Changelog

Duncehack

Well...

It's getting big enough that this might be justified.

What is this?

What do you mean? if you don't know, hit the link above and see the rest of this.

TO-DO LIST (For Now):

Take another look at Fighting Styles

I may have overdone it. I kinda fell in love with my own idea a bit.

New Archetypes Overhaul

Yeah, lot happened since I was in last. So I've got new archetypes to roll in.

Race Writeup Cleanup

Apocalypse World had the right idea when they made up their classes into a format that you can hand people as a pamphlet. I should aim to something that... accessable.

Ranting should be moved over to a place where that's expected. That's what the design documentation hub's supposed to be. I'm... not making fast progress there though.

Skill/Tool Overhaul

Very much not looking forward to this one. Suspect I'll have to draft up something to do with a global DC guideline? Unsure, but part of the issue with skill checks is the DM doesn't always know what DC to throw up when the players prompt, grinding the game to a halt.

Also, Medicine needs to be less awful.

I've mentioned specialisations briefly as being part of this, but I need to actually... y'know, do it?

Improvised Weapons

Getting there, it's the first step of my major weapons overhaul!


Tertiary Ability Scores (DM Workshop)

This was a lower priority but my brief mention of Fortune as a stat made its way over to reddit and now I can't recork the genie. Initial thought is that max of 9 Ability Scores, with Fortune, Honour and Sanity appended.

Thinking that Fortune is as previously outlined - a fate point system (might need clarification on how it works with my Inspiration system however). Fortune saving throws would be specifically acts-of-god territory.

Honour would be a combination of reputation and favours/references the character can call on. Essentially a mixed bag of Credit Rating from Call of Chthulu, Reputations/Favours from Eclipse Phase and References from Red Markets. In essense, Charisma is how well you get along with people, but Honour is how highly they regard you.

Sanity is the main reason I haven't finished this writeup already. So I wanted a mental HP system - draw your Darkest Dungeon parallels if you will. It's also a pain right in the arse to get working right. How do you determine the sanity 'hit die'? how do you determine max mental HP pool? How do you determine how many hit dice you get? I played with tying it to Wisdom (as Sanity saves and Wisdom saves aren't meaningfully different), but that just turned it into an even more important stat in a game where it's already an amazing investment. Splitting it among Intelligence, Charisma and Wisdom just made it confusing and inintuitive (I think it was # of hit dice in Cha, + mental HP in Wis, +hit die type in int? dunno, discarded those ideas for being shit). Was a mess. Sanity stat is neater.

Current thinking: Standard array should add a 16 for the first tertiary stat, an 11 for the second, and a 9 for the third. Yes this means that you get a 16 out the gate where you couldn't otherwise, but that's mitigated by the fact you have extra stats to consider. Does mean that standard array just becomes "fill the boxes 8-16". I was always more for point buy anyway. Yes, I understand that means multiple 16s out the gate, but you are playing with an optional rule of extra ability scores. For point buy the 16th point would cost 3, so to get there would be 12 points. 43 points under such a system gets you the 8-16 array.

Backgrounds

Serious question, what should a background actually provide? Yeah, I keep pausing on that one too.

Resource Systems (DM Workshop)

There's a couple rattling around in there, but the broad overview is there's 2 main systems: Static Charges (where you check off 'uses' of an item the same way you'd check off spell slots), or Risk Dice (you roll a dX, if that die hits a low number, like a 1 or a 2 depending, you downgrade the die).

Done the dice, now to do the static uses.

Others down the road.

Small Business, Costs and Currencies, Reputation and Favours, Sanity, Injuries, Traumas, Monster Manual, Items, Mounts/Companions/Sidekicks, Technology, Spell Overhaul, UA Overhauls, Flaw System

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

State of the Hack - 2021

Returning from Hiatus

So. 2020.

Yeah.

That one's gonna go down in history as an unpleasant one.

Plans then?

Played some Baldur's Gate 3. I like some of their ideas, so I'm going to nicking a few. Also, new books have come out in my absence, have to dig through those.

Other than that, I had unfinished business from months back I need to get on top of.

What have I been doing anyway?

Life man. Can't say much without getting personal, but given the corners of the internet I frequent just kinda went dead for a while, I imagine my experience wansn't all that unique either.

That and... honestly just keeping my nose out of how insane the internet got. I've pulled this disappearing trick before actually, upended my entire online presence for a couple of years at around 2013-ish. Some of the most productive months of my life - would recommend when it all gets too much.

