5E Hack: Class Templates Part 5

Welcome back to my attempt to hack 5e character creation into something fast and rollable.  Collected for your consideration are all the templates. A minor change I've made places the simplest template in the number 1 spot. If you need a character fast the first template should fulfill the role of that character without much fuss. The previous template tables will be updated to reflect this.

The Final Product

I have at this point finished the first playtesting ready drafts of the 5e class templates. Here they are!

 These are going to be playtested in my upcoming 5e campaign mid-April and I'm very excited to check the results. Let me know of your favorites or if there are any you'd like me to review for content. This has been my first real RPG design project and I'm looking forward to many more in the future.

Death, But Make it Spooky

I've been in the process of putting together a players guide for my upcoming spooky forest game and I put into writing some fun death rules. My players tend to get attached to their characters and I've provided ways to avoid that unfortunate situation where a character dies midway through a session leaving one player benched for a couple of hours. Without further ado here is Death in the Bitterwood. These rules will likely be used for a 5E game but here's hoping I can add more weird curses to it in the future.

Source

DEATH

The Bitterwood is often very dangerous. Death might become common while exploring and you should be prepared for that. Resurrection magic is unseen in these parts but other options exist. After death, you may make a new character with a level matching the Party Level - 1. They will level up to Party Level upon surviving one session. When you die in session you have 3 options.

Change in Perspective. 
Take control of an NPC ally until the session ends.
(Easiest option, keeps the player involved and allows a possible permanent replacement to emerge.

Walking Dead. If your body can be retrieved, taken to a safe location, and your allies can perform a DC10 medicine check, you can be brought back to the land of the living temporarily. For the remainder of the session, you can play your character, who has been brought back with half of its maximum HP. You can’t be healed by magic in this state. If you fall unconscious in this state you die permanently. At the end of the session, the grit and bandages keeping your character alive run out.
(This one gives the character a chance to finish off lingering business without undoing the death. It also rewards players for retrieving the bodies of their allies).

Petition the Things in the Dark. If your body cannot be retrieved, your spirit can hold on at a price. You return to life whole of body and unsound of mind. You harbor a general curse and a specific curse and are always aware of them. The general curse is as follows:

• You cannot stray more than 6 miles from the Bitterwood or you will die (painfully)

Source

The specific curse is as follows (roll 1d10)

1. Hunger: Your body always needs more to eat yet you waste away. You require twice as many rations to avoid exhaustion. You have disadvantage on Constitution Checks and Saves.
2. Wolf: You are always pursued by a large, white wolf. You can fight it off but it always comes back within a day. Eventually, it will win.
3. Tether: Someone you are close to takes damage whenever you do. If you can’t decide, each day the forest decides for you. Those tethered see a ghostly string connecting them to you.
4. Faceless: Your face melts away leaving only vacant eye holes and a slit mouth. You have disadvantage on all Charisma Checks and Saves.
5. Gibbering: You are unable to speak any common language. You are at disadvantage to attack with your spells and creatures have advantage on saves against your spells.
6. Master's Call: Your mind becomes weak to suggestion. You have disadvantage on all Wisdom Saves and Checks. Any attempts you make to navigate will always lead you deeper into the wood.
7. We Are Many: Everyone looks like you now. Animals look like strange stretched out versions of you. Your allies look like you cosplaying your allies. Killing anyone that looks like you makes you go unconscious from the shock of it all.
8. Tar: You feel like you are constantly covered in thick tar. Your movement is stiff and speaking feels like drowning. Movement speed is halved.
9. Lies: Large crows follow you around. they insist on calling you “Maddened of the Woods” and spin tales of your awful debauchery to anyone that will listen. Like all good rumors, these spread like wildfire.
10. Changeling: You are actually a changeling pretending to be you. Healing magic hurts you and animals fear you. Your actual “corpse” is somewhere in the woods. If you find it and dispose of it no one will know of your true nature.

Dying after you’ve been cursed turns you into a creature of the night. Your character becomes an NPC under the DM’s control.

(The curses are meant to be more evocative than balanced. They show off the spooky sorts of things that could happen to those lost in the woods. I intend to apply a few of these to NPCs the players find to make it feel like a more concrete part of the world.)

