PC Race - Changelings: Half-Fey Heroes

Those born of a fiendish bloodline are tieflings, and those born of a celestial bloodline are aasimar, but what is the product of a union between mortal and fey?  Changelings are mortals with fey ancestry, and much like tieflings and aasimar, they are at once a part of the mortal world and apart from it.

There is already a race called changelings in Pathfinder, but those are the offspring of mortals and hags.  In mythology, changelings are fey (or sometimes troll) children who are secretly exchanged with human babies by their supernatural mothers.  Changeling is therefore the natural choice for the name of a race of half-fey, in the style of tieflings and aasimar.  I'm honestly not sure why Paizo made the half-hag changelings, let alone called them 'changelings', when there is still no half-fey race.  I suggest renaming the half-hag changeling race to 'hag-spawn'.

Presented below is the half-fey changeling race, modeled on the lines of tieflings and aasimar.  I have also included ten alternate racial traits to further customize your changeling character, including one for small-sized changelings and one for talking to animals.  After all, 'fey' and 'mortal' are broad categories - the offspring of a halfling and a leprechaun is going to be different from the offspring of a nymph and an elf, or a dwarf and a dryad.

Changelings (8 RP)

The offspring of fey creatures with the mortal races, changelings are wild, exotic, and full of mystery.  In mortal cultures, they are often looked on with derision for their bastard ancestry and all the implications thereof - many a married couple has been broken up by the arrival of a changeling baby.  So too are they often derided in the fey lands for having mortal, 'imperfect' blood.  Changelings are separated from both worlds, either because of the strange traits and powers they have, or because of the ones they don't. 

   Physical Description: Changelings often exhibit some alien trait that marks them as different from the population they were born into, be it horns, a tail, strangely-colored hair or eyes, glowing skin, wings, or what have you.  Many changelings, however, are almost indistinguishable from the general population, though their strange otherworldliness comes through in other ways. 

   Society: Changelings have no society of their own, and are often outcasts in mortal and fey societies.  Some changelings are run out of their home or abandoned in the woods as a child, some form their own social groups from other outcasts.  While some primitive societies may treat changelings as a curse, others may see them as a blessing and treat them and their family with great respect. 

   Although the fey see changelings as imperfect and corrupted by mortal blood, they also recognize them on some level as kindred spirits and do not wish for them to come to harm.  Instead of abandoning a changeling child, the fey mother will often secretly switch it out with a newborn human so that it might at least be raised well.  In rare cases, regretful fey mothers may seek to steal the changeling back from the human world. 

   Relations: Although often rejected by mortal and fey society, changelings can usually find common ground and sympathy from half-elves, tieflings, aasimar, and other such 'half-breeds.' 

   Alignment and Religion: Changelings often find themselves drawn to religions that reflect their fey, nature-loving heritage, though some actively seek to reject that legacy and avoid any such connotations.  The majority of changelings trend toward chaotic alignments due to their fickle and spritely personalities. 

   Adventurers: As outcasts so often do, many changelings find themselves drawn to a life of adventure.  Changelings make excellent sorcerers and druids due to their innate connection with the arcane and natural world, and many changelings channel their otherworldly charisma into fine bardic performances.  Particularly successful changeling adventurers may find acceptance in the societies that rejected them at birth, even amongst the fey court, but some may choose to make their own path through their adventures and spurn the advances of those who treated them so indifferently before. 

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Races Revisited: Wood Elves

I've been itching to redesign the core races for a while now.  Part of the reason is 5th edition with its really appealing broad-strokes approach to game design, and part of the reason is that Pathfinder is almost 10 years old, based on a system over 15 years old, and it is starting to collapse under its own weight.  I want the playable races to be as simple and evocative as possible.  They need to get across the core idea of the race without getting in the way with too many extraneous skill bonuses or abilities that function in instances so specific that you forget about them when the time comes to use them.