Thoughts on the world

If you're real depressed over the state of the world and you think the sky is literally falling because (political issue here) didn't go the way you expected or (sociopolitical matter there) seems utterly hopeless and you're powerless to help...

Disconnect, just for a little while, help your friends and loved ones through their personal struggles, focus on pulling your aspirations together.

When you come back, the issues of the day when you pulled out will be a faded memory, and you'll have accomplishments under your belt you'll be proud of.

And if you are utterly determined to keep your eyes glued to the news and political cycle and scoff at my supplications? Think for a minute - there's always a good fight to be had tomorrow, and it's better to face said fight when you're not burnt out, demoralised, and just tired with it all. You don't help anyone when you're drowning under the strain.

My message to those finding themselves sitting on an extreme fringe in the wake of the political shifts is this: The end goal of the game of politics is not to 'win'. It's to perpetuate the game. Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems with this game, just because you see a winning state, where your people are on top today... Well, you're going to have to defend that position from the rivals from without, and mistakes from within, that will beset you tomorrow.

I know a lot of people are scared and desperate, clinging to extreme solutions to what they see as world ending, extreme problems... but two doors down from where you live, will be someone who's biggest complaint in life is that they're trying to find a new show to watch.


The world will always be here tomorrow, and it's much bigger than the corners you hang out in. There's no need to rush, patience tends to teach you something new.


So... I'm on Minds these days...

Doesn't mean anything if you're tracking me through here, or found me initially via a certain mongolian basketweaving forum, or whatever.

Why?

As of this writing my government is in a bit of an argument with the big social media giants over matters of taxation (Presently, this is Google and Facebook, but I imagine it won't just be them in the coming days).

Anyone who has function above the hippocampus can tell you that taxation is one of the few things that can truly motivate a government into action.

As a result, said giants are threatening to pull services from my home country if my government doesn't capitulate to their demands.

I don't see that ending well. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they hash out a deal and everyone goes home happy (unlikely where taxes are concerned, but I've been wrong a lot).

Point is, I needed a platform that isn't gonna pull all of its services out from under me because of something outside of my control.

So it has nothing to do with US politics?

I am not an American.

Moreover, I keep my mouth shut on that topic because if I say something stupid, and someone runs with it and it turns out my opinion got someone hurt... well I'm half a world away and don't have to answer for the consequences of that.

Seems irresponsible to mouth off about it.

And if the response is "But you have to show solidarity with (group)!" - No I do not. That's exactly the place where the dumbest opinions do the most damage - people let their guard down around 'friends' and 'allies'. A real friend talks you out of ruining your own life, they don't hand you a molotov and goad you into ruining it faster - and the internet too easily lets that latter group fool you.

Is this a boycott?

I guess?

Depends if you think companies should boycott nations I suppose?

But why minds? why not...

I'm an introvert who can't handle people very well - I try, I'm just not very good at it. I find Twitter intimidating, Facebook too personal, Reddit feels too much like you're in the middle of a densely crowded street and can't get out.

Minds just seemed a good fit, lot of curation tools from what I can tell.

Initial thought was a Discord server but... That sounds like a lot of work for little actual gain.

But what of dedicated D&D forums? the ones using the old vBulletin format (Giant in the Playground for instance). Nostalgia aside, those places are matters of community and reciprocity - seems rude to just rock up and the first thing out of my mouth is 'Read my rulehack!'

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

15/03/2021

Created a class variant for Barbarians that turns them into half-casters.

02/03/2021

Cleaned up Halflings.

Removed a lot of the stuff I did for Lightfoot, added stealth proficiency. Because at this point screw it, if Baldur's Gate 3 is gonna just give it to them, I guess I should too.

Added Lotusden, didn't do anything for them because they're already overloaded.

01/03/2021

Sorry for my absense for a couple weeks.

Cleaned up Elves.

Removed the religion skill proficiency I added to Drow.

Added Pallid Elves, didn't do anything to them because they're overloaded.

Also it looks like I may have messed up ages ago on the weight of a cantrip. Looks like it's more equivalent to a skill proficiency than anything. Changed that.

13/02/2021

More cleanups that aren't really worth mentioning here (as it's mostly formatting and layout to make things look nicer).

Working on the Barbarian class. Doing a major move away from the UA class changes and more towards Tasha's take.

To be quite honest, I didn't actually expect them to implement those changes into Tasha's so... yeah.

Also gave them some more utility so there's that.

