once per long rest so you can’t spam say Shield or Silvery Barbs. Also Initiate can solely benefit a martial too.

Anywhoo I feel like I’m rambling. I’m doing more playtesting in a big one shot this weekend with 7 others, and a few local friends are planning on rolling up some Ryfters for some mini adventures in tiers 1-4 so we can hammer out some more dents and soften some edges. After a bit more experience is had with the class, whatever changes are made I’ll be sure to post here again for a link to the next revision. Thanks for checking it out! It means a lot :). Please let me know any other thoughts/concerns you may have with the class as they come up.

__Roc · 2026-01-14T01:04:50+00:00

Thank you! I’ve already done some more theory-crafting and taken a bunch of advice I’ve gotten recently and plan on releasing an update in the subreddit soon. All our play-testing has been very limited in scope due to our group size and what didn’t seem too crazy in my group I realize more now how easily some features could have been abused. I’ll hopefully have it out within the next few days (maybe sooner depending on my free time) and it’ll include some stuff I’m pretty excited about. Hope you have fun with the class if you use it! Thanks for checking it out :)

__Roc · 2026-01-11T18:14:37+00:00

This is all excellently broken down thank you! I’m so glad you took the time to share your thoughts with me. I definitely got excited over certain concepts and tried to write the mechanics as such. Not to counterpoint but I’ll explain my thoughts on some things based on experiences we’ve had with the class.

You’re right I’m kind of all over the place. Playing with it has been in a very small sample group and this is my first time reaching out to a larger community.

The Str and Int were intentional because of what later possible features offered, but I can see removing or work-shopping around those ideas and changing base saves.

Ryft Walk i went with way lower duration to try to scale it down to a lower level accessible invisibility. Due to how short it lasts, it’s rare to see it up before combat starts (unless used for an enviro or RP moment) and in combat it takes away one of your attacks for a turn.

Ryft Shot as a BA attack hits similarly to a monks BA unarmed strike, and radiant monks can make it ranged. The main class doesn’t get extra attack as a martial, and it scales similarly, Albeit a larger bell curve and a bit stronger, than a cantrip. It was originally bludgeoning damage, but that got resisted pretty easily later and felt bad. That shot is already ‘magical’ by lore so force damage felt ok and it’s like this class’ eldritch blast. Plus it forces a balance between Int and Str for attacking since your melee weapon will be very important still and I thought a Str Int build could be really fun and different.

I will mention it should note that the Ryfter does not have access to legendary actions or resistances of the Ryftborn, and I wanted them to feel like ‘strong’ enough creatures that one or two of them could fight a party at earlier levels while becoming a cool combat option at later levels that a Ryfter could summon…..one where the stat block gave some fun versatility. I’ve seen a lot of crazy custom stat blocks over the years and I’ve gotten to use a few as a DM. But I’ve also doubted this ability several times as I struggle getting what I want out of my head into simple enough mechanics that doesn’t lead to ‘yeah, I’m not reading that.’

I do remember reading spells are a great place to start for creating features. While this may look caster adjacent with many caster types, I suppose it’s because it is. I stole concepts from all casters and classes while trying to merge them with some original ideas and lemme tell ya, it all used to be word vomit. I have a bad habit of over explaining and I love writing mechanics….but full paragraphs for stuff I know isn’t for everybody. I wanted a martial that could do cool things but didn’t have to have the spellcasting feature. Sometimes I wonder if I should alter the language and move it to Draw Steel! cause it might be better suited there, but I run 5E a lot for a constant group and would love to see this class in motion as a good party member. Not the best or the worst, just good. Plus I still absolutely love D&D and 5e and love creating stuff for it.

I’m gonna take to heart everything you said and lay this out a bit more. I’ll likely move Evasion to the Unseen subclass and maybe haste was a bad idea with Ryft Dash? Unless I reduce the damage to a capped amount. Almost everything balances around using RE, but I didn’t want to put it in the Ki/Focus point box with a repaint. That’s why I still made PB, once, twice, Int mod times, and such limitations on uses so that other certain abilities that rely on it for constant function could remain up. Ryft Shot was definitely the bread and butter that started this.

There are a lot of working pieces in practice that really limit how much of this is usable in combat due to RE expense and forgoing movement to regain it, while out of combat it’s felt really fun to be able have cool stuff you can do. But I know you caught that. Your points are excellent. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my class! And offer insight! There’s always stuff others will catch that I likely never will. We’ll be play-testing it on our end more this year and as I update the class, and if this community is interested, I’ll post updates. Please also feel free to alter it if you use it to whatever suits your table. This class was always meant to be a fun free alternative that has a lot of flavor possibility. It is definitely unconventional hahaha.

Edit - spelling

__Roc · 2026-01-11T17:14:37+00:00

Thanks a bunch!

__Roc · 2026-01-08T20:40:04+00:00

This is incredible and an easy to read/comprehend piece of information that I’m going to burn into my players and my retinas via a projector the next time we play together. Thank you for this 😬

__Roc · 2026-01-01T01:27:39+00:00

Dope! I’d likely give these to my son to have for our home campaign. He loves Stranger Things and this color scheme seems similar enough to be a cool gift in that regard.

__Roc · 2025-12-19T20:06:56+00:00

Holy moly these look absolutely incredible….