Last time on Races Revisited we looked at high elves - the "aloof, magically-inclined elves who spend their incredibly long lives in shining, elegant cities" - as opposed to wood elves, which the 2nd Editions Player's Handbook described as "wild, temperamental, and savage."  This week, it is the wood elves' time to shine!  On second thought, shining might be more of a high elf thing.  Wood elves are probably more into skulking.

I have already touched on the distinctions drawn between high and wood elves in older editions of D&D and those now resurfacing in 5th edition.  Since the elves described in 1st and 2nd edition were explicitly high elves, what sources did I draw on for creating a separate wood elf race?  Tolkien, of course, is one place to look.  When you think of Tolkien's wood elves, you might first think of Galadirel and Celeborn, rulers of Lothlorien, or of King Thranduil and his son Legolas of the Woodland Realm in Mirkwood, but Celeborn, Thranduil, and Legolas are actually Sindar, or grey elves, while Galadriel is of mixed elvish heritage but primarily Ñoldorin and Falmari.  Still, they ruled over kingdoms largely comprised of the Nandor, or wood elves.  Haldir, the character who intercepts the Fellowship as they enter Lothlorien, was likely a Nando.  Thranduil and Legolas were also said to have basically 'gone native' amongst the Nandor, especially Legolas.  From what little we are shown,  we see Tolkien's wood elves are (unsurprisingly) secretive, stealthy, standoffish, and very good with bows.  Another source I went to for inspiration was mythology.  In many traditions, especially Scandinavian, elves are able to turn invisible.  This is something I really wanted to incorporate into wood elves (don't worry, it's not nearly as overpowered as it sounds).  Of course, a lot of it came down to intuition.  Most people (by which I mean most people who would read this blog, not most people in general) have a pretty good idea of what a wood elf is like.  By separating wood elves and high elves into two different races, I was really able to drill down on each of them and pick out specific details that make them unique.

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Giant Tardigrade, Resilient Little Buggers

Today's Monster Monday is the giant tardigrade, a man-eating giant version of the tiny creature often studied for its incredible ability to survive extremes of pressure, temperature, or radiation.  Tardigrades can even survive in the vacuum of space.  But can they survive a group of low-level adventurers?

source

Arnvida stops to examine the body.  Another desiccated sheep corpse, the same fist-sized holes punched into its flesh.  She looks back to the rest of the party to give a wordless acknowledgement of what they all know: something weird is killing Bolg's livestock.  But Perrin isn't paying attention.  He's staring to the west, mouth flapping dumbly, trying and failing to mouth some warning.  Arnvida follows his gaze to the stone well.  Two fat, trundling creatures - like pigs fashioned from a giant's toenail clippings - are clawing their way out on eight stubby legs, toothy tube-like mouths pulsing hungrily as if anticipating the adventurers' meat juices.  

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Races Revisited: High Elves

I've been itching to redesign the core races for a while now.  Part of the reason is 5th edition with its really appealing broad-strokes approach to game design, and part of the reason is that Pathfinder is almost 10 years old, based on a system over 15 years old, and it is starting to collapse under its own weight.  I want the playable races to be as simple and evocative as possible.  They need to get across the core idea of the race without getting in the way with too many extraneous skill bonuses or abilities that function in instances so specific that you forget about them when the time comes to use them.

Last time on Races Revisited we looked at dwarves and tried to distill their essence into a concentrated dwarven liquor.  This week, we turn to elves.  Specifically: high elves.  Why the distinction?  Older editions of D&D made it clear that elven players were of high elf stock, as opposed to the less civilized wood elves or evil dark elves.  1st Edition AD&D relegated the other elven races to the Monster Manual.  2nd Edition allowed players access to the other elven races "with the DM's permission (but the choice grants no additional powers)".  The designers of 5th Edition are, fortunately, big fans of sub-races as character customization options, and the 5th Edition Player's Handbook allows players to choose from high elves, wood elves, or dark elves, each one lending a slight twist to the base elven race.  I have chosen to treat high elves and wood elves as separate races for Races Revisited.  High elves are the aloof, magically-inclined elves who spend their incredibly long lives in shining, elegant cities.  Wood elves, by contrast, are the gritty forest-dwelling elves more likely to be clad in leather than mithral - the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook describes them as "wild, temperamental, and savage."  So look forward to wood elves in a future post, and scroll down for more high elf action.

