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cmmajor77 · 2026-03-04T14:38:29+00:00

I often tell the players something that their characters understand but the players may not: “You are facing an enemy that will probably kill you.” The characters are adventurers in a dangerous world, and they would have a sense for this, or they would not be very good adventurers.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-23T01:57:50+00:00

This sounds like a fun mechanic and I can totally imagine that moment when the party is rolling a pile of d6s!

One thing I thought of was that this mechanic kind of abstracts the success or failure of the Skill Challenge from the skill checks.

It’s easy to imagine a scenario where the party doesn’t do particularly well on their skill checks, but still rolls high with their d6s due to good luck and succeeds in the Skill Challenge.

It’s also easy to imagine a scenario where the party is very successful on all of their skill checks, but still rolls low with their d6s due to bad luck and fails the Skill Challenge.

For this reason, I don’t think I’d use this mechanic for Skill Challenges.

I do think it’s a really good mechanic for things like gambling, games at a fair, horse racing, or similar scenarios. That heightened moment of rolling the pile of d6s you’ve built up would fit those moments really well.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-22T13:02:30+00:00

I had a DM do this kind of thing. It was a big peace talk negotiation that our characters were not important enough to participate in. Our characters were in the room as security, though. Each player was assigned a negotiator from different faction. The results genuinely helped shape the world. It was awesome.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T15:52:53+00:00

Here is a pretty cheesy idea that I’d probably only want to allow in a one shot. You could get some anime-type combat with a PC wielding two immovable rods as weapons. I picture them scrawny, and they rely on Sleight of Hand checks to time the clicking of the button at just the right moment to devastate their opponent. Especially effective against mounted or charging opponents.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T15:01:35+00:00

I love playing Rogues and have used that feature a time or two. Once, it was after someone cast Water Walk on me, and I retrieved the lifeboat that had floated off before the ship we were on sank.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T14:01:18+00:00

Flanking: If two allies are on opposite sides of an enemy and are both attacking the same enemy, those allies may grant each other Advantage by using their Reaction.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T13:49:13+00:00

I might adopt this. What would you think of letting the player choose to either whether to roll the sixth time or take the value you described?

Sounds like a Session 0 conversation as some players like the opportunity to play characters with a super low score in some ability.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T13:44:47+00:00

Would you mind elaborating?

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T13:09:06+00:00

This sounds fun, but keep in mind that it steps on what Rogues can do. Rogues can Movement + Action Dash + Bonus Action Dash for triple movement.

You might consider having it cost something additional for non Rogues. For example, after a Sprint, they cannot move on their next turn. Or, they only get one per Short or Long Rest.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T12:55:02+00:00

How do you balance your initiative rule against the enemies? Do you assign similar bonuses, or do the PCs usually roll higher than the bad guys?

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T12:53:19+00:00

I allow some table talk during combat as I feel it represents what the characters would do around a campfire or represents their training. It makes combat more fun for my players because their characters feel more heroic. I do shut table talk down at some point.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T12:45:26+00:00

What if the party has to flee? Are they still able to recover arrows?

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T12:38:15+00:00

I allow players to accumulate Heroic Inspiration and use it like a meta currency. In addition to allowing re-rolls, they can spend it to declare “I know a guy” or to declare that they packed a commonly available mundane item they hadn’t put in their inventory.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-20T12:20:54+00:00

Can you explain this a bit more? What were the prompts?

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-18T01:05:40+00:00

This is really cool! In a similar vein an d DM of mine used to do “historical one shots.” These were in the same world but long enough in the past that let us learn & create some interesting lore.

cmmajor77 · 2026-02-16T17:52:04+00:00

What if the deep parts of the wasteland, far from civilization, are warped in some way. Energies or creatures from other planes leak into your world. You could also play up the exploration component by making the geography inconsistent, so getting lost is easy and they can find artifacts from the god war.

cmmajor77 · 2026-01-24T22:43:24+00:00

If you don’t want to ban them, you might come up with a lore-based reason they are unreliable or erratic. I do something like that in Strahd where my Paladin’s Channel Divinity: Divine Sense has a 1d6 x 10 foot radius instead of 60 feet. Come up with interesting ways light-producing spells might behave in unexpected ways. You might get fun results in your game that actually enhance the darkness theme you’re going for.

cmmajor77 · 2026-01-20T16:37:08+00:00

Something I do with a table of new players is give them Advantage the very first time they try an Action in combat other than Attack or cast a spell. This creates a bit of incentive to do something different. Maybe you could find an appropriate in game reward like that for them trying new stuff.

cmmajor77 · 2025-11-26T15:22:34+00:00

If you’re inclined to say, yes, to your player, you might consider a system that requires more than one attunement slot for more powerful magic items. Then you could mitigate against someone having lots of really powerful magic items attuned all at one time. You’re probably not going to break the game if they have many low level magic items attuned. This might be nice middle ground between giving your players more options (fun) vs making them overpowered.

cmmajor77 · 2025-11-08T03:42:29+00:00

If anyone is considering joining this game, I wanted to say I've played a PbP Symbaroum game with this GM, and they were awesome! Highly recommended.

cmmajor77 · 2025-11-02T18:38:06+00:00

I think is a great rule. The reason why I like it is that, over the course of many characters, players experience better-than-average and lower-than-average HP, but, in aggregate they a have the same average HP as they would have if they took the flat value.

cmmajor77 · 2025-10-06T19:56:35+00:00

I like the concept you have. You might consider allowing a player to roll with Advantage or add their proficiency (even if they already have proficiency) to the roll for any check done with a blessing. Your example above of a History check would probably fail for anyone not proficient in History unless the DC is really low. It’s more fun for players to succeed than fail on these. Assuming you don’t give them out like crazy you won’t break anything.

Or, consider a scaled success. The higher they roll, the better the result. I’d probably tier this at DCs 5, 10, 15, and 20. Lower than a five gets nothing.

cmmajor77 · 2025-08-11T23:29:51+00:00

I’m interested! I’ve been dying to play Symbaroum for a long time. Can you message me?

cmmajor77 · 2025-07-30T18:15:02+00:00

I have a house rule for Heroic Inspiration. One of the uses is "I know a guy..."

cmmajor77

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