Running OSR (for the first time)

Over the holiday season, I ran Tomb of the Serpent King not only once but twice with two different parties. I also used the opportunity to playtest my 5e character creation hack.

My players were used to 5e so I did some explaining on how the tomb isn't balanced for their level one characters, furthermore, I tried out gold as XP and gave them an NPC hireling and a donkey as possible secondary resources.

1st Party 

 This party of three made their way to the tomb with Gabe, a local youth who has agreed to stash and transport the party's treasure for a flat fee. Featured in the party was a Tabaxi Monk, a Goblin Bard, and a Human Barbarian. They were definitely more cavalier with encounters. They triggered quite a few traps but learned to start avoiding them once they entered the true tomb. There was a fight against the black pudding which they smartly kited around to avoid the lethal nature of its pseudopods. One player did some cool shenanigans with the ring that lets you remove your eye and see through it by combining it with mage hand. There was almost a TPK as the players attempted to face the Stone Cobra Guardian head on. Following their near-death experience, they took advantage of the bottomless pit and stealth to dispatch the guardian. The dungeon barnacles stumped them for a bit so they continued on towards the goblin pits. At this point, things went poorly. The goblins moved in numbers the party wasn't well prepared for, forcing the party to use oil and firebombs to keep them at bay while retreating. With a sizable haul of treasure retrieved the party voted to head back to town and sell their treasure for more efficient resources. At this point, we ended the session. (This was the only party that made use of the hireling and sent him out ahead to get some gold safely out of the dungeon.)

2nd Party

This party of three featured an Elf Barbarian, a Human Wizard, and an Elf Rogue. This party was much more cautious about traps and were only seriously hurt by the lightning trap. They briefly encountered the Basilisk but chose to take an alternative path to avoid such a dangerous creature. They briefly split the party and the hidden mummy claws almost killed the rogue. The black pudding was trapped in the tomb it came from due to the wizard setting off a minor cave in with some spells. Upon reaching the Stone Cobra Guardian they made a few exploratory attempts to test its strength and opted for the stealth+push off cliff combo right away. After defeating the Guardian and reaching the dungeon barnacles we called it for the night.  

Impressions

Tomb of the Serpent King: The 1st group enjoyed the dungeon and being able to solve problems creatively. The stand out encounter for them was definitely the fight and later toppling of the Stone Cobra Guardian. They took a route that completely avoided the Basilisk so they never got to experience that section of the dungeon. The 2nd group enjoyed the camaraderie and seemed slightly disappointed that combat was almost always solved by wit rather than fisticuffs. I'm hoping to finish the dungeon sometime down the line and expose the players to the other weird things within.

5E Character Creation Hack: All the players seemed to appreciate the fast rolling nature of the 5E Templates. One of the players wanted to switch out weapons for their background and another wanted more choices than the given 6.

Gold as Experience: This one didn't elicit any specific reactions. It did encourage more exploration and planning on how to exit the dungeon safely. More importantly, it kept them away from the mindset of dungeons having a final boss.

Overall: I enjoyed myself immensely and might try a simpler system next time. 

5E Hack: Class Templates Part 4

Welcome back to my attempt to hack 5e character creation into something fast and rollable.  Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard class templates were mostly completed. They function as follows.

Class Templates

All classes have 6 templates. You may roll to determine or choose one from the list presented.
Templates functionally combine and replace Starting Skill Proficiencies, Starting Equipment and Backgrounds during character creation.
If your race provides a proficiency provided by your Template, you may replace one of the proficiencies in the template with a different one.

All Templates come with traveling basics

• A backpack/bag/sack
• A wineskin with alcohol or other liquid 
• A bedroll
• A mess kit 
• A tinderbox
• A day's rations (7) 
• 10 gold pieces 
• A light source (usually 6 torches or a hooded/bullseye lantern with 2 flasks of oil) 

Some templates include an animal. Unless marked by a “*” the animal has 1 hp and no concrete mechanical capabilities. Animals marked with a “*” can be found in the PHB

After selecting/rolling a template choose a discipline and toolkit for your character

• A Discipline includes a game set, artisan’s tools, or musical instrument; along with its accompanying proficiency.
• A Toolkit includes a Disguise kit, Forgery kit, Herbalism kit, Navigator’s tools, Poisoner’s kit, Land Vehicle or Water Vehicle Proficiency and the accompanying kit/tools (Land Vehicle Proficiency comes with a wagon, Sea Vehicle Proficiency comes with a rowboat).