One thing I noticed when researching past versions of elves was that elves were always described as having a special affinity toward bows, swordsmanship, and magic, but mechanically while they were given an incentive to use bows and swords, they had no inherent bonus to their magical abilities.  It wasn't until Pathfinder that elves were thrown a bone in the magic department, gaining a racial bonus to Intelligence and some bonuses to overcoming Spell Resistance and identifying magic items.  I take things a little further, as you will see below.

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Races Revisited: Dwarves

I've been itching to redesign the core races for a while now.  Part of the reason is 5th edition with its really appealing broad-strokes approach to game design, and part of the reason is that Pathfinder is almost 10 years old, based on a system over 15 years old, and it is starting to collapse under its own weight.  In terms of character creation, playable races are the bread on which you build your open-faced sandwich of a character.  The toppings are the class and feats and other customization choices, and you can be as simple or as complex as you want with those, but underneath it all you need that bread to be characterful and easy to understand.  Sorry, that metaphor broke down quickly.  

What I'm trying to say is that I want the playable races to be as simple and evocative as possible.  They need to get across the core idea of the race without getting in the way with too many extraneous skill bonuses or abilities that function in instances so specific that you forget about them when the time comes to use them.  I'll start things off today with an easy one: the dwarf.

Montalore Bearbriar, by Kent Hamilton

Dwarves are easy because they are the most iconic of the fantasy races.  Authors, game designers, and world builders have played around with elves a lot, probably because Tolkien's holier-than-thou elves can get really tiresome outside of Middle Earth, but everyone seems to agree that dwarves are pretty good as is.  They live underground, love mining and treasure and alcohol, fight with axes, and have great big beards.  The idea of dwarves is so solidified in fantasy that even in worlds where the authors have deliberately tried to shake things up, dwarves often remain fairly unchanged.  Pathfinder's dwarves are pretty good, and the changes I've made to them are relatively few, but I believe I have streamlined and refined the dwarven race into a simpler and more fundamentally dwarven form here.

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Salaries and Feudal Holdings for the Kingdom Building Rules

Election season got you down?  Has the endless parade of politicians and talking heads left you longing for the days when fiefs were held in vassalage directly from the king in exchange for the promise of military service?  Well if you are running a campaign that uses the Kingdom Building rules, you might appreciate the following set of optional rules!

If you are familiar with the Kingdom Building rules (and if you aren't, none of this is going to make much sense), you know that they are a set of rules designed to let your adventuring party control and grow their own realm.  Each member of the party can take a leadership position ranging from Ruler to High Priest to Spymaster, with plenty more positions open for NPCs.  They manage the creation and expansion of settlements, issue edicts, develop the land, and collect taxes.  It's basically a whole other game - I recommend setting up a facebook group where your players can discuss affairs of state so that it doesn't take up too much of your tabletop time.

My adventuring group in the ongoing but long-stalled Graverobbers campaign is about to begin ruling over their newly forged barony, but as I was going over the Kingdom Building rules I realized that there wasn't a lot of incentive for some of the characters.  If you know history, you know that people like to use positions of power to increase their personal wealth.  This was a major aspect of feudal society, but it is sadly lacking in the Kingdom Building rules.  So I whipped up the following optional rules that will allow characters to draw a salary from the kingdom's treasury, or even control their own fiefdom and manage a small settlement.

The following material given in gold text is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Valraven, the Soul-Eating Raven Wolf

Today's Monster Monday is the valraven, a half-wolf/half-raven beast from Danish mythology that stalks charnel grounds and eats souls, because it turns out that Scandinavians have always been pretty metal.

