The chemistry of D&D

In D&D there are 4 elemental planes and matter is made of the four classical elements differentially permeated by positive (life) and negative (death) energy, and with the magical weave thrown in.

The four elements were briefly supplanted by phlogiston, the essence of combistion, which along with dephlogistonated residue made all matter. In Spelljammer 'phlogiston' has terrible usage as the interstellar medium, which in all likelihood is from someone's laziness at not checking their words as they meant æther.

Modern atomic elements do not explicitly feature, except in Order of the Stick and in games that are higher than progress level 5 (Alternity/D20 modern term).

Radiation features in Pathfinder Technology guide, which means that nuclear physics is possible. This means that if the minor conjuration were still around he could have summoned a critical amount of a fissile material, which combined with poison and fire immunity would be unspeakably awesome.

Also, atomic theory elements would mean different planar realms. It would not be recommendable visiting the trans-uranic planar realms. But the gold plane would probably make the GM cry the most.

Technomagic

One thing that has always fascinated me is technology in D&D. Introducing technology to a D&D game can come in many shapes and sizes and there are many sources, including the 5e Dungeonmaster's guide, which has one or two pages on laser weapons.

Unlucky dice? SkipBo as a die

Most players at some point will swear at their die and start to doubt the laws of physics. Having a random output is half the fun of it, as is clear when NPCs deal damage by the set output or when the encounter is in the plane of Mechanus (the latter is fun due to madness of the plane, but that's a different point). One way to stop complaints about accursed dice is to not use dice and use cards.

Blank tokens

I have uploaded my blank token sheets here:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/269498383/Blank-character-tokens
They are a modification of Paizo's to make them blank.

I (not the artists) kept them all in a box and they even get used in games they were not drawn for, each one tells a story. I really recommend any GM who has a printer to buy 200 gsm cardstock and make the players use them. Some are well drawn, while others are not, but they are all reminders of awesome games played.

And are a good hook for people to ask questions like "Why is there a picture of a horse walking on the ceiling?" or "Why are there two tokens, one of an old man in a dressing gown and harp, while the second all begadgeted?"... Which is your cue to tell the amazing tale of that game.


Other files you might find useful are:

• An item tracking sheet with details of locations on one's body (overkill RAW, but fun for gameplay).  https://www.scribd.com/doc/269479389/D-D-item-sheet
• A kill tally sheet to be able to assess the effectiveness of a various players. https://www.scribd.com/doc/269478981/Kill-Tally-sheet-for-D-D
• Sindarin character sheets https://www.scribd.com/doc/269477627/D-D-chr-sheet-in-Sindarin-Elvish (see another post for more)
• Other stuff that may be posted here.

D&D battle simulator, part 2

UPDATE: I have made a website of the simulator (dnd.matteoferla.com).
SEEN ALSO: Description of battle simulator and some analysis, the GitHub code for the encounter simulator, analysis of dice equivalence

Dice equivalency

I have had several conversations about "dice equivalency" in terms of damage:
y = average value
n = number of dice
x = maximum value of dice
k = damage bonus
y = n (x+1)/2 + k
Hypothesis: all creatures with identical stats except for (n,x,k), but that do y damage have the same victory probability. The average damage is the same, the distribution of the damage is different, so under some conditions one could argue that it would differ. The simulations show there is no difference regardless of whether the fight is easy or challenging or whether there are multiple team-members.
In other words, a special weapon variant of 2d6 can be d7+d5 —assuming if you can get over the d5's ugly shape—, 2d8 –2, 3d3+1, 4d2+1 or 7, yet it will not affect the game in the very long run.

D&D Battle simulator (part 1)

UPDATE: I have made a website of the simulator (dnd.matteoferla.com).

SEEN ALSO: Description of battle simulator and some analysis, the GitHub code for the encounter simulator, analysis of dice equivalence

Who would win in a battle of 15 peasants against a hill giant? In Dungeons and Dragons it is quite hard to predict the difficulty of an encounter. Unlike previous editions, in fifth edition the challenge is based on XP, while the challenge rating (CR) limits how nasty the monster can get. However, it isn't quite right.

In order to find out what the victory probabilities are as various parameters are changed I wrote a Python script to simulate D&D battles. The script can be found in my GitHub repository: https://github.com/matteoferla/tangents/blob/master/DnD_Battler.py

Picturing bardic spellcasting

The bard is a rather unusual class in D&D both in concept and in gameplay as it is a sorcerer that casts spells using a musical instrument, but isn't as good. I say sorcerer due to the charism, but bards used to be a proficiency class for druids —hence the leather. So it's nice that that got cleaned up, but I am nevertheless confuddled by the logistics of bardic spellcasting...

Coin names and slang: adding character to games with ease

Most custom settings seem to consist solely of a generic map and a custom pantheon, which doesn't do much in my opinion apart from boring the players while the GM rambles on about how Qwertix defeated Zyxx and so on, which does nothing for the players or, worse, proscribes a clerical domain or two. So how does one spice up a custom game?
It is often said that the theme is key, however this may result in a gargantuan job, so minor details are easier to pull off.

