#Merfolk, the #MtG variety, home-brew as a race for #dndnext!

Merfolk                          

As a merfolk, you share these racial traits with others of your kind.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 2.
Age. Merfolk grow and age at approximately half the rate of a normal human, attaining adulthood in 30 to 35 years. They live to be around 160.
Alignment. Merfolk tend to be neutral on the cosmic war between chaos and law, although exceptions exist, especially for very tight communities where lar prevails, or banished or orphan indivudals who can tend more toward chaos. Their side on the good and evil axis depends a lot on their personal experience, tending toward evil if they experienced or witnessed evil acts, or towards good if vice-versa.
Size. Merfolk are more or less the same height as humans, but tend to be lighter in build than the average human.
Speed. Your base land speed is 30 feet. You also have a swimming speed of 35 feet.
Aquatic. As a merfolk you can breathe underwater, and being underwater imposes no penalty on your attack roles or ability checks.
Languages. You can speak and read Merfolk and Common.
Reflexive Twitch. In place of an Opportunity Attack or when surprised by or surprising enemies, move half your speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks and without expending movement or actions.
Curious Researcher. Choose a feat that grants a bonus to an ability score. You gain its bnefits, except for the bonus to the ability score.
If feats are not in use in your game, choose two different bonuses among the following: proficiency in one skill, one weapon, one saving throw, one tool, or learn a language.
Subrace. Merfolk exist in many planes, and in each plane they develop substantial differences and adaptions

Zendikar

Zendikar is a plane of stronger and more pervasive magical forces, where the land itself changes constantly under the geo-magical phenomenon known as the "Roil". Zendikar merfolk have attuned so well to this that they know how to be nexuses for the Roil, even in planes where the Roil doesn't usually manifest: when any spell disturbs the natural order, you can "ride" the magical currents that get amplified by your presence and take advantage as the laws of physics change around you.
Ability Scores. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Roil Nexus. When casting a 1st level or higher spell, or as a Reaction when a 1st level or higher spell is casted within 10 feet of you, choose one of the following effects:

• One or two creatures within 10 feet of you are pushed up to their speed in any direction (Strength saving throw negates, saving throw DC is 8 + your Proficiency Bonus + your Wisdom modifier)
• You and a willing target within 10 feet of you gain a fly speed equal to the respective base land speed until the start of your next turn.
• Choose an area within 10 feet of you up to 10 feet per side to become heavily obscured or 4 areas of 5 feet per side to become lightly obscured, until the start of your next turn.

After you use this feature, you can't use it again until you complete a short rest or a long rest.

Ravnica

In Ravnica, Merfolk have lived in isolation under the surface of the city for centuries. When they emerged, they found themselves at home in a recently battered Simic guild and eventually took control of it and brought it back to a prominent position.
The guild's take on evolution matches perfectly your own fast adaption to new environments.
Ability Scores. An ability score of your choice other than Intelligence increases by 1.
Fast Evolution. If after two consecutive long rests you exhaust your Hit Dice by healing, you gain an additional Hit Die to spend in healing until the next long rest. Alternatively, if after two consecutive long rests you exhaust your daily spell slots, you gain an additional daily spell slot of the highest level you can cast until the next long rest. These bonuses can't happen at the same time and are not cumulative. If both conditions apply, the Hit Die benefit applies.

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Original "design notes" of my 4e Zendikar adaption (here) - annotations in italic. 

I envisioned two principal themes while exploring Zendikar's Merfolk [cards]: exploration/scouting and knowledge.
They are described as solitary in the sense that they enjoy researching in solitude, but most of their abilities benefit their allies as a group. They have a leader streak mechanically, without actually being charismatic. They lead with their knowledge.

There were many powers that fitted as a racial power for them, so I decided to make a single power with many uses depending on the merfolk's power source. This encourages hybrids and/or multiclassing, and makes the Bard an attractive class for the merfolk (which is thematically fitting IMO), even if Charisma is not given a bonus. - I simplified this by just letting them choose the effect. The concept of power source could still be used in Next, but the caster classes are too few for now, and even if I considered making the effect tied to spell school, it would have made the effect more "arcane", when it's intended to be more a "ride the currents of magic" thing.

