#Zendikar #DnD Take 2: designing it organically, starting from PCs

As you can see, Zendikar is again in my cross-hair, and I can't get it out, so expect me to ramble about it even more!

In particular, I was thinking about my previous post and how the mechanic for the Roil could need to be simpler. So I am actually postponing a final version of it, to think more about the Player Character's experience, starting from character creation, and how this can actually shape the mechanics of the settings.

In particular, these I think should be the "tenets" of the Zendikar D&D experience:

• A focus on vertical exploration and combat, which means:
• Most characters should be able to move vertically somehow.
• Some characters should be able to provide vertical movement to those who can't.
• Omnipresent Roil: the environment can always change, which implies:
• Some characters can innately interact with the Roil (Merfolk, Surrakar, Goblin)
• Any character can learn the right skills to interact with the Roil (Lullmage feat)
• Some characters can specialize in the Roil (Roil Soul Sorcerers, Roil Mages, etc.)
• The Roil affects any encounter as a localized force, or travel as a regional force.
• A focus on small-scale adventuring, which means:
• Equipment is particularly important, and some tools and supplies should be extra-important. This means that...
• Environmental dangers, whether it's the Roil, traps, or hostile flora/fauna, sometimes damage/remove/eat equipment/supplies, making it important for characters to be careful when planning their expeditions' supplies.
• Hedrons are an integral part of the experience and can be:
• Equipment (pathway stones, hedron archives, hedron blades etc.)
• The focal point of Roil phenomena (and in this case, interacting with the Roil is like interacting with the hedron, and vice-versa).
• Having effects different from those of the Roil (and in this case, magic affecting the Roil can't affect the hedrons).
• Part of the scenery (when it's giant and/or inactive hedrons). 

Considering the abilities to interact with the Roil that characters can have, I can also picture better what kind of mechanic we really want for it.

I was thinking to leave the Roil at a fixed d8, so that players know what to expect, but can't help thinking the d6 is also nice. What I don't like anymore in this perspective is the split to 2d4s, because from there players seem to lose control of it too much. It could be a nice mechanic to represent the mess that happens when you BREAK a hedron, which should be something low level characters could not do even if they wanted to.

Thinking more about player-side control means that every change to the Hedron/Roil die should mean something. Hence, I would go for a table with a bit more variability, such as:

d8   Roil effect

 1:   Change to d6 and roll.

 2:   Implosive Roil Storm

 3:   Implosive Roil

 4:   Negative Lull

 5:   Lull

 6:   Positive Lull

 7:   Explosive Roil

 8:   Explosive Roil Storm

This way, first of all we have symmetric effects, which will be easier to design, and then we also reduce the numbers that don't have any effect to just 1 (5). We also don't need to add caveats to the roll of the d6, because every roll of the d6 will be ok (no crazy split to 2d4s).

Here would be the d6:

d6   Roil effect

 1:   Change to d8 and roll.

 2:   Weird Implosive Roil Storm

 3:   Weird Negative Lull

 4:   Weird Lull

 5:   Weird Positive Lull

 6:   Weird Explosive Roil Storm

Here we have actually more desirable states in proportion, but no half measures, making the d6 a high-risk/high-reward one.

Now, I would like to leave the duration of each state a bit under DM control, with random options being very random, such as:

d8   Roil duration

 1:   1 round

 2:   2 rounds

 3:   3 minutes

 4:   40 minutes

 5:   5 hours

 6:   6 days

 7:   7 weeks

 8:   8 months

This might seem to escalate pretty quickly to semi-permanent effects, but since the duration of each new state would have to be re-rolled, a very long-lasting effect could disappear quickly with a small interaction.

Another easy option, if one wants the roil to last only rounds, but without having to do book-keeping, is to just put a die next to it and decrease it every round.

As a last resort, as I said, it can be fully under DM's control. The point is that players with ways to interact with the Roil should also know how much the Roil is meant to last. So even if the DM makes it arbitrary, there should always be a way for the players to know about the duration, so they can play around it/with it.

Now, Roil effects in the hands of players could be the following:

Roil Sense: as an action, you can make a Wisdom (Survival) or Intelligence (Arcana) check to learn more about ongoing Roil effects within your line of sight. 

Not many details on the ability: depending on the result, the type, duration, stage etc can be learned.

This would be one of the abilities granted by the Lull Mage feat, and possibly one of the Merfolk racial features.

Then there's the fun stuff:

Lull Magic: as an action you can make a Wisdom (Survival) or Intelligence (Arcana) check to change a Roil Die affecting an area within 30 ft. The DC is set by the DM. If you succeed, you can either increase or decrease the Roil Die number by one towards a Lull state, and you can't use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest.

It's a bit limited being once per rest, but I envision actual Roil Mages and such using it more often by burning spell slots. A way to calculate the DC would be the assign value of severity to both Roil States and Durations: the more the effect is far from the average value, the more severe it is. That is: it should be more difficult to change a very short or very long state, and more difficult the more it's far from a lull state.

Em's Flight: if you are within a Positive or Explosive Roil's area of influence, you can spend an action to grant yourself and another creature within 10 ft. of you a flight speed of 30 ft. until the end of your next turn. After using this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

This would be the main Merfolk feature, or perhaps the one for the Emeria Creed, although I don't like separating Merfolk into creeds at racial level, so it might also end up on a racial feat instead.

Now, speaking of Creeds, Cosi Tricksters could actually most probably manipulate the Roil too. But doing basically the exact opposite of Lull Mages. This could be a way of enabling Em's Flight, or Ula's Waters.

Cosi's Trick: as an action, you can spend a Hit Die and instead of regaining hit points, you can invert the state of a Roil's area of influence within 30 ft. of you. You can't use this feature if the Roil's state is Lull or Weird Lull.