Symbols of the D&D planes

In Dungeons and Dragons most normal adventures happen in the same plane of existence—the eclectic þe olde Ængland meets Middle Earth meets Greek mythology meets ninjas. However, there are many planes of existence, each a caricature of a theme —Celestia, Hell, Elemental planes etc.
They were introduced in AD&D 2 Planescape as a collection of various books, 3.5 as two books (guide and player's handbook), 4e (one book) and 5e (a chapter so far in the DMG).
The nonsense of the spacial geometries apart, the are kind of cool.

Random name rolling tables (mostly funny)

In Dungeons and Dragons making up names can be hard. Hence the use of random rolling tables. Here are a collection of tables for personal names —no offense is meant by the presence of the names in certain group and many of the may be wrong (but I am sorry if your name is in the trailer trash part, say). The names are mostly scavenged from around the web.

Table of tables

Table to pick a table.

1. Modern
2. Trailer trash
3. Bogan
4. Hipster
5. Cowboy
6. Middleclass
7. Saxon
8. Norse
9. Post-roman
10. Roman
11. Bible
12. roll twice and mash the names

Oathbow

The Oathbow in D&D has the flavour that it wishers "Swift defeat to my enemies" in Elvish, yet does not say what it is. In Sindarin it is "dant lagor anin gyth nîn".

Lyre of Building

These are my old notes about the Lyre of Building, an item that is meant for role-playing, but is deadly in the hands of a min-maxer… It is safe to say it will not resurface in 5th edition.

Here are its stats (green is Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 only; blue is pathfinder), with section marks added by me.

Lyre of Building
Aura faint/moderate transmutation; CL 6th
Slot —; Price 13,000 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
Description: §1 This magical instrument is usually made of gold and inlaid with numerous gems. §2a If the proper chords are struck, a single use of this lyre negates any attacks made against inanimate construction (walls, roof, floor, and so on) within 300 feet. §2b This includes the effects of a horn of blasting, a disintegrate spell, or an attack from a ram or similar siege weapon. §2c The lyre can be used in this way once per day, with the protection lasting for 30 minutes.

§3a The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week, its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, etc. §3b The effect produced in 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for 3 days. §3c Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed.

Construction Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, fabricate; Cost 6,500 gp

Additions

Firstly, Paizo's contribution (§1) is game changing. Wow.

The item, especially for section 3 is pretty vague. But generally (i.e.  on internet forums) the following are agreed:

• The range is limited. The chords will not carry beyond a certain range. 300 ft in §2a. Amended to 100 ft by some DMs.
• The materials are generally considered to be not provided. The description does not say anything, but it does use the spell fabricate, which does not create matter, just reshape it. Therefore forests need to be felled, rockfaces quarried and sand refined into glass.
• The skill of building is that of the performer. There are craft(carpentry), craft(trap), profession(gardener), profession(smith), profession(engineering), knowledge(engineering) and a few more… None of these say how to build various structures.

My experience

When I played with it in PF, this item is not overpowered in light of the fact that the party did not need roads, bridges or stairways as everyone in the party had a hippogriff, a broom, a flying carpet or a flying cauldron. So did not need roads where they were going.

I took two ranks in carpentry and smith so that, taking 10 with the +5, meant my wood and metal craftsmanship was by default of high quality (medium challenge). Then based on the challenge an engineering check was rolled:

• DC 15: walls and ditches
• DC 10: simple, bronze age tech. e.g. single story houses and rope bridges
• DC 15: medium, classic/middle age tech, arches  e.g. two story houses, arches and arch bridges
• DC 20: complex buildings, classic age/late middle ages, e.g. gothic cathedrals and aqueducts
• DC 25: rather anachronistically complex buildings, renaissance age.
• DC 30: modern engineering.

The weekly use meant I shied away from using it however.

Combat use

In combat, in 6 seconds (full round) it can do the work of 24 workers for 1 hour, which is enough to build a trench (cover AC +4 melee, AC +4 ranged), which is slightly better than being prone (AC –4 melee, AC +4 ranged) and possibly a cheval-de-frise obstacle around the ranged folk to delay the bad guys for a round or two.

It can be safely assumed that it takes up a standard action.

As a "Bardic performance" is different from using the perform skill, the two can be maintained/done at the same time, assuming that free hands are available if different instruments are used. For spellsinging (Spellsong feat), the spells are seen as either woven into the ongoing performances or a separate performances (but cost performance slots); I played it that I sang the bardic performance (due to the Discordant voice feat), while spellsung with a +5 panpipe if possible (Swift action clash). For a building performance, certain builds require specific chords. So acapella bardic performance (Swift) + lyre building performance.

D&D character sheet in Sindarin (Elvish)

In Tolkien's universe, Elves speak a variety of elvish languages. As JRR Tolkien was a professor of Old English at Oxford, he knew his stuff when it comes to linguistics, so like Klingon and Valyrian, Elvish is not a crackpot's attempt at a language (unlike too many made-up sentences in movies with jarring mistakes). Tolkein Elvish is a family of languages, which include Quenya, nicknamed Latin-Elvish, and Sindarin, common Elvish. The script is called Tengwar. The character sheet is written in Sindarin using the Tengwar script.

Unimpeded Eldritch Crossbow

This is my second favourite munchkin item. The Unimpeded Eldritch Crossbow shows through walls.