Their other signature ability is knowing an extra encounter or at-will power of their level but needing to swap it with another one in order to use it. It's like they all have a mini spellbook, which I think is fitting because they're listed as wizards more often than any other class, and this power swapping during resting also sounds as something a solitary explorer/researcher could do, to prepare him or herself to the next challenge in advance. - This was of course re-adapted into the toned-down feat.

The explorer feature can be powerful and it can be extended to allies via feat: extra move action during surprise rounds. Note that it can be combined with the racial power, which is a minor action, and can thus be used by burning a move action if need arises. - No more racial feats, and no combination of racial power with the Reflexive Twitch. After all, it's not intended to be an at-will racial power, but a feature that can be linked to a spell, it's more passive.

Last thing, maybe the most overpowered, the racial power doesn't scale with level in quantity of bonus, instead gaining more uses per encouneter. Two at paragon and three at Epic. I thought that maintaining the effects low, it could have been a good way to represent the resourcefulness of the Merfolk. - Of course, I didn't make the "racial power" scale, because it's already quite powerful for Next standards.

P.S.: The Ravnica subrace is quite uninspired I guess, but I think it was uninspired in the setting as well. They just needed an iconic Blue race to put in Ravnica, but they didn't expand on them enough, so I just wanted to make them flexible and with a take on the theme of evolution, typical of their Simic Combine guild.

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And that's all! Above you see my favorite Merfolk character, Cylonea, whose card-inspiration, Caller of Gales, is also the inspiration for the flying-giving power of my Merfolk race write-up (she's a very basic Merfolk but she can give flight to any creature, so I figured it was quite a basic thing for them in Zendikar!).

She can't be converted right now, because there's really nothing like the 4e version of the Shaman (and a World Spirit Shaman at that!) and the Artificer.

I could eventually try to make the spirit companion a matter of Feat, but then I wouldn't really know on top of which class to put it to represent her. Druid would be ok if it wasn't for the unavoidable Wild Shape which really doesn't suit her. I just hope that between the Warlock and the Sorcerer, something will come up in Next to represent her in a nice way!

Solanyt, the #Simic and #Dimir winged elf assassin, from #DnDNext to #13thAge

I had already written before of how I consider 13th Age the perfect system to play in Ravnica, but I had questioned the feasibility of it in representing my Solanyt character.

The expansion book 13 True Ways will bring multiclassing, thus making it really easy to build the Solanyt I want, but even before laying my sticky fingers (or sticky cursor) over the new product, Wade Rockett provided me with very useful suggestions to build the character using the core system, just tooling around a bit!

So let's go through character creation, following the book step by step.

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The Ranger that #DnD never gave me. A #DnDNext wanna-be post.

There are a few D&D classes I always rant about. Basically all the "not-big-4" classes. That is, everything that is not Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, or Rogue.

The idea that all other classes should be derived from these is a common "political alignment" in the D&D community, and it's a nasty confusion in and by itself. Because one thing is saying that classes should all be classifiable in those 4 big groups, which would make it easy, for example to have mechanics such as feats or things such as magic items apply to whole groups of classes, like all spellcasters, all scoundrel etc; another thing is to say all classes are technically a combination of those 4, and at that point can very well be sub-classes. You know, I agree: if they are a combination of features from those 4, definitely make them subclasses. Or even more rationally, (p)re-packaged multiclass characters, for those that really don't like to manually multiclass.

The big problem is very simple: all of this comes out of one seldom-recognized mistake: wanting to recreate the "hybrid classes", such as the Ranger, in every edition so that they resemble the first incarnation of the class. You might say "But it's tradition of the game, it's a classic". And I say: "Sure, the Ranger is a tradition and a classic. But is its class advancement table also that??".
My point is that for a class to respect its own tradition and classicism (pun not intended), the mechanics need not to be the same.

