First, 20 questions on gameplay from Necropraxis.
And then 20 more on weaponized squid by Monster Manual Sewn From Pants.
You know you want to.
ZUERST: NECROPRAXIS' 20 QUESTIONS ON GAMEPLAY
'cause I love house rules and special character generation shit. This campaign will run on the D&D 5e rules.
Either arrange {15,14,13,12,10,8}, OR roll for your scores and get a contact, mentor or patron.
2. How are death and dying handled?
At 0 hit points, we break out this Death & Dismemberment table. Different damage types give different conditions you get to struggle with. Particularly solid hits give you Fatal Wounds, which kill after 3 rounds unless you are healed or recover on your own.
3. What about raising the dead?
As undead: frowned upon, frowned upon hard. Clerics of the Church of the Authority can return the dead to real life (as can clerics of the Watcher and the Exile...if you like being in debt to the Spider God or the Corrupter hirself). They'll only do so for a hefty donation and a solid reason.
4. How are replacement PCs handled?
Quick as we can, we get you back into the action. Pick stats, race, estate and class, and write down only what you need at that moment; pick your skills and equipment later. You start 1 level lower than your previous character.
5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
Never thought to do it differently: this group always rolls individual initiative, with groups of similar opponents acting on shared initiative. We roll at the beginning of combat. New participants roll when they enter the fight.
6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
- Critical hit: roll double the amount of dice (including extra energy damage, sneak attack) OR give a nick to an opponent's weapon or armor (see below).
- Critical fumble: one of the combat items you were using gains a nick. Weapons have their dice reduced (2d6 becomes 2d4, d12>d10>d8>d6>d4); armor loses 1 AC.
Items are destroyed when they drop below d4 damage or +1 AC. You can have this damage repaired at 1/10th the original item cost. Magic items ignore a number of nicks per day equal to their magical bonus. Yes, you can hit the magic off of an enchanted armor if you've damaged it enough; magical plusses get destroyed last. Repairing this will take a wizard.
If you weren't using a weapon or armor somehow, you drop a valuable item, which rolls away (d2 x 5 feet if you need a number). Or you drop prone yourself.
7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
It looks snazzy. No mechanical benefit. Unless...cool: this question just made me think of a nice way to tie in the Death & Dismemberment chart. Helmets (10 gp to replace) are included in medium and heavy armors. You can sacrifice your helmet to make a head wound on the table one step less bad.
8. Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
If you want to... I'll go with standard 5e rules here. Might give some cover if you have to fire through a buddy. If you're in melee range of an enemy and attacking with a ranged weapon, you do so at disadvantage (roll twice, take the worst).
9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
Definitely you'll want to run away from some encounters. I'll do my best to telegraph that. Remember that you don't get XP for defeating enemies, you get it for finding loot and bringing it home!
10. Level-draining monsters: yes or no?
I'm going for no. I will slightly modify 5e's life drain ability, when it comes up. Normally, you lower your max HP by a certain amount until your next long rest; I'll let you recover up to half that amount for every long rest (same as I changed regular long rests).
11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
Sure. Again, I'll telegraph any hefty encounters so people can make informed choices. If that choice is to run along a long corridor to kill the lightning wizard, so be it...
12. How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?
You can carry an amount of items equal to your strength, more if they're bundles of tiny items. Beyond that you get encumbrance penalties. I've made an equipment sheet to streamline this. I'll ask for light source and ration depletion, but ultimately I trust my players. No audits planned. Bring a cart or a donkey or hire porters.
13. What’s required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?
Your regular level-up just happens after the next long rest = good night's sleep. Archetype powers (clerical domain, wizard specialty, ranger specialty etc) have to be learned from a teacher. Will typically take a few days of downtime and a mini quest. All spellcasters except nature types have to find or earn their new spells. Make some friends in your Clerical / Wizardly order.
14. What do I get experience for?
Finding valuables and bringing them to your home base safely. Wealth you lose to taxes does not count for XP. Wealth you spend in carousing does.
15. How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?
I'll let you spot huge traps right away; the type where the challenge is on avoiding, not spotting them in the first place. For poison needles hidden in a locked chest, you better check. Good description will give advantage on the roll (roll twice, take the best).
16. Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?
Most yes. Retainers can take fire, haul materials, do work around camp, carry shields and torches. They have a morale from 2-12, and every time their side takes a big setback (half party incapacitated, leader cut down, overpowering magic), I check 2d6: rolls over their morale means the retainer will cut their losses. Or freak out amusingly.
17. How do I identify magic items?
The Identify spell is the easiest way to do this. Just seeing whether something is magical will take a Detect Magic.
18. Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?
Potions are going to be a thing: they're half magical, half folk lore, meaning even dabblers can brew them. You'll have to ID potions by taste, smell and look, and some are downright dangerous to taste. Consider Identify. Or a disposable halfling taster.
Bonafide magical items are hoarded jealously - no magic shops. You can trade with collectors like the church or a wizard's guild, or try to make a deal with a noble.
19. Can I create magic items? When and how?
I'm torn between "lost art" and "for high wizards and archclerics". Not something you'll do in the first 5 levels; I think it will involve questing for a recipe and ingredients, then spending serious downtime and wealth to create the item.
20. What about splitting the party?Split away.
20 MORE QUESTIONS BY MONSTER MANUAL SEWN FROM PANTS
1. Is there weaponized Squid?Can I start with one? How much are they? Can I have one as a pet/horse/best friend? Can I play one? Can I dual wield them?Yes there is. Find the scenic village of Omst on Lake Ful. You know those hick towns with prize pumpkin competitions? Omst has prize weaponized squid. They breed 'em for colour, poisonicity, range and clinginess. There's a contest who can keep quiet longest after being bitten.