In Bestiary 5 there is a monster called a vilderavn which is based on one variant of this mythical creature.  The vilderavn is a shapeshifting fey raven knight, but one of the forms it can take (only briefly mentioned) is that of a raven/wolf hybrid.  Honestly, I was more interested in that raven/wolf creature than I was in the fey raven knight, so I had to stat it up.  My valraven is a CR 6 monster, meaning it will likely be of more use to the GM than the CR 16 vilderavn.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Four New Magic Weapon Abilities - Armor Piercing, Biting, Reaching, and Sundering

The four magic weapon abilities presented below are so simple yet so useful that I am surprised they haven't been made yet.  The first two, armor piercing and biting, alter the traditional +1 to hit/+1 to damage formula; armor piercing grants +2 to hit and +0 to damage while biting does the opposite.  It is a pretty basic trade off, but one that adds a greater degree of customization when creating a magic weapon.  After all, sometimes you just don't need that extra boost to damage but you want to be able to hit more often, or vice versa.

The reaching weapon sprouted from d20 despot artist-in-residence Kent Hamilton's head, and it seems to me to be incredibly useful.  The ability to add 5 ft. of reach at a moment's notice adds a lot of versatility to a given weapon.  The sundering ability is inspired by Sauron of The Lord of the Rings and the White Walkers from Game of Thrones, both of whom are supernaturally good at breaking swords.  It basically gives you the Improved Sunder feat plus double damage against objects, which should allow the wielder to hack away armor, shatter swords, and bash down doors with ease.

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

ARMOR PIERCING                +1 BONUS

Aura: faint transmutation          CL 8^th

An armor piercing weapon gains a +2 enhancement bonus on attack rolls. 

Construction Requirements

Craft Magic Arms and Armor, true strike

BITING                          +1 BONUS

Aura: faint transmutation          CL 8^th

A biting weapon gains a +2 enhancement bonus on damage rolls.   

Construction Requirements

Craft Magic Arms and Armor, inflict light wounds or magic weapon

REACHING                   +1 BONUS

Aura: moderate transmutation CL 10^th

As a swift action reaching weapon can extend to gain an extra 5 feet of reach.  The weapon can be retracted again as a free action.  Hafted weapons (such as spears, axes, and maces) only threaten the final square of their reach, but weapons with a greater effective portion (such as swords, daggers, and quarterstaves) threaten all squares within their reach.  Reaching can only be applied to melee weapons.  This enhancement can be applied multiple times to the same weapon; each time it increases the weapon’s reach by 5 feet, and the wielder chooses the weapon’s length within that range each time it extends or retracts. 

Construction Requirements

Craft Magic Arms and Armor, enlarge person

SUNDERING                            +2 BONUS

Aura: moderate transmutation CL 10^th

A sundering weapon is particularly effective against inanimate objects.  It grants its wielder a +2 bonus on sunder combat maneuvers and such maneuvers never provoke attacks of opportunity when made with this weapon.  In addition, a sundering weapon deals double damage against objects. 

Construction Requirements

Craft Magic Arms and Armor, break or shatter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My ideal name for the biting ability would have been wounding, but that has already been taken by an ability that deals 1 point of bleed damage.  Alas.

-your biting d20 despot

Monster Monday: Funayurei, the Japanese Ghost That Sinks You With a Spoon

Today's Monster Monday is the funayurei, a drowned ghost from Japanese mythology.  In the stories told by Japanese sailors, funayurei are the restless spirits of dead seamen who take their frustration out by sinking the boats of the living.  One of the spirits appears by the boat and asks for a spoon or ladle - a simple enough request, but one with deadly results.  As soon as the funayurei has the ladle, it multiplies it a thousand times over, and a thousand funayurei hands appear and begin to ladle water into the boat with alarming speed.  Soon the boat is swamped, and the funayurei drag the crew down into the depths to join them in their watery grave.