Ranger by BBeaton

ABU HELL - Auras

- "Mom, mom!"
- "What's up, baby?"
It took a few seconds for Ryan to reply.
- "Look outside!"
- "The clouds?"
- "The... Birds."
- "Where are they, Ryan?"
- "... There... No, th... There..."
- "I can't see anything, honey, are you playing with me?"
She was still in a good mood, although something in the way the kid was talking was a bit unsettling.
- "..."
- "Ryan?"
- "..."
- "Oh my God, Ryan..!!"

At the special training, they were quite specific: treat the stratospheric ascent as a normal take-off, and avoid walking in the cabin, unless extremely necessary. But the attendant calls were sounding like crazy, and a handful of people, especially moms, were also calling outloud. Some directly for help.
After purser and flight deck approval, the crew began walking, not without difficulty, around the cabin, to see what was going on. Many kids were having strange symptoms. Their muscles were extremely tense, breathing was powerful but rare, eyes unblinking, very difficult to move, especially neck and head.

ABU HELL - Flight FZ001

Early morning. A very well known aerospace hub. February. Already 27 degrees Celsius.

The immense, shining-new, world-record-breaker airliner is taxing towards the runway for its very first flight with passengers. It's a historical day for the company. And for aviation.

Three thousand passengers distributed on 3 decks. There's no economy class. There is a lower class but it's not called economy. It's either Silver, Gold, or Platinum.
And to accommodate the changes and underline even more the already apparent will to separate this beast from the other aircrafts of the company, a new sub-company's flag is on it. "FAZL". Strange name. Apparently a possible transcription of Arabic for "grace, generosity".
Some strange marketing decision, along the one of painting the whole aircraft red, leaving only tail and part of the wings white. Some said it looked cheap, others appreciated the pioneering vision of it.

The aircraft seems too big even for the airport, literally. It towers over the terminals. A new one is in construction, but making the first flight was a priority. Insiders opinions are divided. Some say things were rushed, others say an unprecedented amount of work and care has been put into the whole thing.

Crunchy Bits: New, #Zendikar themed, Rogue and Barbarian #DnDNext Subclasses!

Yes, I got inspired again. Yes it's gonna be crunchy bits, this time!

Zendikar's under my spotlight again. A fellow Italian player wants to D&D-ize the setting using 3.5-PF rules (no surprise: no 4e or Next fans in Italy!), so he contacted me, having seen my previous work on the setting, which can now be found here: http://community.wizards.com/group/zendikar-dd-campaign-setting

Ravnica would also be an evergreen and although none of the two are the latest setting MtG has touched, seeing the latest setting only makes me want to think about the old ones and eventually what's coming next..! Seriously, a setting based on a B- movie (Clash of The Titans), certified B- by seriously awful metacritic scores. And it's even graphically inspired by it, completely. The artwork is even good to the eye, but when the brain connects to the eye... Oh my God(s)... </rant>

However, I decided to focus on Zendikar because its adventuring theme makes it effortless to come up with D&D material for it!

So here we are, trying to design some new stuff for Next, waiting for the crunchy bits to come from Wizards itself...

World-building for #dndnext again, in #13thAge style!

So 13th Age, as you may have read, revolutionized my way of looking at fantasy settings and cooperative storytelling within them.

The concept of Icons intended as powers that have clear (or murky, but definedly so) relationships with each other, and with which the player characters can have in their turn defined relationships with, kind of stated the obvious about world-building, but in a "why haven't I thought it before" kind of way.

My own "infinite project" named World of Cthon started as an alternative cosmology for D&D. The key idea was putting all the planes of existence inside a single material world, with defined spatial and temporal relationships with each other. That is to say: Heaven is a place on earth. And Hell too.
Such a "pocket-size" cosmology naturally implies an "assumed setting". That is, it's not just a guideline regarding planes, but it strongly suggests a story, and stories have characters.
The most influential of these characters are the three major families of gods of Cthon, that are beings sometimes defined as godly, sometimes not, throughout the whole history of D&D (if keeping the original D&D flavor).
In what I wanted to be a heads-up to real anthropology, the three families of gods represent/define three periods of time.