Not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous. The warframe companion app's fine, but i want to bullet jump around like a cat at 3am while waiting for my foundry items to finish.

I was looking over an old character I've been saving for when our table revisits 1e. He's a medium, one of the less immediately powerful classes that operates around a very limited resource, but gaining extreme day-to-day flexibility. I like the class because it can access and flourish in all arenas of play, whether that's combat, downtime, or exploration. They can even access 6th level spells from wizard, druid, and cleric, in addition to getting a spicy Wish capstone.

When a medium hits 5 Influence by using one of his many, many influence accruing abilities, he becomes an NPC under the GM's control. Now, that sounds really bad, mostly because it is. But most GM's are... probably not going to want to fully pilot a full PC in addition to everything else, especially not one so complicated as a medium. For some tables, that's enough to just soft-ban the class, but others might find some balance between player & gm control to keep it going. That's not really the point of the post, however.

The medium doesn't have a cap for their influence points - they just become an NPC at 5 or more. If your teammates included a pretty good face to influence the NPC to tag along for the rest of the day, there isn't really anything stopping the NPC Medium from just... using all of the influence abilities at every opportunity.

You can only Spirit Surge once per round, but there are a few other abilities of note. A trickster NPC can steal the buffs from any and everyone. Marshall NPCs can Decisive Strike twice per turn to give your team an extra attack and an extra standard action every turn. Archmage NPCs could just use Arcane Surge to cast free arcane spells of up to 6th level every single turn forever. Legendary spirits have some tricks too, and are likely much easier to bargain with than a new spirit each time. Cyricas can provide AoE Freedom of Movement to your whole team all day long. Stavian can double up on AoE healing or deprive enemies of heals going their way. Darolnyr can swift action teleport you and give the free spellcasts from archmage.

This is likely in no way practical information, I just thought it's an interesting blindspot on all the medium discussion posts I've seen.

no context will be given, or is necessary for that matter

In our Gatewalkers game, my barbarian bit the dust in book 1. Very sad but more importantly, an opportunity arose; I could play this little awakened hedgehog dude! Only, there were some troubles. First off, Awakened Animal PCs aren't officially supported until the next splatbook comes out, so I needed to jury-rig a hedge hogman ancestry.

This was very easy.

The next hurdle was to find out what kind of class fits this little dude and worked with our party's already quite janky setup.

This was very hard.

ANCESTRY DETAILS

Hedge Hogman

Traits: Rare, Animal, Humanoid, Hedge Hogman;

Ancestry HP: 6;

Stats: +STR +CON +FREE(CHA) -INT;

Heritage: Quillcoat Hogman (Stolen from Shisk's "Quillcoat shisk");

Senses: Lowlight Vision;

Feats: 1-Animal Elocutionist (Gnome), 5-Renewing Quills (Shisk), 9-Critter Shape (Beastkin)

BACKGROUND

Dance Prodigy: +CHA +STR. Dance Lore, Virtuosic Performer (Dance, naturally)

CLASS

Swashbuckler

Key: Dex.

Final Boosts: +STR, +CON, +WIS, +CHA;

Subclass: Battledancer (Naturally);

Class Feats: 1-Focused Fascination, 2-Antagonize, 4-Leading Dance, 6, Combination Finisher, 8, Reactive Strike, 10-Derring Do;

Skill Feats: 2-Intimidating Glare, 3-Distracting Performance, 4-Lengthy Diversion, 5-Assurance: Acrobatics, 6-Assurance: Stealth, 7-Steady Balance, 8-Battlecry, 9-Catfall, 10-Terrified Retreat;

Free Archetype Feats: 2-Bard Dedication, 4-Multifarious Muse: Versatile Performance, 6-Uplifting Overture, 8-Rallying Anthem, 10, Lingering Performance;

General Feats: 3-Armor Proficiency, 7-Toughness;

Juiced Skills: Performance (Master @ 7), Deception (Master @ 9);

Equipment: Greatsword, Handwraps of Mighty Blows, Breastplate, a million scrolls of Bless, Jolt Coil, Dancing Scarf;

Spells: Shield, Musical Accompanyment

IN REVIEW

Our hogman friend here specializes in the Performance Skill to the extreme. On its own, Performance is good for... building panache. That's it. After snagging every feat, putting on some sick tunes w/ Musical Accompaniment, and doing a prepatory headspin or two, Hedge Hogman Capoeria takes off.

