#Zendikar #DnD Take 2: beefier races - Merfolk!

Was nearly writing Mefolk, and it would have been appropriate: Merfolk and in particular Zendikari Merfolk are the race with which I identify the most!

This makes it very easy to incur in Mary Sue effects, so please be ruthless in your criticism about balance of this one.

The main characteristics that should be part of Merfolk are the following:

• Early flight: seems strange if you don't know the setting, but on Zendikar (and many other MtG worlds, Merfolk are able to acquire and even more often grant flight.
• Connection with the Roil: although I don't want to go look for the obscure source where I got this info from, I don't even care much, because canon or not, we kind of need at least one race that can be "the Roil race". This can or even should be connected to the flight mechanic, since it's not like they would be able to fly or make others fly without the Roil.
• Individualism and diversity: far more than because of their "creeds" (originally absent from their description, and kind of introduced later on with the problematic Battle For Zendikar), Merfolk should be a diverse lot because of their strong individualism. you could find a Merfolk more similar to just about any other race on Zendikar (save for Surrakar and Vampires) than to another Merfolk.
• Water-related advantages: this seems to go without saying, but I want something of their aquatic nature to be usable even in non aquatic environments, and I think I have an idea, taken from a famous cult movie...
• Some weaknesses: the usual "has to be in water for X hours" is a low-hanging fruit, and it's not something mentioned by the source material. If you analyze the original Zendikar articles, there are two other "needs" of Merfolk that are in my opinion more flavorful and less annoying: needing some protection against sun/heat, and needing to tie/pierce their fins if they don't want to be impeded by the difficult terrain of Zendikar.

I hope the features I found for this will explain by themselves how I thought of covering all the points!

MERFOLK TRAITS

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom and Intelligence scores both increase by 1, and any ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Age. Merfolk reach maturity early, around 12 years of age, and have human-like lifespans but less decrepitude, sometimes approaching 100 years still able to be independent, although dying of old age soon after.

Size. Merfolk are as tall as humans, but usually weight less, since they are very lean. Your size is Medium.

Alignment. On Zendikar, merfolk can be of any alignment, although usually far from extremes, and tending more towards neutrality.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 ft, and you have a swimming speed of 30 ft.

Amphibious. You can breathe air and water.

Solitary Learning. You gain one feat of your choice that grants an ability score increase, ignoring race requirements. You gain all its benefits except the ability score increase.

Twitch. When an attack misses you, you can use your reaction to move 5 ft. without provoking opportunity attacks.

Languages. You can speak read and write Common and Merfolk.

ROIL FEATURES:

Roil Sense. As an action, you can make a Wisdom (Survival) or Intelligence (Arcana) check to learn more about the presence, color, and state of any Roil within your line of sight.

Caller of Gales. Within the influence of Blue or White Roil, you can use an action to create an effect like that of a gust of wind spell, without requiring components, but with an instantaneous duration, and with the possibility to center it under yourself, so that you and other affected creatures can be propelled upwards by it. (Affected creatures can choose to fail the saving throw.)

NEEDS:

• Sunscreen unguent
• Fin harnesses or piercings (reducing swimming speed to 20 ft.)

OTHERWISE:

• For every 4 hours under the sun you suffer 1 level of exhaustion.
• Your walking speed is reduced by 5 ft. and difficult terrain costs an extra 5 ft. for you to pass.

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As you can see, there are no subraces: the bonus feat takes care of that, because racial feats will represent the "creeds", which in the WotC implementation were taken as subraces.

The word "creed" doesn't even appear in the original description of Merfolk, but I guess I must acknowledge it since it's published. Instead of making it define the Merfolk though, I think their solitary nature allows them to choose, if to actually follow a creed or not.

Note that the thing of stealing a racial feat from others might seem crazy, but considering many of the feats with an ability score increase are racial, and I really wanted the clause "except the ability score increase", this is needed to have at least a few decent options. I didn't want just a free feat because that's the Human thin, and I still wanted the ability scores to be slightly better than Human, with some variability but basically only Int or Wis having the big increase.