And on to Ula's waters:

Ula's Waters: if you are within a Negative or Implosive Roil's area of influence, you can spend a reaction to attract water from below or above and give it a shape kept pressurized by the Roil. You can use it to propel yourself, and up to one creature within 10 ft of you, 20 ft in any direction, or grant you and the chosen creature three-quarters cover. After using this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Goblins would use the Roil very differently from the Merfolk, and very differently depending on the tribe.

Grotag's Lullaby: when you are within a Roil's area of influence in any Lull state (including Positive and Negative), you can spend an action to make a Wisdom or Charisma (Animal Handling) check to charm a beast within 10 ft. of you. The DC is equal to 10 + the number of Hit Dice of the beast. If you succeed, the beast is charmed as if under the Animal Friendship spell. If you fail, the beast becomes hostile and the Roil state worsens by one step. After using this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

This is a funny one... Of course the Grotag's expertise with beasts was never officially tied to the Roil, but since I tie it to Lull states (and careful: this still means you need Roil to use it...), it can be easy to miss how the Roil is involved. The Grotags are basically finding a way to make the Roil help them in taming beasts, without even knowing. The fact the Roil worsens when they fail means the Roil is also connected to living things nearby, and an animal getting enraged makes the Roil enraged. Very Zendikarian!

Also, this brings me to a nice terminology for the Roil: to worsen or improve.

A Roil's state can always worsen or improve. This means changing the Roil Die number so that it's respectively farther or closer to the Lull state, by a certain number.
For example if a d8 Roil Die is on 6 (Positive Lull), worsening by one gives a 7 (Explosive Roil) while Improving by one gives a 5 (Lull).
A Roil's state can't worsen more than the maximum or minimum of its die.

With this terminology set, Lull magic becomes easier to phrase:

Lull Magic: as an action you can make a Wisdom (Survival) or Intelligence (Arcana) check to improve a Roil state affecting an area within 30 ft. If you succeed, its Roil Die improves by 1, and you can't use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest.

Continuing on the wave of Goblins, I would love to redo the Tuktuk tribe's feature based on the Roil. This is actually tricky, because it used to be based on the usage of Daily Arcane spells, if I remember correctly, so not just any spell, but I think we could convert it to just any spell of 1st level or higher.

Tuktuk's Fortune: when you take damage from a spell or magical effect of 1st level or higher within the the area of influence of a Roil state, as a reaction the Roil state briefly changes to its maximum, but you fly right outside of its area of influence in a random direction (use a d10, with 1 being directly upwards, and 10 meaning diagonally upwards, needing another roll for the direction.)
If the spell had hit you with an attack roll, it misses you, and if it affected an area and you move outside of it, you are not affected.
If you flew up, you still take falling damage as normal, unless you prevent it somehow.
The Roil's state returns to its previous state at the start of your next turn.

A bit wordy, but a lot of fun! It enables tactics like having the Tuktuk attract enemies near a Roil's epicenter (that's another nice term to use!), and then targeting it with a spell on purpose, to provoke a Roil Storm and affect the enemies in the area. Too bad there is a 20% chance the Tuktuk will take some damage, and a 10% chance the poor devil will take a LOT of damage (flying directly above, meaning landing/crashing within the Roil Storm just created..!)
After all...

"Survival rule 883: Fire distracts the eye of danger and warms the heart of fortune."
—Zurdi, goblin shortcutter

Note that since the epicenter is basically a point, one could also rule you just go out of the area in a straight line out of the epicenter, meaning "up" only if you are standing on it. But this could also mean the feature would be useless many times, since the goblin could already be very close to the border of the area, and in that case nothing much would happen, while the random flight actually gives more chances of being moved far away.

Lavastep's Grit: you are immune to the effects of Red Roil. When within the area of influence of a Black, Green, or White Positive or Explosive Roil, you can use an action to briefly change the Roil color to Red in a radius of 10 ft centered on you. The change lasts until the end of your next turn.

This is a bit cheesy and probably more at home with Roil Soul Sorcerers or Roil Mages, but it could be funny for these fiery goblins to actually bring the fire where they go. Blue Roil, being so elementally opposite, would be immune. And even Green honestly seems like a stretch. But changing White and Black Roil to Red seems really cool. I just wouldn't exactly know how would that "look" and "work" thanks to the Lavastep's "grit" mineral.
A possible solution could be making the Tuktuk feature belong to Lavastep (with the addition of immunity to Red Roil), and coming up with something more tame for the Tuktuk. Needs some thought.

By the way, this brings me to an easy write-up of the three Goblin tribes.

The basic race would be the official one from Volo's Guide to Monsters, but I would eliminate the Fury of the Small feature and include instead the following:

GROTAG TRIBE:
- Proficiency in Animal Handling
- Grotag's Lullaby

TUKTUK TRIBE:
- Proficiency in Survival
- Tuktuk's Fortune

LAVASTEP TRIBE:
- Proficiency in Arcana
- Resistance to fire damage
- Lavastep Grit

Note that Lavastep would get resistance to fire also because I see their feature as more situational and less universally useful than the others'. In addition, for another Goblin to gain such resistance would be easy: just eat as much grit as the Lavastep.

Also, if you're thinking power-creep, remember that all these features are very situational, since they depend on the Roil. Zendikar races are meant to be slightly better and have the extra power be tied to the Roil exactly because the Roil adds difficulty to the game: you lose some and you get some. Plus, the race becomes or remains useful enough in other settings only if these features are mostly on top of regular racial features, and not in substitution.

That's all for now! We have a more or less final general rule for the Roil, a nearly complete feat, cool features for Merfolk or Merfolk feats, and the Goblins.
Next I should complete the Merfolk!