Eldritch Mlems

He's 16 years old, and just keeps getting more and more cute! Had to wake him with a forehead kiss after taking the photo, and now he's back to sleeping again.

I love that little furball

1. Double dice on crits. Instead of (1d8 + 4)×2, roll 2d8+8.
2. Aid uses the same target DC as the main check instead of 15, and because +4/+2/+1/-1 instead of +X/+1/+0/-1. Bonuses to Aid, like Cooperative Nature, are halved.
3. Recall Knowledge is automatically made using the best/most appropriate skill, not asking players which to use. Identify the monster using its level DC. Answer basic questions using an appropriate DC, for example, if they ask how to bypass a level 10 Ghost Mage's incorporeal damage resistance, the DC will be set based on the lowest level creature with the same resistance: the level 4 Ghost Commoner. Ronald adds even more details in the video.
4. Changes to the Investigate, Defend, and Scout exploration activities.
5. Disallow critical success on the automatic "Grab" ability some monsters have, if it is at a higher level.
6. Give out XP, but by "feel" rather than the precise numbers in the rules.

7–11: Nerfs or bans to specific spells and abilities Garden of Healing, Timber Sentinel, Tailwind, Spiritual Anamnesis, Familiar of Ongoing Misery.

12. If you recover from unconscious, you can act immediately.
13. Leap action reduces fall distance for the purpose of fall damage by 5 feet.
14. One action to automatically find an ally who is Concealed or Hidden.
15. Allow the Mature Animal Companion feat to give birds the ability to "fly" without actually moving, to stay in the air, without costing an action.
16. Fascinated only ends if a creature takes hostile actions against you, not your allies.
17. Keep the optional Voluntary Flaws rule which was removed in the remaster. 2 flaws for 1 boost.
18. Monks get "dodge" action which works like raise shield.
19. Give Conceal Spell feat to Psychic class feat list.
20. Automatic Bonus Progression, but only for fundamental weapon and armour runes.
21. Gradual Ability Boosts. Instead of 4 ability boosts at 5th level, get one at 2nd, one at 3rd, etc. But no +5 until level 10, 2nd +5 until level 15, and no +6 until level 20.
22. Free Archetype, but first archetype is at level 1 (delaying expert proficiencies until level 2).

We on the revolutionary left in the United States are inclined to interpret history through icons. Che, Assata, George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Malcolm, Marx: one look at their familiar images and we know what time it is.

But you don’t have to be an icon to be part of history; you don’t have to be in a famous underground cadre, or be martyred by prison or COINTELPRO. You just have to be one person, however “obscure.” You have to stand up for the people you love, to help them live. Then you keep working and fighting. That’s it. Everybody has this potential. And, given history, Black women tend to have it more than most.

Carol Jean Crooks was a Black dyke. Born October 12, 1946, she grew up on the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and died alone in early 2022. She worked and fought all her life in relative obscurity. Though most of her work wasn’t legal, her fights created a better and fairer world. If you knew her at all, you probably knew her as Crooksie.

In the early 1970s, Crooksie unwittingly shared space with icons-to-be when she became lovers with, and later a longtime friend of, Afeni Shakur, a brilliant and highly publicized member of the Black Panther Party. A few years later, on August 29, 1974, Crooksie became a small part of recorded history—three years after the Attica Prison Revolt—as the catalyst for the August Rebellion at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, where incarcerated women took over the institution and held it for hours. The August Rebellion remains one of the most resounding uprisings in the history of US women’s prisons; it generated a precedent-setting class action lawsuit whose ruling continues to safeguard the right of due process for people imprisoned in New York State, as well as nationally. What follows is a small, incomplete glimpse into Crooksie’s life, taken mostly from second- and third-hand sources. She deserves more, but for now…

Hear ye, hear ye! Tales From the Tables is back with episode 54: Free Magic Item!

Our intrepid adventurers bump into another adventuring party while making their way through the streets of Waterdeep and come across a magical tome. What luck! ...or is it?

Apologies for the delay with this one... normally I aim for the first Saturday of the month, but this needed just a little bit more time to cook. I know I've been slightly missing that self-imposed deadline time and again lately. Things are crazy busy between my 3 y.o. little bean and my day job coming to an end at the end of the month, with all the tying of the loose ands and preparations for hopefully arting full time.

It's always been my dream, but dang is it scary now that it's happening.

Remember, you can always find the rest on Tapas or Webtoon or whatnot - take your pick!

@pathfinder What happens if I use Adopted Ancestry (Halfling) so I get Cultural Adaptability to get another adopted ancestry?
As I understand, adopted ancestry can only be taken once but pathbuilder seems to allow this particular combo.

archive link

What a terrible day! You wouldn’t believe what the dog did this time.

I have been running and playing Werewolf the Apocalypse since 1995. It is my favorite RPG.

I was very excited when Renegade Games obtained the license and started publishing WtA. I have been running a 5e (Werewolf's 5th edition, nothing to do with D&D 5e) for around 10 4+ hour sessions. And the game is just bad.

Firstly Renegade addressed some of the problematic content that existed in an edgy book published in the early 90s. This I have no issue with and in fact that was why I chose to run 5e over 2nd. It advances the story into 2023 and beyond. Werewolves are no longer fighting the coming Apocalypse, they are fully within it. Some of the tribes have changed, some are silently absent. As is the 3rd breed form, which was named after a First Nations tribe, they did not like the use of their name in this fashion, so I am okay with the form changing names, but they removed it entirely. With the removal of the "mule" breed the Garou language was removed, werewolf society was removed, and you have to be killing to remain in Crinos, or the war form.

Anyone familiar with Werewolf (or White Wolf's other titles), knows it is White Wolf's combat rpg, White Wolf even released a combat guide. So to see Renegade say that all combat should be concluded in no more than 3 turns should have been the biggest red flag, but I pressed on with the game.

Character creation was changed some too, you still assign dots as you wish, but the method to do so was tweaked, and in my opinion, made more confusing.

Freebie points, which were used to round out a character are gone, merits and flaws were made confusing to buy and use.

I spent more time trying to figure out how to run the game than I did running the game. And yes I know I can alleviate dice rolls by role playing, but somethings being left up to chance adds to the roleplay. I have never enjoyed a fully diceless game system, or rather a system that uses no rng or chance mechanic.

During this week's session I was trying to figure out how to use one of the player's background abilities and the group said can we play 2nd edition instead?

So next session everyone is going to remake their character in 2nd.

Tl;dr Werewolf 5e is a game that feels like it was made by someone who overheard someone explaining Werewolf the Apocalypse.