Amusingly, Japanese boats that sail waters said to be haunted by funayurei carry ladles with holes in them specifically to foil the funayurei's evil spoon-based plans.

via Wikimedia

My wife brought this monster to my attention while she was reading an interesting book called Yurei: The Japanese Ghost, by Zack Davisson.  On its own, the undead spirit of a drowned sailor is a pretty good monster, but the weird spoon thing really makes this myth stand out, so I determined to incorporate it into their stat block.  You can see the result below.  I think the abilities of the monster allow it to pose a serious threat with a spoon, but they are versatile enough that they can be deadly on their own with nary a ladle in sight.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Fixing the Weapons Table, Part 9: Ranged Weapons

Welcome back to my ongoing series, Fixing the Weapons Table, wherein I channel my MA in medieval history and my near-compulsive need to tweak with game mechanics toward making the Pathfinder weapons table even better!  Today we'll take a look at ranged weapons: bows, crossbows, and slings.

In previous installments I've touched on throwing knives and hunga mungas, medieval gunpowder weapons including explosive arrows and crossbow bolts, and even the razor-sharp Indian throwing disc known as the chakram.  So what is left to say about ranged weapons?  As it turns out, plenty!  In this installment, we'll talk about bows and crossbows, sling staves, pila, and heavy javelins.  There's also tons of new ammunition types for bows and crossbows, including alchemical creations, plus I'm revising the explosive arrows and crossbow bolts from my previous entry on medieval gunpowder weapons.  So read on!

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Click to embiggen

Monster Monday: Ice Cube - The Freezing Ooze

Today's Monster Monday is an ice cube, an arctic version of the gelatinous cube that will literally chill you to the bone and leave behind nothing more than an eerily lifelike ice sculpture.

Photo by Editor at Large, via Wikimedia

Ice cubes will be making an appearance in this winter's holiday adventure, The Chaining of Krampus, a continuation of last year's Escape from the Lair of the Krampus.  I'll be trying to get that adventure finished as soon as possible - hopefully earlier than last year's embarrassing release date of December 26th.  I'll also try to make it shorter than last year's installment, which tended to take two sessions to finish.  Stay tuned to d20 Despot for more news on this free Christmas-themed adventure!

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Snegurochka - Slavic Snow Maiden

Today's Monster Monday is Snegurochka, the snow maiden of 19th century Slavic mythology.  In the tales, snegurochka is a being of pure snow whose curiosity about humans leads her to tragically melt (either from jumping over a fire as part of a game, or from falling in love).  Later, she becomes the helper and granddaughter of Ded Moroz, the Russian Santa.

I have statted her up as a supernatural being with powerful snow magic, capable of turning into a flurry of snowflakes or passing on winter's chill with her touch.  Her natural curiosity attracts her to human settlements, but a bad run-in with fire or warmth can lead her to violent outbursts against those who inadvertently threaten her with melting.

Снегурочка by Boris Zvorykin, via Wikimedia

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Improved Armor Tables Part 6 - Partial and Piecemeal Armor

This is part 6 of my ongoing series on improving the armor tables.  Unlike my Fixing the Weapons Table posts, these changes should be considered entirely optional and a GM should carefully consider whether they want to use them in their game, because it might mean a lot of tweaking stat blocks behind the scenes.  These changes are designed for GMs who love history and want their fantasy worlds to be a little more grounded in it.

This week I'm dropping the rules for partial and piecemeal armor, followed by some examples that illustrate the versatility of this system.  Thus far, the armor I have presented has been full-body armor, protecting the wearer more-or-less head-to-toe.  The following rules will allow a character to lighten the load by wearing only torso armor, or mix-and-match different armors to customize their dungeon-delving ensemble.

Pathfinder already has some armors that I would consider 'partial armors' - the breastplate and chain shirt spring to mind - though their relationship to more complete armors is ill-defined.  There are also already rules for piecemeal armor, but I find them overly complicated and not particularly versatile.  By their system, piecemeal armor is divided into torso, arm, and leg armor, and the only way to determine the stats of any given piece of armor is to find it on their tables.  I have created a more versatile, consistent system of rules that lets you break down any suit of armor into two pieces (torso armor and limb protection), and mix and match them.  I developed it for my own improved armor tables, but these rules can also be easily applied to the base Pathfinder armors, armor created for the d20 system by a third party, or your own homebrewed armors.

