Homebrew-friendly 5th Edition? (Request/Interest Check)

[Thistledown]

Greetings!

Thistle here. Long-time OGMW player giving Baldr a go! ...change is hard sometimes, but often worth it on the other side!

Coincidentally, and with the recent renaissance of DnD in pop culture with the movie, the game, critical roll, etc. I decided to finally release my steadfast hold on that beautiful monstrosity that is 3.5 and finally give 5th edition a fair look. After immersing myself in the ins and outs I'm already very pleased with how it improves the game in many ways, and I think the bounded accuracy thing really helps moderate how crazy and broken 3.5 could be. For this reason even within 3.5, I've been really enjoying the feel of the E6 variant game quite a bit, where the numbers stay more grounded. The cool thing about 5e is it seems to keep that feeling, where a magic sword is amazing at +3 but spread out over a full 20 levels.

I'm hoping I might find a DM here willing to run a game and who would comfortable allowing some tweaks/homebrew, specifically some of the treantmonk race/class variants that I'd love to try out, and possibly his feat fixes as well. There's a few other tweaks I'd request as well, depending on what kind of game it would be and which character...

Prefer mid-high level games, starting in tiers 2 or 3 and going to 4,, Ideally would love to start at level 6 and go to at least 16 if not to 20! I know there are a few modules out there that encompass those levels so if that makes it easier on the DM, I haven't played through any of them yet and would love to, perhaps even adapting them like Tyranny of Dragons, but in Eberron...!. I also have a few pitches I could make if you don't want to run an existing module, but if you have your own story or setting you prefer even better!

AND... if you're REALLY open minded about homebrew, I've been working on my own, adapting one of my all-time favorite 3.5 class that sadly never made it into the 5th edition: the Dragonfire Adept!!!

It was/is such a great class with all kinds of ways to build it, but they were especially, amazingly good at battlefield control and could be built for incredible utility outside of combat as well, depending on invocations. They were similar mechanically to warlocks, but with breath weapons instead of eldritch blast, they grew scales, and had some very unique and interesting invocations. Super fun to play, with amazing options in and out of combat focused on debuffs, control, or even tanking, basically aiding the whole party such that it makes the whole team shine.

I checked and found that a few people have already made homebrews for it, and I found one in particular that I think really nailed the 5e warlock parallel structure and had the right idea, but I felt it could be refined and go a bit further, and I'm bringing in some interesting ideas from both Treantmonk and one of the cool things I think Larian has done, that would work well in tabletop. I'm almost finished writing it up and am planning to submit it for PEACHing (Please Evaluate and Criticize Honestly) on a few forums. It would be cool to playtest it out! I'd be open to a solo game, but the real joy es from playing with a party, so it would be even cooler if there was some player interest as well!

Any interest?

Thank you for reading, and your consideration,

- Thistledown 🧐

Edited August 16, 2023 by Thistledown (see edit history)

[Thistledown]

Hmm. Nothing? A bit surprised...is modding not as much of a thing in 5e as it was in 3.5?

[alena_darkwing]

Maybe the D&D crowd got older and not as much enthusiastic about modding as before. Maybe they are cautious about how crazy and broken 3.5 could be and don't want this part of history to repeat itself. Maybe the modding-happy crowd is now playing PF1 which probably has several times the amount of player options than 3.5e. Maybe it's been only a day since your first post and an avalanche of players is incoming within a few days.

Maybe a combination of all of the above.

[Thistledown]

Well I am myself older, not sure what age has to do with modding. Like I said in my OP I'm well aware of how broken 3.5 could be. You might note that Treantmonk has been a stalwart in the charop community since 3.5 and as such his variants are all about fine tuning balance not breaking anything.

If you're into PF that's fine but no need to be passive aggressive about it.

As for an avalanche, maybe it's because of Baldr but I remember there being a rather robust community on OGMW many of whom were perfectly fine with homebrew and such. As such, I'm just a bit surprised. Seems harder to find DMs these days for whatever reason...

[Inquisitor D]

DM requests are a bit of a longshot right now, I'm afraid. Baldr changeover and all. It's always kinda optimistic - DMing's hard work. We love kindly wandering DMs who get things started, but that's always a bit of a rare bread. Not getting one is the norm

Still, good luck. 5e ain't my jam, but I can respect the enthusiasm. ^^

[Thistledown]

Ideally I'd be able to find a new "home group" for PbPing, where we all write well together. That would be awesome. It's been a long time...

[alena_darkwing]

I'm not into Pathfinder, and therefore there's nothing aggressive in that sentence.