Here's the main points I'll cover here:

  • Reckless Rage is removed entirely
  • Brutal Critical now goes to 5 dice
  • Remorseless is replaced with Remorseless Strike

So Reckless Rage used to be 'any time you reckless and you roll matches on the 2d20, as long as it beat AC you crit'.

While I liked it... barely anyone else did. So yay.

Remorseless used to allow for Barbarians to just gain extra weapon attacks whenever they killed a dude, but given I've opened the floodgates to ranged barbarians that... could be a problem. Also, potential for infinite attacks is something a younger, stupider me should really have clamped down on.

I still can't believe I defended that.

Brutal critical now goes to 5 dice as compensation for the removal of my old features. It's simpler.


  • Berzerker. Just got a cleanup, as some of the wording was wonky.
  • Totem Warrior. Insead of animal handling proficiency, I gave them advantage on animal handling for their totem animal, or nature for their totem plant. Dropped the line about advantage on acrobatics from Eagle. Redid Tiger to instead auto-crit (becuase abuse potential) to knock prone.
  • Battlemaster. Dropped the Athletics proficiency. Changed the benefit to the 10th level feature from more temp HP to making it difficult to nail reactions on you. Dropped the extra THP to the 6th level feature during level up.
  • Zealot. Changed skill proficiencies to just advantage on religion checks pertaining to your religion specifically.
  • Ancestral Guardian. Changed skill proficiencies to just 'can use wisdom instead of intelligence for skill checks if your ancestors would know about the topic at hand'. Removed the Wisdom Modifier addition on the 3rd level feature (was flat damage reduction based on Wisdom Modifier).
  • Storm Herald. Dropped skill proficiency as the gust thing was enough
  • Beast. Added.
  • Wild Magic. Added.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

08/02/2021

Past couple of weeks has seen progress, but not of the kind worth really documenting (the slow steady inexorable cleanup).

As for today, did the Black Hack resources writeup.

Reorganised my link dump. Should be a little better now.

Retiring my seperate Homebrew link dump. No point maintaining it because I barely ever use it. I'll just append things to the main link dump as I make them.

30/01/2021

Did my roll engines writeup.

Also added the DMG ability scores to the Ability Scores writeup.

28/01/2021

Cleaned up my Ability Scores and Saving Throws writeup. Just some typos and poor phrasing here and there.

Decided to do away with my planned Development Notes stuff. Frankly, I do it in the general writeups anyway, just redundant.

Put a note in my Humans/Balance Rationale writeup about the price of Fighting Styles, and how Tasha's seems to think it costs a whole feat. If there is one argument as to why I'm wholly justified in this whole rulehack project, it's that. Anyone who thinks that opportunity cost is reasonable is deluded. Anyone who gives that argument of 'but underpowered character can be fun anyway' is completely missing the point - if you want to be intentionally underpowered, be my guest, I'm right alongside you: the last warlock I ran didn't pick up eldritch blast until 20th level and that was only because the DM basically made me for the final battle. It's not about being intentionally underpowered, it's about being unintentionally underpowered. Refer to groundrule two at the beginning of every one of my writeups - Trap choices are to be removed.

26/01/2021

Had to go back over the EK modifications, a couple things I messed up, a couple things I added in.

Also, added dev notes, because I know some you like reading those.

25/01/2021

Essay on how to whether or not it's balanced to use non-Wizard spell lists for EK, and how best to approach them.

So that's up now.

23/01/2021

Mostly cleanup and directing things to my new Minds.com account.

Was planning to do modifications to existing classes (e.g. an Eldritch Knight, but pact magic) in my homebrew link dump, but I decided it's probably best put in the main line link dump. The existence of the Spell-less ranger as an official UA kind of clinched the decision.


17/08/2020

Did a new rules writeup on Ability Scores and saving throws. Nothing special, but I did cover a couple of optional rules on Ability Score proficiencies (on the rare case they're ever used).

Well, I guess I'll eventually complete the base character sheet.

16/08/2020

Cleaned up Artificer, so it shouldn't have things hanging off the page anymore.

Added a note in Bard about the Magical Secrets (The Magical Secrets are part of the Bard list of known spells because it was like that in the PHB, and that you're not breaking anything if you change it to 'in addition to').

Also clarified and cleaned up the Bard Spell progression which was... well, I forgot to add the known spells column. Yeah... that's a mea culpa.

Corrected the Inner Fire feature on Champion (It should have read 12+Fighter Level to be in line with the Second Wind buff).

Cleaned off some weird formatting bug that was causing issues when downloading the Rogue pages to PDF that wasn't showing up in browser for me.