You can but one as a pet. It will hate you. You can dual wield them if you like being bitten twice a round.
You can maybe find landsquid to ride. Not in Omst though. They don't go in for weird shit like that.
*sigh* fine, you can play a squidling. No, you can't be a mindflayer.
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| by Gris Grimly |
2. Is there undead robots?follow up questions involve the nature of consciousness and the existence of the soul in your campaign and can I play one? or have one as a pet or a gun that shoots them?
No warforged. Souls are the same as spirits and spells and demons and angels, only housed in flesh.
You can play an enfleshed soul. It's called a hoo-mon. You cannot have one as a pet or shoot them, that's called either slavery or a war crime respectively and those are bad.
3. Do Icebergs walk across the land ?can I be from one? Is godzilla frozen in one? Can I play a godzilla?
Far north, beyond the Vaeringjar, the oldest 'bergs have personality. And a mind of their own. Who knows what's inside them? Maybe godzilla. You can play a baby godzilla as soon as you discover lizardfolk.
4. What do birds know?(no further questions)
Birds just know, man.
5. Does medicine work like it does here but no-one knows CPR or does it work like a cartoon so I cure amnesia with more head injurys or does it work like medieval euro people thought it did with demons in your teeth?Do I start with demons in my teeth? Do I know CPR? Can I invent CPR? Can I give myself powers with additionally organs? What planet is in ascension in my spleen midmorning?
Gross medicine (bleeding out, broken bones) works like you'd hope - bind the wound, set the bone. Mental illness and disease and possession is cured best by a certified Cleric of the Leaden Order.
Hitting people over the head or massaging their chest is just weird. Don't do that.
You can definitely get different spleens and other assorted organs inserted. Ask a Cleric of the Exile or an adventurous Elf transmuter.
6. I want to play a hobbit but really I'm the fleas controlling the hobbit. Where is that in the book?
Could I take over a new guy with my fleas? Or another players guy?
Hobbits are famously flealess. Why waste a free snack?
7. How much could I rent my body out to spirits before I lost control of my character?
What are the names of the spirits? Are they cool?
You can keep that up for a while. Eventually either the Church or your Patron will catch up with you.
The best-known spirits for body renting are the Hungry Crone, the Emerald Saint, the Scandalous Courtier and the Blistered Squire. They are very cool.
Or pray directly to the Exile. That always ends well.
8.What level do I have to get my character to before I am the g.m?
Can I half be the g.m at an early level? What about when you leave the room?
You can be DM for a bottle of Oban. Or if you have a cool idea for a oneshot.
9. What is the dumbest thing I can spend my money on?
no dumber than that but cool. Like a pet with a pet with a weapon? Can pets dual wield?
I am under no illusion that I could make up a dumber thing than the combined brainpower of my players can. Although naming a halfling evil mastermind Morasco d'Jorasco comes close. Dude was just laughed off stage.
You can dual wield him. He needs the money.
10. How ugly can my guy be? Like Can I basically be a walking fish?
No wait I wanna be a walking fish. What is the reverse scuba technology like in this world?
Yeah you can be a fishling.
11.The lamp oil? Is that like cooking oil, kerosene, white spirits or napalm?
How much can I buy of it?
Lamp oil is like cooking oil. The wizards of the Fraternity of the Comet sell the good napalmy stuff. You mad fool.
12. How does physics work in this world?
What makes the planets stay up? Are there planets? Is it elves? Can I play an elf from another planet? Does everything work like how we though it did in the past? Can I discover stuff and pass it off as a magic? Is possible to use the scientific process to organise the concepts of magic?
Discovering the underpinnings of magic through the scientific method is deffo possible. It didn't end all that horrifically last time.
That said: planets stay up because the Authority has decreed it so. There are no planets and they're full of crazy angels hugging themselves because they're still addicted to True Heaven but that's been lost forever because of wizards, but you're not supposed to know that. Like anyone is still reading this.
Everything does sort of work like we thought in the past: alchemy, demonic posession - at least that's what the Olmadician Order of the Scroll teaches.
It's never elves.
13. Can I start with weapon hands?
What about crab claws? Can I play a crab with human hands? Can I have one as a pet? Do they live on a different planet? Can we go there?
Crablings: sure. Crabling with human hands: sure. Weapon hands: no monks until you meet one. You can't have them as a pet, that would upset diplomatic relations. They're not from a different planet, it's even worse: they live right here on this one. You can go there if you like really long sea voyages with a vicious encounter table.
14. What cultures approve of cannibalism?
What about if we are super rich? Aren't rich cannibals be default , I mean if you think about it? How is the class struggle here anyway? Is there a Karl Marx? How receptive are people to the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism here?
We're only just inventing capitalism, the rest of this will have to wait. Cannibalism is a great way to turn into a hag, ogre or goblin. Especially if you're a Hobbit.
15. Can my character not be real , but a hallucination of another character?
But I still wanna be able to do stuff. What are the stats for that?
Illusions are a criminal's tool.
16. Which is the rome but with lava fire country in this world?
What about the ice circus country? Can I have a pet from there?
oh god please make it stop
17. Can I invent an insect?
as a player like right now I tell you an insect and you put it in the game? Or as a character? Can my spells be insects that then exist in this world after I cast them? Can I play an insect who is actually a spell cast in this world? What about as a pet?
YES FINE YOU CAN HAVE ONE YOU CAN DUAL WIELD THEM
18. Is there reverse fire?
What about reverse water or earth? What do they wear there?
*sobs*
19. How much money can I make inventing siege engines?
Can I play a siege engine? In what ways are animals used in siege engines?
Again, no warforged.
20.What is the most significant tree to the economy of the starting place?
Is it really a tree or maidens stitched together? If I play a maiden do I get spells or do people that worship me get spells but only if I'm mad at them?
I need a drink.
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