Once Panache is obtained (stupid easy for Battledancer), Performance is now rolled with 5e-style Advantage, can be used to Demoralize, Aid every skill check, Distract to make teammates Hidden in plain sight, perform an MAP-less Reposition, make good impressions on people and animals, MMO-style taunt on spellcasters, and extend a defensive buff/prepared aid over the course of a fight.

There's also a sneaky trick in there, did you catch it? Hedge Hogman Capoeira also subtly encourages enemies to attack the Swashbuckler while debuffed via the Antagonize feat (cutely enough, this also uses performance!), potentially triggering a nasty Opportune Riposte with a big greatsword, or at the very least a faceful of Quillcoat Spikes.

cross-posted from: https://dormi.zone/post/994993

> I threw together a little treasure cave together for my table. There's a spider boss hanging out in that northern room guarding a Spiderclimber's Kit in the very next room. Once they have it, they'll be able to snag treasure at the bottom of the deep pit and the high cliff.

I threw together a little treasure cave together for my table. There's a spider boss hanging out in that northern room guarding a Spiderclimber's Kit in the very next room. Once they have it, they'll be able to snag treasure at the bottom of the deep pit and the high cliff.

cross-posted from: https://dormi.zone/post/929219

> OK, the previous map's vegetation was bugging me, so I took a bit of time to practice those particulars. I want to add a bit more depth to the shrubs, but hey, they still get the job done.

Hey folks on this side of the fedi, my thing is that I make shitty maps fast. I like to think i get better with each one, but that is a dangerous thought that threatens to invoke perfectionism that threatens to doom the project. So I aim for a quick and dirty aesthetic on purpose!

12 fishbucks for an energise, be sure to run steel path for more fishbucks per mission

OK, the previous map's vegetation was bugging me, so I took a bit of time to practice those particulars. I want to add a bit more depth to the shrubs, but hey, they still get the job done.

I'm not totally sold on the thickets or tree trunks in this one, but I did slap it together in under half an hour, so mission complete!

In retrospect, I think the trunks bug me because they're not in perspective - they're top down, while everything else is showing things from the side. Something to fix next time around. The thickets, eh, i dunno. I'd have to look at how other people do that and try to ape whatever they're doing to make them look a bit better because whew, i do not like how they look.

Howdy folks, I posted this little dude in the CharArt community, and thought I'd ought to post his funny numbers here too.

Shitty Artwork

Yogi Troubles, Professional Forgettor and Part-Time Grenadier. Goblin culture warns that practicing literacy steals thoughts from your head, so in order to make ends meet, Yogi has to constantly be learning staggering amounts of information on an enormous amount of subjects. Although he's best suited for exploration and a bit of downtime activity, it'd be unwise to underestimate his combat ability.

Note: This build benefits from an origin in Alkenstar, Dongon Hold, The Shackles, or some other place with access to guns. You can also just ask for Access from your GM.

Ancestry:

Goblin, naturally. Goblin grants access to the Goblin Weapon Familiarity feat, which gives you Martial Scaling on the Explosive Dogslicer and Crit Specializations for it and the Big Boom Gun at lv 5. Unbreakable Heritage is probably best, but I chose Charhide.

Chassis:

Lv 1 Statline should be | STR +3 | DEX +0 | CON +1 | INT +4 | WIS +1 | CHA +0 |

You might wonder why a gun-toting, finesse weapon wielding investigator would dump dex. The answer is because DEX only meaningfully modifies your Reflex and AC, and your soft-cap for the latter is only a +1 as early as lv 3. Devise a Stratagem is how you'll aim your gun, and you can just swing your Dogslicer around with STR if you don't have time to aim. You can use Athletics if you want to forget a bad Devise a Stratagem Roll, especially since you can brew up Fury Cocktails to wrestle huge enemies.

Alchemical Sciences Investigator grants you a small pool of wildcard items, but they can only be Elixirs or Alch Tools. This is pretty huge, but kind of restrictive. Some seriously useful tech can be pulled from this pool, though, so don't underestimate it. Cognitive Mutagens remove the potential of crit failing recall knowledge checks. Fury Cocktails as described before can make you Large. Juggernaut Mutagens can clear non-combat mutagens from your system.

Speaking of Cognitive Mutagens, Investigators get a Lv 3 Feature that lets them attempt any unskilled Recall Knowledge Check as if their proficiency Modifier was equal to their level, rather than 0. Use Specific Lore + Cognitive Mutagen + Dubious Knowledge to guarantee useful information no matter what you're thinking about.

Feats:

My own table uses the Free Archetype ruleset, so I'll be including that into the build here. If you're not using that variant rule, prioritize the dedication!