The following items and rules in gold and their accompanying tables are available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Monster Monday: Ketos, Sea Monster of Divine Retribution

Today's Monster Monday is the ketos, an ancient sea monster from Greek and Biblical mythology.  This is the monster that Poseidon sent to eat Andromeda, and that Perseus petrified with Medusa’s severed head.  The ketos is also frequently shown as the sea monster that swallowed Jonah in late classical and medieval depictions of the story.  In both cases, it is a monster sent by a deity to punish the impious by eating someone.

Andromeda liberata da Perseo by Piero di Cosimo, via Wikimedia

Herakles, appropriating the myth of Perseus and Andromeda, apparently also rescued a princess from a ketos, doing so in true herculean fashion by leaping into its mouth and slaying it from within.  In 58 BC, the Romans put the bones of what they believed to be the ketos that Perseus slew on display during gladiatorial games.  The bones were described as “forty feet long, with ribs taller than an Indian elephant, and spines eighteen inches thick.” 

Image ©Peter on flikr

"Hercules Slays the Ketos" from vase painting in Athens, Stavros S Niarchos Collection.

Many medieval depictions of the inside of the whale emphasize its overwhelming heat, to the point where at least one such depiction has Jonah going bald from the heat.  In a late tenth century tale recounted by the French monk Letaldus, with parallels to the story of Jonah, a fisherman named Within is swallowed by a great whale and kills the whale by setting his boat on fire and attacking the creature’s insides with his sword.  After four days and five nights, he is washed up in the whale's carcass and emerges hairless.  The whale that swallows Within is likened to Scylla and Charybdis, and described “with snake-like teeth and with an ever gaping gullet, a gullet that could tumble entire cities to the underworld.”  

Photo by wmpearl, via Wikimedia

Jonah Cast Up, 280-290 CE, marble, late Roman, Asia Minor, Cleveland Museum of Art

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Improved Armor Tables Part 5 - Heavy Armor

This is part 5 of my ongoing series on improving the armor tables.  Unlike my Fixing the Weapons Table posts, these changes should be considered entirely optional and a GM should carefully consider whether they want to use them in their game, because it might mean a lot of tweaking stat blocks behind the scenes.  These changes are designed for GMs who love history and want their fantasy worlds to be a little more grounded in it.

This week's subject is heavy armor.  This is the armor for those who can afford it, for while it may be more restrictive and, well, heavier than other armors, the protection it provides is second to none.  In the category of heavy armor, we have banded armor, bronze plate, mail-and-plate, heavy mail, bronze panoply, plate, and full plate.  This is armor for your characters that can take a beating and give one back in return: your stalwart legionnaires, your axe-wielding sea-raiders, your shining knights errant, and your bloodthirsty horsemen of the steppe.

Fans of plate armor will be pleased to see that, in these tables, plate and full plate offer more flexibility than they do in Pathfinder or D&D 3.5.  This is some of the best armor ever made, worn by the wealthiest warriors of Europe.  They would not have fought in it if it restricted their movements and limited their ability to fight.  It may have been heavy, but the way it was made and worn distributed its weight across the whole body, making it feel lighter than mail.

Read on to see the stats for all these armor types and learn more about them.  As before, I have provided some historical information with each armor entry in order to aid the GM in determining which armors would fit best in a particular campaign setting.

The following items and rules in gold and their accompanying tables are available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Grasping Dead, Skull Bomb, and Gaze of the Dead: Three New Necromancy Spells

Just in time for Halloween, here are three new necromancy spells.  The first, grasping dead, is the necromantic equivalent of entangle.  It causes corpses in an area to become uncomfortably handsy, grappling any nearby creatures.  The second spell, skull bomb, charges a skull with volatile amounts of negative energy, turning it into a dangerous bomb, trap, or thrown weapon.  The third, gaze of the dead, turns the eyes of basilisks, medusas, and other gaze-happy creatures into floating, necromantic weapons.

pixabay

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Improved Armor Tables Part 4 - Medium Armor

This is part 4 of my ongoing series on improving the armor tables.  Unlike my Fixing the Weapons Table posts, these changes should be considered entirely optional and a GM should carefully consider whether they want to use them in their game, because it might mean a lot of tweaking stat blocks behind the scenes.  These changes are designed for GMs who love history and want their fantasy worlds to be a little more grounded in it.