The flying feature is very limited, as you can guess. Requiring Blue or White roil is already a big condition (which might be too much, honestly, but it might change, just like Roil colors might disappear, or be substituted by terrain types), but most importantly, the gust of wind effect can only propel 15 ft. in any direction. This means very short flights, and that's why I left it at-will: at least in those moments when the stars align and you can use the feature, you can use it as much as needed. It does burn the action, after all.

An alternative, especially if ditching Roil Color completely, could be requiring positive Roil (difficult to fly when gravity or winds are pulling you towards one point!) This way, Merfolk would be encouraged to take the Lullmage feat, and use it to actually raise the Roil, like Noyan Dar does in Battle for Zendikar.

This would of course require the Lullmage feat to be a "lower or raise by 1", or "improve or worsen by 1" instead of just improve: I wonder if that's ok, but I think so.

Note that although Merfolk would be encouraged to take the Lullmage feat, they would get very little from it if they take it as their first feat, since they don't get the bump to ability score, and they already have Roil Sense.

Lastly, the Twitch feature, which I had devised in 4th edition for the same purpose (Zendikar D&D started in 4th edition) is basically only flavor, and is inspired by the way Abe Sapien fights (or better, avoids hits) in Hellboy 2. I think it represents this fish instinct of swimming away instinctively. Was considering making the move prone the character, but then it would really rarely be used, since it could mean more problems, unless we talk ranged attacks.

I am still puzzling on it: any suggestions? Of course in theory I could just drop it and the race would be still fine, but I thought they should have at least one common thing that doesn't depend on the Roil.

That's all for Merfolk, for now, and I think I will do one more race with Roil-based features, and then return to the Roil to really flesh it up and call it done!

#Zendikar #DnD Take 2: beefier races (starting from vampires!)

While still puzzling on the "Backgrounds should matter more" issue, I couldn't help think about the same issue when it comes to Race choice.

Just as with Background, Race is something that seems to matter less and less while you progress in level, and given the fact they just provide some "nice to haves" and little else, it feels more like a cosmetic choice than anything else.

This is probably by design, since the philosophy behind D&D is you should play what appeals to you and not suffer for it. But Zendikar is a world where the adventurers suffer, and a lot..! And I think every race should have to suffer in a different way: the backgrounds of the races heavily imply this, and I think it should reflect on the game.

The best example for this is Zendikari Vampires.

Vampires from Zendikar are, first of all, not undead. They are capable of superhuman feats of strength, agility, and more, but they have very special needs, and vulnerabilities.
While they don't have sunlight vulnerability, they are cold-blooded. This means that they can't keep their metabolism working properly when temperatures are not hot, and when they don't feed on blood regularly (although in theory not as often as humans eat food).
They are known to wear elaborate and sometimes heavy clothes in the tropical humid climate of Guul Draaz, so imagine what they would need to wear in temperate climates or cold ones.

But simple vulnerabilities or diet prescriptions are not enough to make a race choice matter, although they help. The thing with vampires is they also lose powers if they don't.

While other races of Zendikar are not so extreme in their needs, and what they lose when they don't cater to them, I understood that both to make races matter, and to stay true to the "equipment matters" tenet of the setting, races of Zendikar should have a special section, where their needs are clearly listed, with drawbacks clearly stated when the needs are not met. For most races it's a matter of equipment/supplies (a special unguent/sunscreen for Merfolk, the "grit" mineral for Goblins etc.), while for Vampires it's of course also a matter of diet.

So here is the Vampire write-up which groups a lot of advantages under one, to make it easier to state what they lose when they don't feed on blood (and when speaking of the haughty Kalastria vampires, on HUMANOID blood!)

ZENDIKARI VAMPIRE

Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age: Zendikari vampires reach maturity late, around 20 years of age, but can live up to 200 years and more.

Size. Zendikari vampires are as tall as humans, but usually weight less, since they have no body fat. Your size is Medium.