I was brainstorming about the possible reasons behind people not jumping in.

Edited August 18, 2023 by alena_darkwing (see edit history)

[Thistledown]

3 hours ago, alena_darkwing said:

I'm not into Pathfinder, and therefore there's nothing aggressive in that sentence.

I was brainstorming about the possible reasons behind people not jumping in.

Ah, keep in mind that using italics like you did in your initial reply to add emphasis could be interpreted through text as being...snarky.

[alena_darkwing]

I meant to use that as simply highlighting parts I felt were strong as a reason, but I'll watch out in the future to avoid it.

Is there some summary of the changes and the reasons for them in treantmonk's work? Comparing the new variants from memory is not an easy task for me.

[Thistledown]

Yeah, if you go to the pdfs I linked, within each one is a link to a YouTube video where he gives his rationale for everything. He's been a stalwart in the online D&D community for years and I think his approach is very balanced, fixing things that needed it and occasionally nerfing things. I don't agree with him always 100% so I'd make a few further tweaks but overall love his stuff. I consider his warlock and sorcerer variants to be more or less definitive.

[alena_darkwing]

I've listened to several of those explanations and the guy is very thorough and conscious about what he's doing. I like him and those changes sound intriguing.

[bwatford]

tbh, the biggest issue is getting everyone on the same page in a game that is heavily modified. A lot of times, especially in pbp, it just isn't worth it (especially in a system like 5e) due to the fact that most homebrew has to do with a lot of mechanical stuff that just isn't worth it in pbp. Even real-life games, a lot of people just won't put in the effort to learn things outside the core books due to the fact that is what they use in every game anywhere they go.

I have a game over VTT that use heavily modified rules due to the setting, and more often than not, we forget to enforce/use half of them.

I think it is just hard for players, and GM/DMs alike to have multiple tables going with different versions of the rules on them.

Best to keep it as close to the same across games as possible unless it is a special situation or just totally different rulesets.

 

[Thistledown]

With respect, I humbly disagree. The mods I'm talking about are entirely for classes, races, and maybe feats. Super easy to keep track of, and I've been playing in homebrew friendly campaigns in PbP for decades. A class tweak like, eldritch blast is now a class feature rather than a cantrip (closes some exploits in fact), or giving dragonborn recharge dice for their breath weapon isn't some Herculean task of bookkeeping.

You just have a DM/group agree at the beginning, make a note of any tweaks in play and you're off on the adventure.

[bwatford]

In older editions, yes... 3.5 and pf1 was full of 3rd party materials, and classes and feats galore.

5e is a different animal, very, very easy to break a system that is already fragile at best. (I mean feats nor magic items were included in the basic game math for starters) The whole thing tetters on poorly designed bounded accuracy. We've already seen what official class options in Tasha's alone does to the game balance. And yes, Twilight and Order Cleric options are broken in that book. Hell, 95% of DM's aren't even allowing UA material and a pretty heavy chunk (about 20%) have now eliminated feats (or at least a handful of them) and multiclassing dipping due to disruptive game balance.

Why add more issues? It is pretty easy to find a game where a DM isn't following a lot of the rules at all nowadays and they just make the game up on the fly, my question is why play 5e at all then? Plenty of other systems that do exactly what you want and are much better at handling/allowing them.

I have been behind the screen for almost 40 years and DM'd every edition of D&D and many other systems, and tbh, most 3rd party 5e stuff has been trash. Mostly due to designers trying to treat it like 3.5 and it just can't handle that level of complexity/customization or design concepts. 5e is a very simple cut and dry game at its core and a lot of stuff thrown on top just defeats the purpose of the design.

Just my two cents here, take it or leave it.... but that is why you don't see it much anymore. Which is what your initial question was about.

[Thistledown]

My initial question is seeking a DM who understands the game well enough to accommodate. TM runs games all the time with his variants and house rules for his patreon subscribers and doesn't seem to have any of the issues you're afraid of. If anything it's even more balanced and more fun. I disagree 5e can't handle modding. If anything it's RIPE for tweaks to classes. Here's a simple one: all sorcerer subclasses with expanded spell lists get them automatically known, just like Aberrant Minds and Clockwork Souls. Doesn't break anything, just gives more options, and brings them up to par with all the other casting subclasses that get expanded spell lists.

I don't see your point in even replying if you're just going to sh*t on the idea. I've known plenty of DMs who have no issues working with player tweaks and requests. If that's not you, fair enough, it's a big forum...🍻

Edited August 19, 2023 by Thistledown (see edit history)