This week's subject is medium armor, more protective than light armor but less restrictive than heavy armor.  We've got leather plate, wooden slat, scale, light mail, jazerant, brigandine, and lamellar.  These include some of the most widely used armors from history.  Lamellar, for instance, was used from ancient times through to the 19th century, in places like Central Asia, Byzantium, and Tibet.  Some armors are more obscure, or more limited in geographic or temporal range; jazerant was largely a Middle Eastern variation on mail, though the Japanese later got in on it as well.

Brigandine is one of my favorite armors, but it is one that often goes overlooked.  Because the actual metal of the armor is concealed (except for the rivets attaching the plates to the cloth backing), it doesn't show up well in historical illustrations and it lacks visual appeal for Hollywood and for fantasy illustrators.  Medieval drawings of soldiers in brigandine armor were probably the inspiration for 'studded leather armor', the fictional type of armor so popular among Victorian medievalists, RPG designers, and Hollywood costume departments.  Nonetheless, brigandine was an incredibly effective and popular style of armor, and I hope it will become so in your games as well.

Read on to see the stats for all these armor types and learn more about them.  As before, I have provided some historical information with each armor entry in order to aid the GM in determining which armors would fit best in a particular campaign setting.

The following items and rules in gold and their accompanying tables are available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Improved Armor Tables Part 3 - Light Armor

This is part 3 of my ongoing series on improving the armor tables.  Unlike my Fixing the Weapons Table posts, these changes should be considered entirely optional and a GM should carefully consider whether they want to use them in their game, because it might mean a lot of tweaking stat blocks behind the scenes.  These changes are designed for GMs who love history and want their fantasy worlds to be a little more grounded in it.

This improved armor tables project has been a real labor of love for me.  I have poured countless hours into research, design, and revision that I honestly probably should have spent formulating my PhD proposal or writing thank you notes to my wedding guests.  But hey, I wouldn't be me if I weren't doing this.  What is the point of free time, I ask you, if not to spend it doing something which engages you, even if what engages you is reconciling a body of historical research with an RPG rules system and compiling the results on a table for the readers of your blog?

Now that my table is (mostly) complete, I've had a bit of a debate with myself as to how I should break it up to present to you.  Should I cram it all into one long post?  No, my posts tend to be overly long as it is.  Should I divide it in two, perhaps one post presenting prehistoric and Bronze Age armors and another presenting Roman and medieval armors?  Or perhaps divide it between primarily European and primarily non-European armors?  Finally, I settled on what is perhaps the most obvious solution: one post for light armors, one for medium, and one for heavy.  The deal was sealed when I realized that I had inadvertently made seven armors of each type.  The sixth and (possibly) final part of this series will go over a new set of rules for mixing together two armors to make a composite suit of armor.

The armors presented below and in subsequent parts probably shouldn't all be available in the same time and place in your game world.  After all, one would hardly expect a medieval German warrior to be able to purchase ancient Thracian bronze scale armor or 17th century Iroquois wooden slat armor.  For this reason, and for my own edification, I have provided some historical information with each armor entry below, in order to aid the GM in determining which armors would fit best in his or her campaign setting.

The following items and rules in gold and their accompanying tables are available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Monster Monday: Gobbits - A Swarm of Tiny Goblinoids

For today's Monster Monday, I'm adding a new member to the goblinoid family tree.  Gobbits are tiny, knee-high goblinoids that can form up into swarms and wreak havoc.