Now completed and ready to roll on are the Monk and Ranger tables.

Monk Tables go by the following starting equipment template

• 1 Monk Weapon (Detailed)
• 1 Ranged Weapon
• Robe or monk outfit
• Musical Instrument or Artisan Tools
• A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)
• Flavor/fluff item (no clear mechanical use)
• Equipment (Clear mechanical use)
• 50’ of rope

Ranger Tables go by the following starting equipment template

• 1 ranged weapon w/ 20 arrows/bolts
• 2 simple weapons
• light/medium armor
• A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)
• Flavor/fluff item (no clear mechanical use)
• 2x Equipment (Clear mechanical use)
• 50ft of rope where applicable

Minor notes:

I have four classes left to complete before I can playtest the whole template situation. I'm trying to keep good notes on the starting equipment so I can make more templates in the future. Overall I've really been enjoying the process and hope it's something people can use in their game. 

5E Hack: Class Templates Part 3

Welcome back to my attempt to hack 5e character creation into something fast and rollable.  Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard class templates were mostly completed. Since we last visited them I have added a basis for the templates that works as follows.

Class Templates

All classes have 6 templates. You may roll to determine or choose one from the list presented.
Templates functionally combine and replace Starting Skill Proficiencies, Starting Equipment and Backgrounds during character creation.
If your race provides a proficiency provided by your Template, you may replace one of the proficiencies in the template with a different one.

All Templates come with traveling basics

• A backpack/bag/sack
• A wineskin with alcohol or other liquid 
• A bedroll
• A mess kit 
• A tinderbox
• A day's rations (7) 
• 10 gold pieces 
• A light source (usually 6 torches or a hooded/bullseye lantern with 2 flasks of oil) 

Some templates include an animal. Unless marked by a “*” the animal has 1 hp and no concrete mechanical capabilities. Animals marked with a “*” can be found in the PHB

After selecting/rolling a template choose a discipline and toolkit for your character

• A Discipline includes a game set, artisan’s tools, or musical instrument; along with its accompanying proficiency.
• A Toolkit includes a Disguise kit, Forgery kit, Herbalism kit, Navigator’s tools, Poisoner’s kit, Land Vehicle or Water Vehicle Proficiency and the accompanying kit/tools (Land Vehicle Proficiency comes with a wagon, Sea Vehicle Proficiency comes with a rowboat). 

Now that the traveling basics are covered before the actual tables, they will no longer be included in the starting equipment portion. I will be updating the previously posted tables to fit the new format in a pdf document in the future. For now, enjoy the table for druid I have retrieved from the wilds.

Druid

I am a fan of the new look, It wastes less space on survival essentials and lets the specific flavorful stuff stick out more. Raised by Wolves and Stormborn, in particular, are my favorites.

Starting Equipment Includes: 

• Druidic focus
• Melee weapon
• Armor (Light) with a thematic cloak
• A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)
• Flavor/fluff item (no clear mechanical use)
• Equipment (Clear mechanical use)
• Herbalism Kit (All druids have herbalism kit proficiency)

Coming soon to this blog are the ranger and monk tables chock full of evocative templates like fur trapper and wandering poet.

5E Hack: Class Templates Part 2

This post documents one of my proposed D&D 5E Hacks, The Class Template. It includes Proficiencies, Starting Equipment, and Backgrounds into an easy to parse 1d6 table. Part 1 included the Barbarian and an explanation for the Templates use in character creation. Part 2 has the 4 Classic Classes (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard) and the notes I used to fill in their starting inventory.

Cleric

Cleric was a fun one to put together. The most important thing to include in a cleric template I felt was a unique holy symbol. While players are free to change how their holy symbol looks, having a unique one for each template gives them more personality. My favorite would probably be Wild-Eyed Doomsayer. 

