Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all

How I mark Initiative

I use a simple system for combat, each player chooses a coloured 3 by 5 index card, I have nine colours to pick from.

I then took 15+ index cards and cut them into three 1 inch by 5 inches strips, these are for marking effects/affects in game.

I fold them in half & tent the index cards on my DM screen, I do the same with my 1 by 5 strip's and write down affects/effects on going in the game.
I use white index cards for monsters.
With this I use it for Initiative, concentration, grappled, bless, etc.....

Below are pictures of how I do this.  

Then when condition that are needed to be marked I can place the strips across the corresponding characters or monsters.

I go left to right on my DM's/GM's screen for initiative.

On the green index card is a yellow strip that says concentration
on the orange index card is a green strip that says dodge
on the yellow index card is a blue strip that says prone
on the red index card is a pink strip that says grappled.

The mini-refrigerator in the back ground has characters that have been killed in past games.

Witcher Game session one & Characters

Witcher Game using the Nightmare Underneath engine

The Characters

Each of the player characters has been in one way or another blessed by either fate or an ancestor spirit. They are the “Touched,” as the other villagers would say, and are viewed with a mix of wonderment, respect, fear, jealousy, and even pity, for the gifts granted by fate always carry a price.

Amie: playing “Placeholder name here,” a Daughter of Mawe’patis, that aspect of the god Veyo’patis which manifests in times of threat, fury, and wrath. Lord of Wood and Water, Veyo’patis is among the oldest of all gods and its worship has been in decline for centuries. Your village of Oderhan is among the safest in all of Velen partly because of the propitiation of Mawe’patis and the battle magics it grants to its Children. On her Name Day (the time when a village child turns thirteen years old and is no longer called by his diminutive name) she was gifted a ka’peche—a vine-dagger used in rituals of sacrifice to honor Veyo’patis in all its aspects—and from that day forth was destined to become one of its Children.

Chris: playing Dexter, a sage and wizard, one of the few male keepers of lore (though the village wise women have their own secrets), he is acerbic and even caustic at times. On his Name Day he was gifted a grimoire that started him on the path of wizardry. He wields among his magics a moderate healing spell and is respected by the village crones for how this magic safekeeps all in the village, and he also serves as an alternate source of lore to the Elder, who prefers to remain undisturbed unless plied with a Trade for his (her?)

​aid

.

Dave: playing Henk, an uncouth blacksmith and village militiaman, hard-headed, practical, with both feet planted firmly in the ground, he has no airs of pretention and suffers none who do. His bloodline is that of

​the

 fabled hero

​,​

Pa’terik (or “Patrick”), a warrior and protector of Velen and its people from generations ago. On his Name Day he was gifted the blade wielded by his uncle Patrick (namesake of the ancient hero), which he bears proudly in the defen

​s

e of his people.

David: playing Hawk, a mixed-breed village militiaman,

​rumored 

to be half feral (the “ferals” are a community of coastal swamp dwellers who rarely interact with other Veleni peoples, except to raid

​, and are said to be occasional cannibals​

), he is believed to be in communion with a mighty ancestor spirit or perhaps even Shouhwah, the Elemental god of Air. On his Name Day he was gifted a

​pearlescent 

seashell and shortly thereafter was called to his father’s people following a terrible tragedy on that side of his family (village gossips

​ whisper of a 

curse

​d​

  family member). After five years

​among his feral kin 

he returned to Oderhan to re-establish his family ties

​ and

 friendships. Remarkably, since Hawk’s Name Day

​,​

Oderhan has been spared any raids by the ferals, and village talk is that there is some sort of pact or treaty centered around a mingling of bloodlines.

And So It Begins...

Gathering a bounty of fish and swamp critters for their larders, the PCs were enjoying their final moments of rest at the end of a long day

​ of hunting and fishing​

when the unmistakable scent of burning thatch roofs was carried to them on the wind. Rushing back to the village they saw that five homes were engulfed in flames and that dozens of villagers had managed to flee from the attack of a strange six-legged panther-like beast that had the ability to flicker from spot to spot in a jarring way. The creature was also noted to have two deadly spiked tentacles that whipped from its muscled neck and torso with

​natural weapons

 it wreaked bloody havoc in the village. The PCs engaged the beast but

​it fled

, wounded and dripping blood, into

​ the surrounding tall grasses and brush, as the last light of the sun waned into full dusk.

After putting out the fires and attending to the wounded, things were assessed: three villagers were dead (including the village headman’s wife and dullard twin brother), dozens more were injured, and ten village dogs had been decapitated by the beast. One villager had managed to strike the beast with a spear and this sheared off, of all things, a collar! Marked with Elven script (deciphered by Dexter to read “

​Blessed Instrument of His Dark Majesty, Coram Agh Tera, my Beloved Spine-ripper

”) it was then decided to take the collar to the Elder, to secure aid in tracking the beast, and this was done by Henk. A Trade with the Elder was made and Henk now has the flawless means to track the beast to its lair.

Next Books for 5e

Wizards of the Coast announced the second product for Fall 2018, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

 http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?5296-Second-Dungeons-Dragons-Product-for-2018-Waterdeep-Dungeon-of-the-Mad-Mage

the first is Dragon Heist 

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dragonheist

Re-skinning Spells

As with Re-skinning Monster you can do the same with spells.

