I have a Wizard in the group I am running, and while he is enjoying the Wizard, he has talked to me a bit after…

I have a Wizard in the group I am running, and while he is enjoying the Wizard, he has talked to me a bit after…

I have a Wizard in the group I am running, and while he is enjoying the Wizard, he has talked to me a bit after sessions on how he misses all of the little utility spells he is used to having in D&D.

So taking some inspiration from one of the Discern Realities podcasts that I binged over the last few months… i don’t recall the which episode, but they did talk about the possibility of using Ritual in at a much smaller scale to help fill in for some of the missing utility. I coupled that idea with one of my own favorite Wizards, Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files, and I have come up with this custom move. This is a first draft, we haven’t even taken this to the table yet, but I thought I’d put it our here for input. Thanks!

Personal Place of Power

Requires Ritual move

When you take a moment to mentally or physically inscribe a circle around you, you have created a personal place of power. This circle concentrates your innate magical power allowing you to perform minor utilitarian feats, for a cost. While in the circle, you may make the Ritual move with the following limitations:

• The effect must be utilitarian in nature and not deal direct damage

• The effect cannot be permanent, it will last moments/minutes/hours (choose one)

• While the effect is in play, take -1 ongoing. When the effect ends, take -1 forward.

In addition, the GM will give you one to four of the following conditions:

• It’s going to take moments/minutes/hours

• First you must __

• You’ll need help from __

• It will draw unwanted attention

• It will require sacrificing something valuable

• The best you can do is a lesser version, unreliable and limited

• You’ll need hair/blood/personal items from you or the target of the effect

A player in my group wanted to play a shapeshifter, but not the Druid.

A player in my group wanted to play a shapeshifter, but not the Druid.

A player in my group wanted to play a shapeshifter, but not the Druid. He wanted something more feral, heavily influenced by the Navajo skin-walker legends, but not necessarily evil.

Here is the Skinwalker. I cobbled it together, inspired by/borrowing from the core Druid, the Druid playbook from David Guyll and Melissa Fisher, and the Slayer compendium class from Class Warfare by Johnstone Metzger. I have heavily re-flavored the moves I borrowed from the Slayer class to feel more feral, and less soldierly. I also reworked the skin-walker move to be a little more structured.

For those that are not familiar with the skin-walker legends, typical powers of a skin-walker are shapeshifting into the form of animals, increased strength, increased dexterity, increased speed, and regeneration. I tried to incorporate some aspect of each of these in this playbook.

Let me know what you think!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZzZB_zcIymYzZCuruVFhoZfcQdbeNBsU

Prodigy and Master seem both needlessly complicated (see number of posts about Prodigy + Level 1 spells) and also…

Prodigy and Master seem both needlessly complicated (see number of posts about Prodigy + Level 1 spells) and also…

Prodigy and Master seem both needlessly complicated (see number of posts about Prodigy + Level 1 spells) and also very restrictive, only affecting one spell in your already limited spellbook. That feels the opposite of a ‘prodigy’ to me.

I am considering house ruling these moves to this instead:

Prodigy – When preparing spells, the total levels of spells can’t exceed your level +2.

Master – Replaces Prodigy. When preparing spells, the total levels of spells can’t exceed your level +3.

This seems to be much simpler and cleaner, and much more versatile. It also resolves the issue of Prodigy + Magic Missile and all of the weird issues that creates. Is it a cantrip? If not, can it be memorized 100 times since it is effectively level 0? etc..

Has anyone else used a similar house rule? If so, how did that work out?