Warhammer gnoblar box art, via bibliotheque imperiale

My initial inspiration for these little guys came from the Warhammer universe.  Warhammer has a plethora of little goblinoid creatures, like gretchins, gnoblars (pictured above), grots, and snotlings.  Snotlings in particular captured my attention, because they are tiny little guys that attack in swarms.  I wanted something similar in my campaign setting, so years and years ago I statted them up under 3.5 rules as 'Glabouters'.  Glabouter comes from Klabautermann, a type of goblin or kobold from German mythology.  Upon reassessment, Klabautermänner should be nautical goblins or kobolds, which is pretty awesome, so I had to come up with a new name.  Gobbit fit because it sounds like a diminutive form of goblin, plus it is close to 'gobbet', meaning "a lump or chunk of something, especially of raw meat."

As an added bonus, the third definition of gobbet ("an extract of text, or image (especially a quotation), provided as a context for analysis, translation or discussion in an examination.") is a commonly used teaching and testing tool in history education, so naming a monster after it makes me happy.

Presented below are the stats for a solitary gobbit warrior and a mighty gobbit swarm.  I think a swarm of humanoids should feel different from a swarm of rats or vermin, so you may notice that the gobbit swarm is more versatile in combat, able to bristle with longspears and launch volleys of arrows.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Improved Armor Tables Part 2 - Shields

The stalwart knight raises his shield against the dragon's searing jet of flame.  Axe bites into shield as the two sea raiders begin a duel of honor.  The wild barbarians crash and break like the sea against the well-ordered legion's tight shield wall.  The brave warrior's crushed and bloody body is carried home on his shield.

Shields are an iconic part of ancient and medieval warfare, and naturally of fantasy roleplaying games as well.  They are also the subject of this week's Improved Armor Tables.  The last edition of Improved Armor Tables focused on the fantasy staples of hide and chitin armor, but from here on out they will largely be focused on bringing historical accuracy to the armor tables.  I have a degree in medieval history and I'm using it to shake things up in the world of fantasy RPGs.  Unlike my Fixing the Weapons Table posts, these fixes should be considered entirely optional and a GM should carefully consider whether they want to use them in their game, because it might mean a lot of tweaking stat blocks behind the scenes.  These changes are designed for GMs who love history and want their fantasy worlds to be a little more grounded in it.

In the d20 system, melee fighters face a dilemma: strap on a shield for a boost to your armor class, or leave that hand free to wield a two handed weapon - or maybe two weapons - to deal extra damage.  It's a trade off every RPG player is familiar with, but historically speaking it is not the only trade off about when to use a shield.  In ancient times, the Greek hoplite was the ultimate heavy infantry unit.  It didn't matter whether he was wearing bronze armor, leather or simple linen, as long as he had that great round bronze shield - the hoplon, the hoplite's namesake.  Think of Roman legionnaires and you'll probably picture them with those iconic tower shields, perhaps taking the impenetrable testudo formation.  The vikings had those round wooden shields, three feet in diameter and rimmed with iron.  But as time went on, the shields got smaller.  The long Norman 'kite' shield gave way to the smaller knightly 'heater' shield.  In the later Middle Ages, the small buckler - a foot or less in diameter - rose to prominence for foot combat.  As armor improved, cavalry and heavy infantry abandoned shields altogether, even in tournament jousts.  Why?  Because shields are heavy and cumbersome.  In ancient times, when armor was less advanced, larger shields meant more protection - for some warriors, a shield was the only armor they had.  But knight in full plate is actually more protected without a shield than with it because the shield weighs him down and slows his movements.

To reflect this, I have completely reworked shields.   They have gained a boost to AC, but have more taxing armor check penalties and max Dex bonuses.  There are more types of shields now, to reflect the greater historical variety of materials they were made from.  These different types are largely distinguished from each other by weight and by their hardness and hit points, which I have added to the table - this is important when someone tries to sunder a shield, or when you roll a natural 1 on a reflex save vs a fireball.  You will also notice that I have scrapped the light/heavy shield dichotomy.  There are now small and large shields (and tower shields), and light shields form a separate class of shield.  Read on to learn more!

The following items and rules in gold and their accompanying tables are available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.