Starting Equipment Includes:

Melee weapon

Shield/ranged weapon

Armor (light or medium/heavy)

Holy symbol (with detail)

Bag of some sort

A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)

Holy text (no clear mechanical use)

Clerical Equipment (clear mechanical use)

Wineskin and liquid

50ft of rope if the template is military or dungeoneer focused

Tinderbox, rations (7 days), 10 gp

Exceptions based on the template

Fighter

The fighter as it stands shares templates with the Barbarian. The three that are shared (Sea Rover, Monster Tracker, and Steppe Nomad) tended to be well equipped enough to function as fighters. As a minor note 3 of the 6 templates feature an animal of some sort. While the Corsair's parrot serves as more a 1 hp pet with little to no mechanical benefits, the Sea Rover and Steppe Nomad feature animals that classically have stat blocks. I am considering dropping these animals for future iterations but for now, they stick around. Of the six templates, Corsair is my favorite. 

Starting Equipment Includes

2 Melee Weapons

1 Ranged Weapon

Shield

Armor (Light/Medium)

Bag of some sort

A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)

Flavor/fluff item (no clear mechanical use)

Equipment (clear mechanical use)

Wineskin and liquid

50ft of rope if the template is military or dungeoneer focused

Tinderbox, rations (7 days), 10 gp

Possible exceptions based on the template

Rogue

Rogue has the most skill proficiencies to work with as well as an auto-included proficiency in thieves' tools. I'm still on the fence about matching this amount of proficiencies in Bard so be on the lookout for that update. Rogue has the most starting nonweapon equipment to work with as befitting of their station and Duelist for Hire is probably my favorite out of the lot.

Starting Equipment Includes

2 Weapons

Leather armor

Thieves’ tools

Bag of some sort

A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)

Flavor/fluff item (no clear mechanical use)

3 Equipment (clear mechanical use)

Wineskin and liquid

50ft of rope

Tinderbox, rations (7 days), 10 gp

Possible exceptions based on the template

Wizard

Wizards have the usual 4 proficiencies with an auto-included arcana proficiency. Every wizard also includes a unique spellbook and focus They have access to less equipment overall but that may change in future updates. Sylvan Ambassador is my favorite wizard template out of the six as it leads into a more fey/illusion aesthetic.

Starting Equipment Includes:

Spellbook

Focus

Bag of some sort

A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)

Simple melee weapon

Simple ranged weapon

Flavor item (no clear mechanical use)

Wineskin and liquid

50ft of rope if the template is military or dungeoneer focused

Tinderbox, rations (7 days), 10 gp

Exceptions based on the template

With the 4 Classic Classes completed, my next goal is to venture into the wilds and return with templates for Druid and Ranger. I'll of course update any of the previous tables with any changes I make. Until then I hope you can use these at your table for some quick character generation.

5E Hack: Class Templates Part 1

At this point, it is fairly obvious I play D&D 5e and maybe less obvious that I think character creation is a huge chore. To remedy this I present Class Templates, put together by discord user @Jojiro#7209 and myself.

The Class Templates combine Proficiencies, Starting Equipment and Backgrounds for the player to roll or choose from on a 1d6 table. Currently Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard are completed. The Barbarian Template was a test case but as written you could roll a classic D&D party and have your 1st level character halfway done within 5 minutes. Below is the Barbarian Template.

I decided on Athletics Proficiency as an auto-include due to all the benefits from Barbarian Rage. There is some overlap between the Barbarian and the Fighter, particularly with Sea Rover, Monster Tracker, and Steppe Nomad. I intend to update and specialize them in the future but for now, they serve as an interesting template for both.

I've also included some notes on filling in the Starting Equipment

Starting Equipment Includes
2 Melee Weapons
1 Ranged Weapon
Shield
Armor (Light/Medium)
A bag of some sort
A light source (6 torches or either kind of lantern with 2 flasks of oil)
Flavor/fluff item (no clear mechanical use)
Equipment (Clear mechanical use)
Wineskin and liquid
50ft of rope if the template is military or dungeoneer focused
Tinderbox, rations (7 days), 10 gp
Possible exceptions based on the template

The overall goal is to cut down on character creation time for new players or players in a high lethality 5e game. In my follow up post I'll include the 4 Classic Classes and their Equipment notes.