Non-casters Should Be Specialists

I don't like the Martial as a label, largely because I am not as excited about combat as I used to be. Today I went through a lengthy conversation log in one of the discords I'm on, and came to the realization that this could solve two of my problems with D&D on one fell swoop.

Let people be Specialists instead of Martials. People will laugh about a Fighter having skills that are not fighting, but I find it so utterly bizarre that only the typical Rogue would get to be a specialist. Everyone needs to be useful both in combat, but also out of combat. And what better thing could balance that out than skills? If you don't waste time learning spells, you waste it learning skills.

But how could one make several different types of specialists without putting them into very specific niches? Let's see if I can succeed at that. (Bear in mind there can be overlaps in these categories)

Self Specialization

Your body is the only thing you need to resolve most problems you meet. Whether it's fighting, fixing things, getting places, or anything else. Sure a body is limited in some ways, but you've exercised it enough to be excellent in all the things that really matter to you. This doesn't mean that you have to be strong, or sneaky, or anything else. You still pick your specialization for yourself, but it's your body that you do this with.

Tools Specialization

You get things done with the right tools. Hammers, saws, and such are just one aspect of this, don't get fooled by a label of a 'tool', what the label actually represents are things. Physical objects separate from your body. Picking a lock is hardly doable with your fingers, you'll need a set of lockpicks. Fighting a hoard of enemies is easier if you have a long stick with a pointy rock at its end, or a spear if you're more advanced than that. You won't get hurt that easily if you wear an armor, and you won't lose your way if you have a compass. You're gonna be fine as long as you are not empty-handed.

Environment Specialization

Upon entering a room, you can tell immediately what you could use in what ways, conventional or not. That pan would make for an awesome improvised weapon, or you could make a gnarly omelet with it. This table could be climbed under, jumped over, or maneuvered around to get distance between you and a pursuer. Use chairs to reach high places, use a spoon or a knife or a ladle to reach a distant thing. How is this different from using the tools is improvisation and thinking out of the box. A tools specialist has their set of items that they'd like to carry around, which they too could use in unconventional ways. You look around and see what's around you that could be used. It doesn't have to be an item either - a tree could have many different purposes, same for a hole in a ground or another lack of a distinct thing.

Others Specialization

No, this isn't a catchall "everything else" category. This category stands for other agents, other living (and possibly unliving) things. Whether it's your own servants, or other people. You are a manager type of person, who gets other people to do things for you. This doesn't mean that you sit around doing nothing, you coordinate the group so that it works efficiently.

Neeeeeeeeeeeerd!
Art by o.sporin

In Practice

Let's say you are trying to find which way is North. What do you do?

• Self: You think about which way did you see the Sun rise or set last. Maybe you look for the North star or its equivalent for the world. Or maybe you mentally keep track of this all along.
• Tools: You pull out your trusty compass, of course!
• Environment: You check for moss on the trees and other typical environmental signs of which way the North is.
• Others: You ask people, observe the migration of the birds, or otherwise find it out from other people/animal/living/unliving beings.

Maybe you're trying to fight. How do you do that?

• Self: Kicking, punching, headbutts, and so on.
• Tools: Knives and blades, staves and hammers, whatever you feel like wielding this time.
• Environment: That branch over there, this door, that window is perfectly positioned for tactical defenestration, and so on.
• Others: You give out commands and coordinate multiple people for a nasty combo.

Still not convinced? How about they try to convince you instead?

• Self: Draws from their deep knowledge resources within.
• Tools: Books, maps, letters, measuring tools, plenty of ways to show the evidence.
• Environment: Drives a point by making comparisons to people and things that are present. Or, maybe contrary, seeks to understand what's going on in your mind by observing you and the social situation.
• Others: Structures others' arguments into a more coherent whole.

What classes would these correspond to? Well, let's start by dropping Rogue, since that one influenced all four to some extent. I'd say Monk is the closest to being a Self Specialist, with a dash of a non-magical Wizard. For the Tools, Fighter is without a doubt the best, although a non-magical Artificer also would suit quite well. The Environment is a difficult one, I want to say Ranger or Druid if we were to ignore magic. As for Others, Bard most probably, yet again without magic. I don't know if Barbarian fits into any of these neatly without being forced into the role, but that's the beauty of working on my own things - it doesn't have to fit.

Is this a perfect way to do this? Probably not. But it sure seems like a start of an interesting one. I've been thinking about this for months, but never before in a "non-casters should be Specialists, not Martials" way. This could be quite interesting. The truth is, I was saving the Self/Tools/Env/Others as stats for another small game I've been pondering for a long,, long time... and this I think provided me with a push that I needed. Now I think it clicks a lot better.

That's it, the third article! Personal record broken once again. Time for me to finish the Review of 2024, and prepare myself. My 2025 will be quite... productive. Thank you for reading, and have an awesome rest of the year!

Thoughts on Prayers

It's time to ponder D&D once again. I was thinking recently of the Turn Undead and how odd this ability is. Yes, it makes sense because the undead are generally unholy creations, yadda yadda, there are other Channel Divinities too, even more with 5.24e. But you can only do this a couple of times in a day. Plus, there's something that's certainly missing from the Cleric class to me.

Prayer, by Alex Petruk

Prayer

Picture this: at level 1, a cleric gets the ability to Pray. A prayer requires the cleric to keep talking, they can do it any number of times in a day, and for as long as they manage to do this, they get some kind of benefit. My initial thought was +1 AC, but it could be other minor boons too, maybe depending on the portfolio of the deity you pray to. Maybe you could also have multiple possible prayers, or a prayer book. Just keep the prayer itself as a relatively minor thing. I'm so unused to thinking in D&D terms, I'm not even sure whether I'd make this a bonus action, a reaction, or no action whatsoever. But, here's the juicy part.