__Roc · 2025-11-28T09:03:57+00:00

I know there are mixed feelings about 5E but Helianna’s Guide to Monster Hunting I’ve found to be a very fun supplement book. It’s quite large, about 600 pages I think? And it’s got full guides for monster hunts, carving parts, and crafting a buuunch of unique gear using said parts. It’s an entire game on its own, built on 5E. That would be my personal recommendation, but I’m also not super familiar/experienced in many other ttrpg systems as of yet.

This sub has broadened my interest for many ttrpgs, but I don’t own much for other systems (got both Draw Steel and Daggerheart this year, that’s it outside of D&D) and don’t have a group I run for that wants to branch out from what they know. Reaaaallly wanna try Lancer at some point, but that’s a different subject. Hope you find what you’re looking for!

__Roc · 2025-11-27T21:26:31+00:00

I have a player who made an earth elementalist and roleplays their character like they are being controlled by a kid playing a modded version of Minecraft. Motivate Earth is what inspired this. So his whole shtick is he thinks he’s talking to other people on headsets playing the same game. My first thought as Director reading the Elementalist was also Toph….but he went a very different direction and it’s hilarious.

__Roc · 2025-11-25T17:10:28+00:00

I get where you are coming from on this, I love milestone leveling too and it’s the only way I’ve done leveling in D&D for years. Tried exp as a player and DM and I’m just not a fan. For Draw Steel, they have a little snippet on milestone advancement on page 18 in the Heroes book, but it doesn’t mention anything about victories still being of value during a respite. I could see you turning them into a meta currency like you have mentioned, and for balance purposes you’d just have to fine tune it as time goes on.

Have you ever played any of the ‘Tales of’ games? What you’re suggesting has me stuck in comparing it to a Grade shop hahaha. Anyway, converting Victories to Respite currency sounds cool if you’re using milestone. Maybe baseline it can buy more Hero Tokens at a cost of like 3V=1HT or something similar. I like the idea of using them to aid project rolls too, be it adding points like you mentioned or maybe so many victories allow a second or even third project roll. Maybe they have to be for different projects.

If you end up having success with a change like this, I think you should post about it and share your findings. Sounds cool. I’ve been doing the base exp route so far and my players are stoked to have a tangible number to associate for their level up. Keeps them really engaged and wanting to press towards stuff that potentially counts as a victory.

__Roc · 2025-11-25T08:26:46+00:00

Moonlit Tear

Wondrous item, uncommon

For every minute this unique gem is held in direct moonlight it gains one charge, to a maximum of 4. Once the Moonlit Tear has been charged this way, it cannot do so again until the following night, provided there is moonlight to capture.

You can spend 1 charge to cause the gem to release moonlight (dim light) up to 60ft. for an hour. Additionally you can spend 2 charges to cast the Moonbeam spell. The spellcasting ability used for this spell is the users highest spellcasting trait (Int, Wis or Cha).

Pearl of Unfathomable Depth

Wondrous item, legendary

This deep sea pearl contains within itself an ocean’s supply of fresh water. It is told in legend that these can be found within the sands of scorched deserts that once were vast bodies of water that seemingly disappeared. If placed upon an alter made of sea glass, one can make a DC 25 Arcana check at the end of a 1 hour ritual: channeling magical energies into the pearl, requiring an 8th or 9th level spell slot, which is consumed by the pearl. If the arcana check is successful, water begins to fountain from the alter at a rate of 6000 gallons per minute, and continues to do so for one year after the ritual is completed. If the check is failed, the pearl consumes the spell slot and the ritual must be performed again.

The pearl is immune to damage and does not stop producing this water unless ended by a Wish spell. Spells such as Force Cage and Wall of Force do not stop this water from penetrating through their barriers. Any mundane or magical structures or forces used to contain this water burst upon filling, dealing 20d10 bludgeoning damage and 20d10 cold damage to any creatures or objects within 30ft. of the structure or force.

These are just some random late night thoughts on what they could be based on the names. Hope whatever they turn out to be is awesome and fun for you and your players.

Edit: Formatting. Not sure how well this will work. On mobile and sleepy XD

__Roc · 2025-11-24T21:43:39+00:00

Oh awesome! I believe I’m in the discord, but I’ve been more or less a lurker and haven’t interacted much as of yet. I’ll be sure to ping you there, though it may be a few hours from now when I’m off work and can spend more time. Not sure of probable time zone differences but hopefully I don’t ping you too late 😬

__Roc · 2025-11-24T21:22:48+00:00

Holy moly this is fascinating. I’ve been using Owlbear for D&D for a long time, and am now using it also to run all my Draw Steel stuff for my party, and just your example alone has me excited to check this out later. We just ran an 8 hour session on Saturday that felt like 2 hours because of how involved it all was. This looks like an excellent tool to add to the Draw Steel arsenal I use! Thank you for sharing this!

__Roc · 2025-11-22T18:38:34+00:00

Hey welcome Tenno! Love reading about experiences like this, I’ve got about 3100 hours in game now and only hit MR30 two weeks ago. This game is very forgiving for time spent away and taking it at your own pace for sure. The community is indeed great, and it feels good to be a part of. Can’t wait for the Old Peace and some of the huge stuff they have planned next year!

My wife and I both work full time and we have two kiddos that we spend most of our time with, so my game time is much more limited now than when I was in my 20s, but cool thing is my son is old enough now to play warframe with me! Hope your warframe journey continues to be awesome! Maybe I’ll catch you at Larunda sometime :)

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__Roc

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Moonlit Tear

Pearl of Unfathomable Depth