Homebrew Spells

Olympic National Park, Washington [OC][3477x5215] - Author: rivryan on reddit

d&d monster inspo:

A pair of French chestnut crushing clogs used in the 19th century. These shoes were worn by farmers to trample on chestnuts and acorns to separate the nutmeats from the shells so it could be ground into flour.

It’s 2 am. Ideas that might make your combat encounters spicier.

1. Damage control. Force your players between choosing to fighting and keeping their environment intact. Make them fight in a crowded area and make them chose between putting out fires, rescuing people, or keeping peace versus attacking or following enemies.

2. Shooting the messenger. Make your initiative a chase scene. Have one or a few enemies high-tail it for backup, and if the messengers succeed, the tables turn hard against the players. Make them race through crowds, through difficult terrain, across rooftops, through other enemy forces, to get to the messenger.

3. Silence. Put both the enemy force and the players into a spot where they have to stay quiet or they both get hurt. Ex, sleeping monster nearby, avalanche, alerting guards, ect. bonus points if you enforce no talking even OOC.

4. Hide and Seek. Make the players hide from or fight a creature, monster, or enemy that relies on hearing alone. Bonus points if it’s incredibly dark or the player’s perception senses are also significantly hindered in some way. EXTRA bonus points if they’re already weakened or injured so they can’t fight directly or through brute force.

5. Creative workaround. Take away usual player resources (spells, weapons, usual playstyle, ect) and put them somewhere they have to try something new. Ex, melee fighters without their weapons at a fancy gathering. Casters in an anti-magic zone or magic immune / magic eating enemies. players who like to use movement in tight quarters. the min-max player gets outnumbered. the shy player gets the focus. ect.

6. Enemies to friends. Have the enemy force and the player party work together so they don’t all perish- but for how long? ex. sinking ship, burning or collapsing building, common enemy, ect.

7. Air combat. If you don’t already have griffins, birds, Pegasuses, dragons, airships or other sky mounts / vehicles in you game, wtf are you doing?? Take the fight to the sky.

8. Delivery. Similar to shooting the messenger, but the player party has to reach their destination before they get caught or downed. Useful if they’re escaping with valuable information, person / hostage, item, ect.

9. Switcharoo. Body-swap your players and have them switch their sheets, or polymorph them into other creatures. Preferably impose a time-constraint so that they’re pressured to move faster rather than read and entirely understand new sheets. Maximum chaos.

Daisuke Samejima, “Flatball 2019 No.03“

(Inconvenient) Sentient Object Generator

1d12 Objects

Rusty old sword

Large orb (at least 10” diameter, we’re talking 15lbs minimum.)

Flimsy walking stick

Literal brain-in-a-jar

Dented helmet

Cannon, or other large weapon meant to be on a vessel

Rug

A left boot (the right boot is nowhere to be found.)

Multi-volume encyclopedia

Anvil

Globe

A single crossbow bolt.

1d6 Sources of Sentience (and Wants)

Mad-science/alchemical experiment gone wrong; trapped own consciousness in this object. Wants to return to their lab so they can have you attempt to reverse the procedure.

Cursed into this form by a witch or other entity as punishment for wrongdoings. Wants to find the entity and reverse the curse

Born this way, comes from a lineage of sentient objects. Wants to be owned/wielded by a powerful person.

Mad-science/alchemical experiment gone wrong; was a henchman transformed into this object by their master. Wants revenge.

Magically transformed themself into this form as a way of achieving immortality. Wants a new, young, living body to inhabit.

Was once an inanimate object brought to life by a mage. Has now outlived that mage and wants to find a way to resurrect them.

1d6 Powers - how does the object communicate its wants and exert its will?

Compulsion/possession: the object can force a person who is touching it to perform an action. What can a person do to prevent themself from being compelled?

Telepathy: the object can send telepathic messages in a short range. Are the messages targeted, or does everyone around it hear them?

Limited mobility: the object can move on its own, though not quickly. How does it move? (Does it roll, waddle, float?)

Charm/influence: the object can make a person believe that its wills are the best course of action. What types of people are most susceptible to its wiles?

Speech: the object can speak out loud in one or more languages. Does it know when to keep its mouth shut?

Telekinesis: the object can move inanimate objects, but not itself. What are its limits? (Size? Range? Material? Form?)

At the end of character creation, have every player roll a d100 for “plot reasons”. When the game begins, reveal that the result is how many miles in the air the characters start the campaign at.

design comm for a “gilded thorn” mage

What a horrible way to define a word. “Okay, we need a good way to explain what a dime is. Should I show somebody purchasing something, or making change for a dollar, or anything indicating its value? No, I’m going to show a witch turning it into a frog.”

my mothers chowder tasting notebook