tmw I learn that d3s, d5s, and d7s somehow exist

these look much better!

yeah it's by no means impossible to make them it's just kinda non-obvious how to make them statistically symmetric

it's pretty cool!

Most of what I know about D&D is from Order of the Stick, Crispy's Tavern, and BG3 letsplays, and I'm not about rping in any format but text due to how much better it's been for me than anything involving cat-herding scheduling and processing faces/voices in real time, but it's always interesting to hear the similarities between different kinds of rp.

I don't think they achieved the goal of a 3 sided die in the first pic, the second looks better

Yeah, same. XD

The number should be clear and clearly on top, not slanty and on the side!

Even if it isn't ambiguous, it's visually weird(tm).

yeah I mean I get the reasoning, but

exactly!

meanwhile I'm not immune to the siren song of character creation, but fortunately the character I'd want to create is sapient but not available as a PC in 5e so it'd have to be homebrewed and that is way too much effort for a "no play! only create!" character, so I might end up rambling about it here ^^

no stats, just vibes

so this is a fairly humanoid monster which, in rules-as-written, is mainly solitary or lives in small groups, doesn't care to create group identity or culture, and lives and is treated mostly like wild animals, having low INT but not too low to occasionally engage in mercenary activity and learn to wield certain weapons.

immediately we get the worldbuilding problem of sapient species which are written off by the source material as inherently evil, one point here being that they prey on large animals, including other humanoids.

they're almost but not quite obligate carnivores, and also they were originally magically created and have only been around for a few thousand years, so if I were going to choose how to make them playable as any alignment,

I'd attribute their current lifestyle to a solitary and very territorial species forced into smaller and smaller areas due to population expansion: lack of wilderness, lack of natural prey, and the more connected and in-groupy peoples writing them off as monsters to be gotten rid of.

Rules-as-written also have them maturing quickly and being neglected and chased away by their parents, which is something we see in a lot of animals that end up suffering as habitat attrition forces them to group up more than they want to.

I'd have the playable version interrogate how much of that is everyone "knows" they're monsters and regular people don't often come across them under safe circumstances so popular belief embroiders how bad they are and how scared everyone should be of them; some of their (nonmagical) traits make no sense for an actual self-perpetuating species

and 99% of this kind of thing for me is "it makes no sense for a monster to be like that! what WOULD make sense??"

and if they can wield a crossbow and work for the bbeg, they can and should also be collaborating with other peoples in other ways.

but all this would have to be background material because that kind of exploration isn't what I'd want to do with the character.

they have enough magical/supernatural heritage that a wild-magic sorcerer class could probably be justified, and I'd add a level or so of bard because 1. bard!!! and 2. it would fit in with some of their rules-as-written powers and serve to explain those things if they were concealing their identity.

but sorcerer would be their main class. there's enough volatility to a low-level wild-magic sorcerer that a quest to control all this magic would make sense.

beyond that there's a possible but possibly problematic had-to-work-for-a-hag backstory that would make knowledge of common customs and behavior plausible, enough to pass as a more accepted species of humanoid, but also provide a good herblore education, which I think would be interesting and helpful to the party

what I really want to stay away from is the whole "let's steal a [sapient creature] egg and raise it ~civilized~" thing, which bg3 properly treated with the contempt and disgust it deserves

there's specific cultural knowledge the character would need to mingle with Civilized People, but the same is true for paranoid, isolated rurals

(I should know)

with "learn more sorcerer" taking care of Why To Join A Party, there's also Why To Collaborate With The Party, which is half about party makeup and half about personality

and the third eldritch half about the shape of the story they're all in, and in here I've only got one out of three

but "they are after something we can't get alone and we'll more likely get it if we're all stronger" is always a good one

I think I've got one of these D3, I call it a weird bean, lol

Translucent Polyhedral Yellow/white d3 | PT0302 | 3-...

Oooh, pretty! I like the vortex through the middle!

Yeah, they're neat! ^_^

yeah i mean... a very different appearance and very different way of seeing things alone are more than enough fuel for "those are just Monsters" thinking, which tends to self-reinforce (once a group is seen as monsters, any anger at being treated that way is seen as proof, etc)

and that vicious cycle is a pretty solid justification for a lack of collaborating with other peoples

exactly! and it's a very classic problem in fantasy so if you're working in a preexisting system like 5e or pathfinder there's a lot of that just built in.

gotta have monsters to fight, monster is cooler with a dramatic hat and a big gun, monster knows how to have and use those things but ooooh they're all still definitely inherently evil

if the only people willing to work with them are sketchy evil guys, they'll probably learn that those are the only people they can work with, and write off most humans/etc just as they've been written off

yeah it's a thing that bugged me for a long long time

yup, and there's enough real-world cultural trauma and harmful/exploitative-to-this-day issues that I really can't just sit in a canon and not interrogate it

I mean I'm with you //gestures to Aztshuktha

when what I'd really like to do is interrogate how they managed to create a bird-based monster while doing zERO BIRD RESEARCH (this whole thing is of course about harpies, this is me, of course it's about harpies)

("their hunger is never sated and also their nests are full of rotting carcasses" these two things cannot be true at the same time)

rofl

....I tried to look up Aztshuktha and google just gave me Azhutha, a rl village in India?

but yeah I really think that with harpies canonically able to speak some common, use concentration-based magic (their song can hold one person at a time but only when focused), wield weapons, and collaborate with others for a common cause, there's plenty of room for a playable species there.