Alignment. Zendikari vampires can be of any alignment, but those of Good alignments are rare and don't last for long among vampires, ending up preferring (or being forced to) live among other races.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 ft.

Vampire Metabolism. If you are well-fed (see NEEDS below), you gain the following benefits:

• Your Strength score increases by 2.
• Your base walking speed is 40 ft.
• Your jumping distance is double.
• You can use a reaction to reduce falling damage by an amount equal to 5 per level.

Darkvision. Being primarily a nocturnal predator, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Pulse Tracker. You have advantage on Perception checks to locate red-blooded creatures, and you know where to bite to drain blood without killing the victim (if the victim is at least of Medium size).

Bite. Your fanged maw is a natural weapon, which you can use to make unarmed strikes and feed. If you hit with it, you deal piercing damage equal to ld6 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. You can choose to make this nonlethal damage.

Families: Ancient divides among Zendikari vampires resulted in culturally distinct families, the main ones being Kalastria, Nirkana, and Ghet. Choose one of these families.

NEEDS:

1. Blood (killing a Small creature, or leaving unconscious a Medium or Large creature) at least once every 24 hours.
2. Heavier clothes in temperate and colder environments.
3. Disguise.

OTHERWISE:

1. You don't benefit from Vampire Metabolism, you suffer one level of exhaustion, and you can't spend Hit Dice to heal.
2. You can't take reactions.
3. You are recognized as a vampire and hunted down in civilized communities outside of Guul Draz.

Kalastria

"The Nirkana are cutthroats who run about the swamps like drooling animals. The Ghet are no better than gutter rats. The Emevera are so common they couldn't appreciate a fine meal if it died on their doorstep. The Urnaav are obsequious idiots who think we are too stupid to see their machinations. They would all be Kalastria if they could, and who could blame them?"
—Lyandis, family Kalastria

Kalastria Culture. You gain proficiency in the Intimidate skill.

Kalastria Superiority. If you fed on the blood of a sentient creature, Vampire metabolism increases your Charisma instead of Strength score, and you are immune to the charmed and frightened conditions for 24 hours.

Nirkana

"The pretentious Kalastria pretend that only human blood will satisfy them. Fattened weaklings. They never know how it feels to run through the jungles in pursuit of a bloodscent. The tang and pulse of feral blood has no equal."
—Nirkana Lacerator

Nirkana Culture. You gain proficiency in the Survival skill.

Nirkana Metabolism. For 8 hours after feeding, you don't need heavier clothes in temperate and colder environments, and you can climb as under the effect of the spider climb spell.

Ghet

"Family Ghet has been using their alliance to gain access to the inner decision-making apparatus of Nimana, and are actively converting influential members of the town to their cause. Their plan is to eventually seize outright control of the city and integrate the city into their holdings, raising their own prestige and power."
"The family Ghet suffered a major setback in political fighting that resulted in Emevera diverting water around their dykes and flooding Ghet. Ghet has built temporary dams, but the damage to their holdings was significant."

Ghet Culture. You gain proficiency in the Insight skill.

Ghet Reputation. You have advantage on Charisma checks against non-vampire humanoids, and disadvantage against vampires. You don't need to disguise as a human in most Zendikari settlements (Sea Gate is an exception).

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As you can see, there's quite a lot of conditions, and the different families play on the restrictions, adding benefits if following more strict ones, or removing some needs under certain conditions.

It might seem like there's quite a lot here, but I think a player wanting to portray a vampire in Zendikar is more than ready to remember the benefits (which by the way are mostly physical, with the exception of Kalastria).

I didn't give vampires any Roil-related abilities, since even if I wanted races connected to each mana color with Roil interactions (and Vampires would have been perfect for Black Roil interaction), there was nothing in the official material suggesting such a link, so I will leave this to the Surrakar, that are also Black (although also Blue).

Note as well that this being a Zendikari race, it has means of vertical movement: a very high jump, protection from falls, and climb speed for the feral Nirkana vampires.

Next up: my favorite... The Merfolk!