What that means is take the classic fireball spell and make it an acid ball.  What changes? the damage type mainly. You can increase the detail and go will splash damage the round after, but that changes the spell by increasing it's damage. A simple way is to decrease the damage by the fireball by two dice and then adding an effect of two dice damage the round after (one dice if you made the save)
Pretty simple.

Examples are,

Burning hands to Lightning damage (if you want to add extra damage to armoured targets lower the DC for it and add a dice damage, or you can give disadvantage to the save for armoured targets.

Ice Knife to Poison Knife same spell but explodes in poisonous damage.

Thunder wave to Necrotic wave, same spell but is Necrotic damage.

you get the picture.

Enjoy!   

Session 11 of Rise of the RuneLords in 5e

Cast of Heroes
Session Nine
Session Ten

Riding down to the coast the party quickly made it to Foxglove manor, the wild life, mostly crows were eerily silent and rousted all over a old building just before the manor. They cleared the area from all the rubble and found a old water well, Mac cast light on a stone and dropped it in, guessing that it was a 40 or 50 foot drop, they continued on to the Manor. Once they finished investigating the outside perimeter they went onto the front porch and used the key they found on the ghoul that once was Rogors Craesby.

The door opened and the mildew,dust and despair and meet them at portal to this old house, a stuffed manticore just stared at them, a faint sound of a woman crying came from somewhere upstairs.
Going systematically through room to room activated the ghostly haunts waiting in each of the rooms, a choking scarf, a ghostly apparition, dancing with the same apparition, being choked by an invisible creature, frightened ghostly children all but terrified the group. In time they found and released the revenant of the person they believed to be the murderers wife.
She flew into a rage and smartly the party stood back as she ran down the hallway and stairs and begun destroying the floor on the main level of the manor. She was leading them into the unknown?

As she flung wood boards from the floor into the air, a large hole appeared in the foundation underneath the manor, a dozen feet below crude stairs were cut from the foundation of the very rocks that formed beneath them. 
Entering the darkness below, the surf could be heard in the distance and a gang of ghouls attacked the party, they were dispatched quickly.

The party entered into a large chamber, lit my phosphorous molds, they witnessed the Revenant down an incline begin battering on a stone store with goblins standing back from her. She was 25 feet down a spiral slope that followed the walls of this camber until it hit sea level. 

Charles led the charge, he fell flat on his face and slide into the wall as it curved ever so down till it reached 50 feet below in the rising and falling of the tidal waters of the Varisian Bay, the cavern floor was slick with dampness.As Toucan began to move a sound came from the cavern next to Mac.
Ulfgar changed into a dire wolf and moved past him more cautiously, just then a second pack of ghouls emerged from the camber to attack the priest and monk.

Mac was attacked and left paralyzed with fear.

Charles & Ulfgar attacked in confidence, but then realizing that the goblins did not attack her not as they were afraid but because they were undead themselves, four goblin ghasts to be correct, thinking it would be making short work of the little brutes was harder then expected.
As two fell, the Revenant was almost through the door, Toucan sprung across the water to his horror he made a large splash as he failed his acrobatics check.

Just then a screech disrupted the cavern causing ear drums to pop, only Ulfgar was damaged by this foul creatures roar but the group pulled together and took on this beast, Charles & Toucan engaged it as screams came from the room beyond,

Not only was this bat of enormous size it was also undead, a ghoul dire bat, skaveling they are called took a beating from the combined attacks of Toucan & Charles, Ulfgar turned to his dwarf self as his dire wolf part was heavily damaged in the fight with the ghasts & skaveling. The skaveling took to the air and blasted the party with another screech, this time no one was affected.

The Revenant went into the room and began arguing with someone, something? Most could not be heard as the echo from the last screech was bouncing around the cavern affecting everyone's hearing.
Once Toucan entered the room, he saw Aldern the man he saved from the goblin attack on sandpoint had been turned into a ghoul and his pet ghasts attacked the women that had led them down into this place of evil.

Once the women Revenant fell Mac dropped a fireball in the room but not before Toucan became the victim to a shadow that seemed to be trapped in a mold growing on the wall, he began licking and eating the mold.
Once the skaveling fell, Ulfgar entered the room and changed into a giant Octopus and held Aldern down till the group took his life.

Paizo Pawns in D&D 5e part 2

Part one is here, part one


Using Pathfinder Products in D&D 5e
Here are a list of Pawns that are available for sale, don't be overwhelmed by the amount, I will explain a few of these here,

pathfinder/accessories/miniatures/pawns

Paizo releases a Pathfinder Adventure Path once a month, they colour code and number them on release, so that a six issue run will take characters from levels one to eighteen in the Pathfinder game.
I have run one Adventure Path and currently running a second in Dungeons & Dragons 5e using the story set out in the Adventure Paths but using the D&D 5e engine.

Paizo sells separate sets of Pawns that follow adventure paths, they do come with bases so the Bestiary Box or buying the bases separate is a must, I have a $1 cheap mans fix which I will show later. These smaller pawn sets add to the bestiary box, so if in the adventure path you need 14 goblins the bestiary box comes with  4 goblins the AP supplement (in this case Rise of the Rune Lords) adds another 10 goblin pawns.

Rise of the RuneLords Pawn set
Rise-of-the-Runelords-Pawn-Collection

I project images from a projector and use miniatures and pawns in my game. I have over 2000 miniatures but if I did not I would only have party members in my game as actual miniatures. The rest would be pawns.

Below the picture shows a few pawns with miniatures in one of are games.

Next we will look at how I mark my bases when you have to many of the same miniatures or pawns on the table.