In 5e, harpies are essentially airborne sirens, but they're actually descended from an elf who went berserk and changed herself into a magical rage monster because her singing didn't attract the literal elven god of edgy antisocial recluses to her yard (where the second harpy came from is unrecorded lore)

so originating as a specific set of monstrous individuals particularly antagonistic towards elves makes sense, but they only live fifty years or so and there's been plenty enough generations since then for most harpies to know exactly none of that.

Honestly elves, with their long lives and long memories, probably play a big role in keeping the antagonism alive.

But things like "they never clean themselves and stink of entrails all the time"...... have you met birds of prey

you are talking about pelicans

not vultures

VULTURES DESERVE BETTER

the thing is, depending on circumstances and point in the timeline, this character would work as an npc just as well as a pc. even pcs gotta settle down someday (unless you're cohen the barbarian).

and even pcs can spend time in a stable environment like a shop or hermitage between adventures.

slap on an illusion, don't knock things over with your wings, bam done.

oh rofl sorry Aztshuktha is my half-orc OC XD

ahahaha, all is explained!

that's a very cool name!

i think i have some stuff about him in my muselist and his journal

Exacerangutan missed this but would like to see what you've developed!

man, there seems to be a whole category of rpg horror stories where winged characters get nerfed as "too op" and "unbalancing the party"; just let all the characters have flight ya cowards

hi dm, your party is now an aasimr, an aarakocra, a winged tiefling, a harpy, a pixie, a winged dragonborn, and a giant eagle, and it's your job to balance all encounters around everyone having flight. show your work. this will be on the test.

Pretty sure the harpy oc is named Harp and does not use an instrument because the level in bard is just there as a cover for having voice magic.

...ha, and then I find the bit where Crispy's Tavern explains his dislike of flying as a mechanic, and ok, I guess he has one (1) flaw XD

fair enough not wanting to keep track of which characters are flying and how far off the ground they are

there's got to be a way to automate that on a battle map, but he's allowed to have upfront preferences about what mechanics he wants to work with as a dm. my ire's reserved for people who accept a character and then nerf their properties without explaining that that's how the class/species works on their table.

man, how do wild magic sorcerers ever get anything done though

the wild magic table seems fun but the odds of tpk by Accidental Fireball Centered On Self seem unacceptably high, and at the same time only fifty potential effects would result in the sorcerer having experienced them often enough to take precautions

(at least You Are Now A Potted Plant has comes with HHGTTG jokes)

oops i missed your "i missed this" XD

perfectly appropriate

did you want a link, or was that an invitation to ramble? XD

Preferentially a ramble!

Speaking of Wild Magic and potted plants, in an RP I'm doing on Tumblr, my RP partner suggested using the wild magic table and we had a joke about the potted plant activating and Ark turning into a Piranha Plant from Mario 🤭

Monitoring the Grid

I'm actually not sure where to begin in the game I made him for, he ended up basically leading the vanguard of the counterattack of allied nations against an Evil Mage Empire from where he'd once escaped as a gladiator-slave

his name (traditionally given in early adolescence by the tribe's elders based on defining characteristics) is a contraction of Azto-Tshukshtha, meaning literally "eyes very far away," which can be interpreted as sort of a double-meaning between "distracted/absentminded" and "far-seeing/insightful"

Exacerangutan Sounds like a satisfying campaign arc for him and a cool naming convention! Your own conlang?

MewtwoWarrior HEEE I didn't know those were called Piranha Plants; that's hilarious!

infiniteviking: yeah! i tossed together some grammar, cultural notes, and vocab so I could have him roar horribly vulgar threats and insults in orcish to go with his like +30 intimidate rolls

Niiiice >D

There's something so satisfying about making a conlang.

Especally in a setting where you get to use it creatively icly.

yeah I had a lot of fun playing with cultural concepts and idioms etc

one of my favorites was two similar expressions, Urog'k-tshorodrugh and Urog'k-shatshodrugh, both of which could be translated literally as "wolf-slayer" in reference to wolves being revered animals

Urog'k-tshorodrugh (Urog'k=wolf + tsho=pefective + ro = kill + drugh="-er") actually does literally mean "wolf-slayer" but refers to severe attitude problems and disrespect, basically analogous to calling someone an asshole

Urog'k-shatshodrugh (Urog'k=wolf sha=habitual + tsho=stab + drugh="-er") can be interpreted the same way, and young orcs use that to get away with using it, but "tsho" is also slang for aggressive sex acts, so it's actually used to mean "habitual wolf-fucker," in the sense of someone who's simpering and overly eager to appease the gods/authority figures

pff, two very distinct types of disrespect

bravo!

infiniteviking: Yeah, it's great, they picked a wonderful name for them! ^_^