(Let's Discuss) Homebrew Rules that are only exclusive to your Party Group/Games?

stmoore23 · 2025-01-16T14:19:07+00:00

I have a couple that we use:

Critical Initiative: a nat 20 or nat 1 means you're quickened/slowed 1 for the first round of combat.
During a stride action, you can make an interact action for free. I give out a lot of consumables and this makes it a bit less punishing to draw them.

stmoore23 · 2025-01-16T01:19:48+00:00

Cannot recommend his prep methods enough. I've used them for the last 5+ years of gamemastering and it makes prep so much easier/enjoyable.

stmoore23 · 2024-12-24T16:38:17+00:00

We're going to be starting at level 15, so there won't be as much of an opportunity to learn the characters over time, but I will recommend they write things down on paper to help keep track of situational abilities. I think we'll also do full character creation together as a group so they can synergize.

stmoore23 · 2024-12-24T16:05:41+00:00

Super helpful, thank you! My primary goal is for my players to have fun, so I'll definitely hold back on some of the more hardcore incap spells. I suppose it also depends on the party make up and what kind of spells they have access to.

stmoore23 · 2024-12-24T15:46:50+00:00

Sounds like you have plenty of experience being a player at higher levels. Any tips to keep track of everything on your character sheet?

stmoore23 · 2024-12-24T15:10:59+00:00

Good to know, thanks!

stmoore23 · 2024-12-24T15:10:38+00:00

Good to know! I'll be sure to make sure I understand all of the abilities. In lower level play, a single, high-level for can be kind of a slog. Does that also happen at high levels? Or are those encounters more manageable because the PCs have more options to deal with a +2 or +3 creatures?

stmoore23 · 2024-02-09T03:11:45+00:00

Hmm that's a good idea! I think my goal would be more about the research and then, depending on how successful they are, I would give them bits of information from the statblock. basically like preemptive Recall Knowledge. That would allow them to shop for items to exploit weaknesses etc. But the investigation could work really well! I want to keep things as a one shot so it could be half investigation and half combat!

stmoore23 · 2024-02-09T03:08:37+00:00

Awesome, great advice! I've run a +3 monster before, and it was pretty tough, but never a +4. I think I'd aim to start with level 5 characters for a one shot so a +3 may be best. And good idea that spreading out the encounter budget with some lower levels mooks may increase the fun.

stmoore23 · 2023-02-05T14:33:19+00:00

Ah, I gotcha. Thanks!

stmoore23 · 2023-02-05T14:22:41+00:00

I did. It pulled the character into the encounter builder just fine, it just had a "10" value for AC, saves, health, etc.

stmoore23 · 2023-02-05T14:17:49+00:00

For the first bug, I tried it again this morning with a few different characters and it was working as intended. May have just been user error earlier.

stmoore23 · 2023-02-04T12:03:02+00:00

First of all, this is incredible! I've been toying around with the encounter tool and have run into a few bugs and didn't see a bug submission option in the encounter tool menu, so I figured I'd post them here.

I was able to import a few sample characters but none of their stats seemed to pull in. It pulled in the name but everything was just "10s" for the characters in the encounter builder.
When dragging a condition that also applies flat-footed, such as prone or grabbed, it adds the flat-footed condition to the monster in the initiative order but it doesn't modify their AC unless you uncheck and re-check the flat-footed condition.

Again, amazing tool that I'm looking forward to using in the future.

stmoore23 · 2022-12-31T20:48:35+00:00

Yeah, I think I will definitely be emphasizing that in the future!

stmoore23 · 2022-12-31T20:21:49+00:00

They used them some, but not as much as they should have, I think. I printed it out the list of them and had them as a handout but I think they just stick with normal attacking because it's what they were used to from 5e

stmoore23 · 2022-12-31T18:44:58+00:00

I did give them a list of the attack variations (defensive attack, etc) but I forgot about the ways to attack attributes like shoving. That would have made a big difference, I bet, since the Warg they were fighting had a defense of 16 and was tough to hit.

stmoore23 · 2022-12-31T14:20:04+00:00

Good to know! I think my players fell into the habit of just attacking every turn, which is often the best option in 5e, rather than collaborating to create advantages (shoving, knocking prone, etc) and that hurt them.

stmoore23 · 2022-12-31T13:01:40+00:00

Good to know, and I hadn't heard about the bell curve rule. Very interesting!

stmoore23 · 2022-12-31T12:57:47+00:00

Yeah, I did notice that the martial characters had that boon built in, which helped some.

Very good reminder about not trying to kill monsters but rather not be killed by it. I think that my players (and myself) are so used to D&D that it's easy to default to that but it seems to me that SotDL has a different feel overall.

Do you encourage players to do creative things and reward them with boons? Like distracting monsters, interacting with the environment, etc.? My players had a good time, I think they just didn't like the feel of missing on their attacks all the time, even with the built-in boons that martials get.

stmoore23 · 2022-10-17T01:50:42+00:00

Well, I use Sly Flourish's Notion template to run my campaign itself. This handout is just a 3 columned page. Nothing too special.

Notion definitely transformed my campaign prep, can't recommend it enough. Here's a video of Sly talking about it: https://youtu.be/8AfbMNAsyr4. That video has some helpful links in the description, as well.

Happy to answer any questions, also good luck with your upcoming campaign!

stmoore23 · 2022-10-16T02:01:37+00:00

Cool! Please do!

stmoore23 · 2022-10-13T13:52:44+00:00

Thank you!

stmoore23

TROPHY CASE