This next one is just straight errata: Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight get their non-school limited spells at 13th and 19th, not 14th and 20th. This was always intended as I wanted to give an extra level where people could switch out their capstone spell if they weren't happy with it. I just kinda... forgot.

Clarified Monk Weapons a bit because I realised that I was contradicting myself between the two features. Instead of trying to keep it in, I just gutted the restrictions and instead only locked out Greatswords and its ilk as 'can't be made finesse with martial arts, but you still gain benefit from strength based attacks'. So in trying to errata something, I wound up buffing Strength based Monks. You're welcome.

TO-DO LIST: Work out how to handle double weapons. I might have to actually deal with Two-Handed as a weapon property after all given double weapons finally made their way into the game.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

09/08/2020

I haven't been sitting on my hands, don't mistake my silence for neglect. Been getting up to speed and working out the proper way to handle archetypes that came out after my last round of work (Chronurgy and Gravaturgy anyone?). I'll have something up soon... hopefully.

List as present is:

  • Barbarian:
    • Beast
    • Wild Soul
  • Bard:
    • Eloquence
    • Creation
    • Spirits
    • Satire
  • Cleric
    • Protection
    • Twilight
    • Unity
  • Druid
    • Wildfire
    • Stars
  • Fighter
    • Brute
    • Echo Knight
    • (Some others, I have to chase down)
  • Paladin
    • Glory
    • Watchers
  • Ranger
    • Fey Wanderer
  • Rogue
    • Phantom
  • Sorcerer
    • Psionic Soul
    • Clockwork Soul
  • Warlock
    • Genie
    • (Maybe others I missed?)
  • Wizard
    • Chronurgy
    • Graviturgy

Yeah, this is my explanation for why I'm taking a while. Sorry.

03/07/2020

Sorry for the absence. So, the whole world burst into flames. Had to put my real life stuff in order.

I'll get back into the swing of things soon, thanks for hanging around though if you're still here.

Now I just gotta remember where I was up to.

17/01/2020

Cleaned up Tieflings, split off their writeup. Did Abyssal Tieflings too while I was at it, so there's one item off the UA to-do list knocked off.

Added another use of channel divinity to clerics at 14th level. The gap between 6th and 18th was far, far too long. Contributed to a few things making Cleric weaker than other classes. Which brings us to...

Major nerf to Banneret, the Rallying Cry feature now only restores half of the second wind healing amount to others and dropped the Charisma modifier increase to second wind healing Banneret provided and instead made Cha give a guaranteed minimum to the healing amount rather than just added healing.

I tinkered with second wind, moving things back and forth and so on and just... forgot that it effected Rallying Cry. In the end, Rallying Cry ended up too strong and was pulling more healing/short rest than life cleric. Now Rallying Cry is about equal to Life Cleric Channel Divinity.

Changed blade ward and true strike to function like guidance and resistance.

Blade Ward's previous effect is now a base feature anyone can do (under the combat options as 'Brace'). Rationale for this decision comes down to: took a spreadsheet for anyone to work out which was better, dodge or blade ward and to be completely honest, if something is taking a cantrip slot, it should be better than what you get just by being a living character in the game as a matter of course. New blade ward reduces a single incoming attack (including spell attacks) against you by d4, lasts a minute, 1 action cast, touch range, you pick when you make the roll before or after you see the attack, spell expires when you use the d4. There's going to be a small number of upset EK players out there as a result of this, (because they no longer get their blade ward + War Magic bonus action attack anymore) so down the road I'll have to apologise to them somehow.

True Strike is in a similar boat, with the aimed attack thing I did in the combat options, a lot of the reason to use it is gone. In saying that, there's an ultra specific niche of true strike that I haven't replaced, and that is advantage on spell attack rolls. I will need to handle that down the road, because getting advantage on those IS a big deal (as it's a lot harder to manage than weapon attacks). New version is: can add 1d4 to an attack roll. Touch range, 1 minute, 1 action to use, can roll the d4 before or after seeing your attack roll. Spell expires after using the d4.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

12/01/2020

Been unwell, sorry for the absence.

Redid Dragonborn again. Got feedback that I just made shit confusing for its own sake. Fair enough.

Breath weapon locked to a specific subrace now and gutted the extra power I gave it. Instead, it now can be used instead of a weapon attack or a bonus action, which should more than make up for that. Gave all dragonborn advantage to history checks to determine the value of objects and the ability to instantly spot magical items (no check required) to make up for it.

I suspect it might not be the most popular change, I'll keep an eye on it.