#Zendikar #DnD Take 2: Zendikari backgrounds for Zendikari characters

I was hoping this could be my "Z is for Zendikar" post for the "To Boldly Go" Blog Carnival hosted by my friend Gonzalo, and in a way it will be, but again this will be more brainstorming then finished material, as usual.

This time though, I feel particularly inspired, and I think I have nailed my vision of the backgrounds of Zendikar and at the same time a fix to one of the issues I have with most editions of D&D: non-combat features mattering only as first level choices.

In my last post I noticed how the fact that Zendikar poses new challenges and mechanics by itself can be used to give Races something extra, without it really unbalancing things, since it will be consequential only within Zendikar and only within the influence of the Roil.

This made me think that we can apply this lesson to Backgrounds, but then I thought: what about the regular backgrounds from the Player's Handbook? You can add only so much Zendikari flavor to them, before making them all feel similar.

This made me think about Backgrounds more radically: many features I would like Backgrounds to give are the domain of Classes now, and I don't want Zendikar to just feel like "over the top D&D", offering just more without taking anything away.
So the main solution I have in mind is to actually nerf Backgrounds at first level, and then make them reach the usual features around 3rd level, with additional features kicking in at higher levels, when the power level of the character should eclipse buffs in the Background domain.
Plus, taking a hint from the "Custom Background" rules, they would actually offer choices, acting more like "curricula" than backgrounds. After all, there's already basically free choice when the skills of Background and Class overlap.

Basically, there should be a progression table, or "menu" for Backgrounds. Let's take one of the free ones: Criminal.

 Level   Feature

1.    Feature: Criminal Contact, Thieves' Tools, One skill
2.    Criminal Specialty, One tool
3.    One skill
4.    Feature: Specialty Mastery
5.    Expertise in one skill

The skills could come from the whole Rogue list, with tools being much more limited

So the real power up here is an Expertise. How big is it? Well, it's basically like half a feat. At 4th level, potentially, Humans can get it through the Prodigy feat, so a Human Rogue could end up with a lot of Expertise. The use of a "Skill Die" could make everything more fun, so it could be considered even instead of proficiency, but this could add more complexity.

In general I think gaining an extra Expertise would not hurt at all, but I could see about making it situational.

What requires work is basically a second feature, making the Specialty matter more. This could actually mean choosing between 8 different mini-features (a lot of writing to do for just one background!) or possibly a free-form feature, where the DM just figures out the details with the player. A compromise could be a fixed feature, representing the mastery of the background in general, leaving the specialty as it is now: a role-playing cue without any noticeable in-game effect.

Other options I was considering:

• Removing Thieves' Cant from the Rogue features, making it a Criminal Background feature, thus removing this BUG, where all Rogues are Thieves in the book.
• Adding even some combat-related bonuses to the Background, as substituion features. The power level should be something akin to a 1st level spell slot. As a Rogue, for example, I think Expertise would count as 1 slot, and Sneak Attack as another slot. So basically gaining Sneak Attack could be a replacement of a 1st level slot, or Expertise (but it would not stack with the Rogue feature, so basically the Rogue would never take it), or Fighting Style from Fighter/Ranger/Paladin, etc.
  The problem is this feature=feature equivalence is broken: a Paladin would easily give away Divine Sense to gain Sneak Attack, while it's much more balanced with Lay on Hands. So a blacklist of un-swappable should be made, where Thieves' Cant, Divine Sense, Druidic language and such "flavor on top" features are taken out of the menu. 
• The above "flavor on top" features are actually the ones I would remove from classes in general, and it could be a prerequisite of using these powered-up backgrounds: some classes lose something, which they can easily regain with the right Background.

Going this way, here is another rework of the Criminal Background:

Level   Feature

1.    Thieves' Cant, Thieves' Tools, One skill - Feature swap: Sneak Attack
2.    Criminal Contact, One tool
3.    One skill - Feature swap: Sneak Attack
4.    Feature: Specialty Mastery
5.    Expertise in one skill

No Rogue would get Thieves' Cant without the Criminal Background. But no Rogue would use it to gain more Sneak Attack (since the feature is offered at the same levels they get it in). So you can either become a classical Thief Rogue, or if you select this as a Wizard, you can potentially be as good at Sneak Attacks as a 3rd level Rogue, if you let go of two 1st level Spell Slots.