The monsters could have a trait that reads something along the lines of...

Unholy. You can't willingly move closer to any creature who is Praying to a deity who doesn't have the Death in its portfolio.

Use Praying with a capital P as a keyword. The monsters could react differently to different kinds of prayers. Maybe a fiend is blinded if it looks at the cleric Praying to a Light deity, maybe a celestial can't attack a cleric who's Praying to some evil deity, maybe the prayer to the deity of War makes specifically the giants frightened.

I know what you might be thinking. Isn't this done kind of backwards? Why make it traits instead of just saying these things in the prayers? Well, firstly, because I think that a trait called "Turn Immunity" is kind of weird. But secondly and far more importantly, because this way the player doesn't necessarily know what extra effects their prayer will have, leading to moments of discovery and awe at their deity's powers.

Another thing you might be considering is... why not make this a cantrip? "Divine Protection", bonus action to cast, Verbal component, ... My reason is simple: I don't want this to be treated like magic. I want this to be treated like a miracle. No anti-magic field or counterspell could possibly stop the deity's power. Isn't it too good then? To make a prayer that's unstoppable like this? Not if I remind you of the requirement... the cleric must keep talking. If they stop, during or out of their turn, the prayer is done. How do you silence them? That's the best part: you tell me. You could put a rag in their mouth if they are sufficiently immobilized. You could try to suffocate them. You could shove their head underwater. You could of course also use the good ol' reliable silence spell. My point is that this condition is open-ended, and both the GM and the players could have tons of fun coming up with ways to stop it.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure about the monster traits part and whether it's better than just saying "all the undead run away from you". But it's a neat idea that I came up with recently, and I am trying to overcome my blog posts personal record here, so onto the blog it shall go! Maybe I'll get a cool game idea next year where I could use this without relying on the D&D as lingua franca to communicate this idea.

Thank you for reading my minor rambling, and have a great day!

These Bloody Cells

Quickie today because I am three articles away from breaking a personal record again and I had an idea: What if there was a game, in which the Plan had... hit points?

I won't be back.
Bloodmist Infiltrator, by Wild Blue Studios

These Bloody Cells

You are vampires. You are immortal, technically, and you have been imprisoned. You and your buddies decided to escape.

You get Bite, and two of the following abilities of your choice:

• Animism. Talking to and controlling animals that you could hold in a hand.
• Transform. Turn into an animal.
• Charm. Mind control a person.
• Push. Strength greater than that of the best human.
• Rush. Speed greater than that of the best human.
• Sneak. Move around unnoticed.
• Fly. Soar through the air.
• Bite. Refill your blood fully by biting a living being, killing it. The killed being becomes a ghoul that follows your commands, but it's visibly undead.

Each player rolls 1d8+4 to determine their starting Blood pool. Everyone also rolls a 1d6 that's contributed to the shared Plan pool.

Whenever you do something, you roll a die and reduce the pools by amounts that add up to the rolled number.

• Roll 1d8 by default.
• If you use only the vampiric abilities you chose, roll 1d6.
• If the vampiric weaknesses are playing a role, change a roll of 1d6 into 1d8, and a roll of 1d8 into 1d12.

If possible, you must reduce both your Blood pool and the shared Plan pool by at least 1.

• If your Blood Pool is reduced to or below 0, you are killed. You turn into fine red mist, and travel back to your coffin in your prison cell.
• If your Plan is reduced to or below 0, the reality has diverged too much from your plans, and the guards are now after you, chasing you with guns that shoot silver bullets with wooden stakes imbued in them.

The game ends when every player character either dies or successfully escapes the prison. On every successful escape, you gain one additional vampiric ability. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, it won't be long until you come back.

The GM side would include a couple of roll tables with foreshadowing and obstacles based on the vampiric weaknesses. As a placeholder for now, let's go with...

1. Exit is in a building that surrounds the prison (yes, even above), vampires can't enter it without an invitation.
2. A corridor with laser beams of concentrated sunlight. To a vampire, it's like a lightsaber.
3. Flowing water moat that no vampire can cross.
4. An airlock chamber that gets filled with garlic-infused gas.
5. A human eye scanner that doesn't allow vampires through because they don't show up on digital footage (akin to no reflection in mirrors).
6. Four corridors meeting at a right angle... they form a cross. A cross road, so to say.

Bonus round: Betrayal.

• Super easy mode: Nobody has to betray the rest.
• Easy mode: GM hand-picks one player who is a betrayer.
• Medium mode: The GM prepares a pouch of black and white stones, deciding which ones stand for betrayers and which ones don't.
• Hard mode: Everyone flips a coin and keeps it under a cup until the very end of the game.

Betrayer's goal is to hinder the group. The betrayers win if they are the only ones who successfully escape. They don't have to be all alive for this, if they managed to hinder the rest enough to get it killed before the escape, they all earn their freedom forever.

A vampire can use their Bite on another vampire, draining them of their Blood but not turning them into a ghoul.

Of course, players would catch onto this, so the Betrayer has to be smart about it. Is this Among Us? ... no, Among Us isn't the only social deduction game around, come on.

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Lessons: One, it's fun to write around vampiric strengths and weaknesses. Two, Plan as a resource works. Three, ... I forgot about three. Four, I make lots of lists in my games, especially when I'm too lazy to make a table. Let's see if I can write two more articles!