29/12/2019

Removed the 'once per turn' restriction on Archery fighting style. As it was pointed out to me, that opportunity cost (adding str mod to the damage) is a huge investment and likely to eat up 3-4 of the ASIs assuming maximum munchkin. The minimum of 1 on the style means that even if you dump strength, longbows are looking at being on par with heavy crossbows though in terms of average damage.

I figure the better solution might be to give crossbows more options (maybe in forms of customisabiltiy?). The most extravagant things I can possibly think of adding to a bow is probably a bow quiver. Beyond that anything you try and add (hell, even said bow quiver) is probably just going to get in the way of the bow's function.

Before anyone mentions things like stabalisers and other modern archery accessories, understand I've got to do this shit mechanically and keep things internally balanced.

Crossbows on the other hand, I have a decent array of design room there now that Archery's opened that up that I can apply to the weapons themselves.

Also, clarified how V. Humans interact with my new Full-Feat/Half-Feat dichotomy.

26/12/2019

Merry Christmas you unpleasable bastards. I love each and every one of you.

Also, finished the Primeval Guardian and Swarmkeeper UA Ranger Archetypes. It's partly a continuation of my relaxing on working on UA stuff.

Yes I'm working on this on Christmas day. It was a day well spent.

Also baked ham is the best Christmas day food. Fight me.

23/12/2019

Anon informed my something needed to be fixed in Artificer. Moved Right Tool for the Job to first level and changed how it worked.


22/12/2019

Artificer is done.

God it was a lot of work. Not going to do class stuff for a bit, need a change of pace.

21/12/2019

Done a DM Workshop - simplified combat encounters writeup. Basically it's trying to create something akin to 4e minions in 5e.

11/12/2019

Added this to the Combat Options:

  • Kinaesurgy - When you make a melee spell attack, you can choose to make an unarmed strike instead of rolling your spell attack. If you do, you add your unarmed strike damage to the damage of the melee spell attack.

Muscle Wizards should be a thing.

08/12/2019

  • Rogue: Almost doesn't get a mention on account of the one thing I thought would have far reaching changes (Aim cunning action) really doesn't due to the zero moving rule.

  • Monk: Rolling the Class Options UA into this class proved far less work than I anticipated. However it forced me to rethink Kensei as half their gimmick was now rolled into the base Monk class. They should look far, far better now.

  • Sorcerer: Well, WotC managed to handle skillmonkeying as a Sorcerer far better than my failed previous attempts did. So there's that. Added a clause that allows Sorcs to bond weapons given one of the new font of power options leans towards making gish kinda possible. So far this is the only one where I've felt the need to directly buff a feature provided by the class options UA. Well, only got Warlock left as of this writing so we'll see how 'so far' pans out.

  • Warlock: Yeah, some of those new features, especially the Pact of the Talisman, needed some work.

Still need to revisit the ranger archetypes (well, beastmaster) when I complete the sidekicks/companion rules but that's a lower priority right now.

Nice to have something feel like it's complete.

06/12/2019

Found out they errata'd critical hits. Means I had to remove references to non-20 critical hits still requiring to beat AC.

Moved the Second Wind extra uses off Banneret and onto base class. Now usable at 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th levels instead of 3rd, 7th, 10th, 18th. Yeah, it's a nerf to Bannerets and a buff to all other fighters, but Bannerets gets + Cha to the healing.

  • Ranger: Rolled in the UA stuff, some of it was actually better than the rules I had to address the same issues. I'll come back to Beastmaster though (and the whole 'beast of air, beast of land' thing, because I'm planning on overhauling that entire companion system).

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

04/12/2019

More Dragonborn stuff. This one's an optional rule, just moving +1 Str to either +1 Str, Cha or Con based on subrace.

Also cleaned up two weapon fighting and listed it in the fighting styles: The core rule for two weapon fighting now is: Disadvantage to bonus action attack unless it's a light weapon.

Changed the Ground and Pound combat option to just be free use of that bonus action to make grapple, disarm and shove actions, without it being tied to succeeding an unarmed strike.

Rolling all the Class Options UA into the base classes:

  • Barbarian: Redid totem barbarian and significantly buffed Elk and Tiger, and a decent chunk of Eagle. Battlerager's spikes are now unarmed attacks for the purposes of unarmed fighting style.

  • Bard: Took my Opening Act and Curtain Call features and merged them, 6th was an overloaded level the way I had it.