At 5th level, a Criminal Wizard having swapped twice, would have only 2 first level spell slots, but would also have one Expertise and 2d6 Sneak Attack.

Conversely, the Sage background would act as a multiclass Wizard of sorts:

Level   Feature

1.    Obscure Language, One skill - Feature swap: Spell Slot, Spell Known
2.    Researcher, One language
3.    One skill - Feature swap: Spell Slot, Spell Known
4.    Feature: Specialty Mastery, One language
5.    Expertise in one skill

The Soldier, not giving out a flavor class feature for free (because no martial class has one, unfortunately), would need a bit of a different progression, granting the feature before. To compensate, the Military Rank would be up-gradable.

Level   Feature

1.    Military Rank, One skill - Feature swap: Fighting Style
2.    One skill, One tool
3.    Military Rank up - Feature swap: Maneuver, Superiority Die
4.    Feature: Specialty Mastery, One vehicle
5.    Expertise in one skill

And so on.

So what would an actual Zendikari background look like? A Lull Mage Apprentice could be represented.

Level   Feature

1.    Academy Contact, One skill - Feature swap: Spell Slot, Spell Known
2.    Minor Lull Magic, One tool
3.    One skill - Feature swap: Spell Slot, Spell Known
4.    Feature: Specialty Mastery, One language
5.    Expertise in one skill

Minor Lull Magic could give a daily version of the Lull Mage feat, usable only once per day, unless you burn Spell Slots, which the Background conveniently provides. This would combine well with the feat, giving basically more uses, without providing any extras (the feat should raise Wisdom or Intelligence by 1).

Academy Contact sounds more like the regular Background features which I moved to second level in other cases, but in reality it's more like the Thieves' Cant: something situational, which comes up only with your own, since the Academy/ies in Zendikar don't have the widespread networks of criminals, or the more widely recognized ranks of military.

And now the most Zendikari of Zendikari backgrounds: Explorer!

Level   Feature

1.    Expeditionary House, One skill - Feature swap: Natural Explorer
2.    Treasure, One tool
3.    One skill - Feature swap: Natural Explorer (2nd terrain)
4.    Feature: Specialty Mastery, One language
5.    Expertise in one skill

Again as per the Lull mage, we have the "social" feature, more limited than most, at first level, while the true feature would be something akin to the Hermit "Discovery", but represented by a material object: a unique hedron cube, or some arcane device of this kind, able to provide some out-of-combat help in the same way the feature of the Hermit would, but on a less "cosmic truth" level and a more practical, yet limited fashion.

Note that offering Natural Explorer at a faster rate than Ranger means that a Ranger Explorer would be more Explorer than a regular Ranger, if swapping one spell slot. For a Rogue it would mean swapping one Sneak Attack to be "as explorer" as a Ranger of the same level, or they could choose to be "even more explorers" than a Ranger of the same level by taking out all Sneak Attack till 3rd level included. Choices!

I realize these could feel more like Multiclass rules rather than Background rules, but again, the fact they provide class features in lieu of others of the same kind I think balances things a lot, just with the actual extra stuff being just a secondary background benefit and expertise in a single skill, coming at levels that usually don't make these bonuses very consequential, and more as "nice to haves".

Another possible way to make "beefy backgrounds" more applicable to any game, would be making them actual class levels, making you choose if to level up in background or class.

This would make them basically prestige classes of sorts, and slow down a lot the progression, making them contrary to my game design philosophy tenet of "combat and non-combat features not having to compete with each other". 

Considering this, I think a good optional rule to balance things out could be requiring specific quests to actually attain 4th and 5th level in a background: those features would basically be the rewards in treasure and XP of the quest, and would be instead of these. 

That'all!