Lv 1: Wildcard Class feat slot. I like Flexible Studies, but you might prefer the action condensation of Known Weakness. Take Goblin Weapon Familiarity for some nice weapons that work with Investigators.

Lv 2: Duelist Dedication + Shared Stratagem. Duelist gives you Quick Draw, which is a vital feat for blasting and dart throwing. Shared Stratagem's just nice to your teammates. Be nice to your teammates. Take Dubious Knowledge as your skill feat.

Lv 3: Armor Proficiency. Medium Armor decouples you from dex almost entirely. Note that you'll need to upgrade to Sentinel Dedication at lv 18. Take Specialty Crafting: Alchemy for an even easier time making cheap bombs when you've got downtime.

Equipment:

Explosive Dogslicer: Part Scattergun, Part Knife. It's actually pretty good as far as investigator weapons go. Only use the gun half for its Critical Fusion benefit on crits, or when you're up against swarms.

Shifting Rune: Dogslicer not cutting it? Turn it into a bastard sword. or a whip. Or whatever. Any 1h strength weapon you'll ever need, all in one rune. In particular, use this when an enemy has resistance to slashing, or weakness to another physical damage type.

Adaptive Cogwheel: Slap it on your dogslicer, and bam. Now its an arquebus for a turn. Or a bigger scattergun. Honestly, between this and the shifting rune, you should always be using the right weapon for the job.

Big Boom Gun: Fatal d12 available when you roll a guaranteed crit.

Darts: Ranged + Agile, for when you roll a guaranteed hit, but dont want to close in with your knife or swap to its gun form.

Thrower's Bandolier: Put 20 darts in here and phase 16 of them out with bombs as you become wealthier. Cheap 4gp bombs only.

Blazons of Shared Power: Fuse your Dogslicer and Big Boom Gun's runes together to save money in the long run.

Cognitive Mutagen: Push Crit Fails off the table, letting your Dubious Knowledge guarantee useful information no matter what. Incidentally gives a nice scaling boost to your untrained Recall Knowledge ability.

Every Bomb Known to Man: You have guaranteed information. Combine that with every damage type you can get your hands on. Buy or make them for dirt cheap and stow them in your bandolier to scale their damage up as you level. Don't bother with higher level bombs unless they add new effects.

Tactics:

Always be learning. Remember that you can Recall Knowledge on ANY subject with Specific Lores to reduce the DC by 5. You also don't need to be in combat to recall knowledge. Find tracks? Roll a Footprints Lore to determine what kind of monster left them. It was an Troll? Roll a Troll Lore and brief your team on their strengths and weaknesses.

Swing->Devise->Swing again. When you're fighting an enemy with Low AC, don't be afraid to get a little greedy with your first hit. You've got the strength for it.

Use outcomes wisely. Don't waste actions running up to cut someone with a 20, Quickdraw your fatal d12 big boom gun. Don't pull it out for a miss, obviously, because it will blow up in your face if you do. Pull out a splash weapon keyed to your targets weakness instead. If you know you'd critically miss, then throw it at the floor beneath them instead. Did you guarantee a hit by 4 or more? Cut someone else first, then throw a dart at your original target.

Here are two random encounter maps I made in an afternoon. I can put these out pretty quickly, so its kind of perfect for a sandbox game like the one I'm running. Keeps things fresh, even if they're not as pretty as something produced professionally.

Swamp

Badlands Cliffs

Axinoz believes in the philosophy of "Swing First". also dont judge, the dinky lv 1 chainmail they bought a few centuries ago is somehow still the best armor they've found since it fits over their anti-floor-digestion spelljammer suit.

SYSTEM: Dungeons and Dragons 5e

NAME: Axinoz

ANCESTRY: Plasmoid

BACKGROUND: Astral Drifter

CLASS: Paladin + Whispers Bard

LEVEL: 9

Yogi here has come to a similar conclusion about his weapons.

SYSTEM: Pathfinder 2e

NAME: Yogi Troubles

ANCESTRY: Goblin (Charhide)

BACKGROUND: Junk Tinker

CLASS: Investigator (Alchemical Sciences) + Duelist Archetype

LV: 3

Bonus points for any non-D&D or D&D derivative systems.

My first RPG was Palladium Fantasy way back when my grognard uncle invited me to his groups table. I still don't really grok it, but it was pretty formative of my ideas of what an RPG could be. The lack of balance and extreme existential threats as part of ordinary encounters included.

Needless to say, I haven't found a group for this system in a looong while, eheh.

This is the third draft of this post, as well.

I guess I might belong, eheh.