  • Cleric: Cantrip Versatility is being handled the way bard spell versatility is (that is, you can replace it on a long rest instead of per level)

  • Druid: took me a while to realise Wild Companion was an enhancement, not a replacement, for the druid. Same thing as cleric, Cantrip Versatility is handled as spell versatility.

  • Fighter: New manoeuvres took forever to go over

  • Paladin: Mostly just cleaning up.

  • Wizard: 4 spells and Cantrip Versatility was all I had to plug in.

03/12/2019

Rejigged that Wrathspitter Dragonborn breath again to be slightly less bookkeeping on the scaling. Now it's d6-d12, all of it on the cantrip break points.

02/12/2019

Alright, more changes on Dragonborn, this time to that range buff I did to the Breath Weapon. Clipped that off because it turned out to be real clunky for anyone using an actual gridmap.

Instead I changed it to only cone breaths increase range (5xCon Mod), while line breaths deal extra damage equal to Con Mod. So the choice is now intensity vs. area.

01/12/2019

Dropped the line on the Dragonborn Wrathspitter that let you use the breath weapon as a bonus action or in place of a weapon attack. Ran the numbers and a dragonborn fighter using that feature wound up to being superior in sheer damage per round to... well, pretty much anything else actually. It was PAM + GWM but better (the breath was providing ~20% DPR increase), and the short rest recharge wasn't enough of a balancing point (like I initially thought).

This way we're back to the whole 'either breath weapon OR weapon attacks' but honestly, with the 3d4-6d12 scaling it might be alright this way. It's dealing roughly equal damage to a full round of attacks so long as you got two dudes in the breath. 3 or more dudes and you're dealing more than the weapon attacks, and it's slightly more reliable due to the half damage on save thing.

30/11/2019

Went back to Lightfoot Halfling and added a line in Nimble Escape that you have advantage on in-combat hide actions if you also get Cunning Action. This will apply to Goblins too when I get to them.

Finished the Dragonborn writeup.

28/11/2019

Updated the racial feats I've done.

  • Humans
    • Heritage: Added a line that says "DMs who don't want 'mix of everything' PCs can restrict it to one race (i.e. the first one picks the race, the rest are locked to it).
    • Adaptibility: Added lines giving it advantage to things like forced marches as well as providing +5 passive survival and athletics
    • Common Sense: added a sidebar for a 'game-y' version for DMs who's rather that kind of thing be a player resource
  • Elves
    • Limber: Added line about advantage to escaping grapple and restrain.
  • Dwarves
    • Dwarven Tenacity: Starts at d12. No longer d4 - d12 scaling.
  • Halflings
    • Curbed Fortune: Nerfed, it now only forces rerolls on 20s (so monsters who crit on 19s still crit).
    • Soundless Scream: It was supposed to be intelligence modifier, not score, for the DC.

27/11/2019

Stressful workload is done and I can devote some time back to this. Realised if I was going to split up races, it'd be a good idea to include racial feats under the race blocks, rather than as a seperate document you constantly have to cross-reference.

Done the racial feats for: Humans, Halflings, Elves and Dwarves.

Dwarves forced me to actually do a second pass on my Improvised Weapons/Armor. There was a reason they weren't released yet, becuase I was doing some absolutely retarded things that didn't gel well with the rest of the system. (Somewhere along the way I thought "Shoehorning a d20 roll under system into 5e sounds like a great idea!" - and I actually want to hurt myself for ever thinking that).

On the positive note, I'm further along in the improvised rules than I was before.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

20/11/2019

Completed the overhaul the Combat Options and Fighting Styles Writeups. Now I need to sort out Feats too. God dammit.

Now that's out the way I can get back to the race redos. Might take a couple days, got real life 'this pays the rent' shit I need to get done.

19/11/2019

Made a change to Avariel (Elves) giving them the ability to glide and giving them a better jump so that Heavily Armoured Avariel aren't without a racial feature.

This is going to be the new standard on all flyers moving forward.

18/11/2019

Buffed Bladesinging significantly. Even with my changes, they were still little more than a weak AC stacking meme.

The AC stacking did take a nerf, but it was compensated for.

  • Changed the bonus AC on Bladesong to just Unarmoured Defense (Int) all the time.
  • While bladesong is active, you can replace Dex with Int for AC when wearing light/medium armour (To ease of MAD concerns in the early levels).
  • Bladesong, as it now has less of an impact on survivability, can be used Int mod times per short rest (Min. 2).
  • Removed weapon and armour restrictions on the archetype. Dex based melee weapons are still the most optimal way of playing them regardless of this because booming blade and green flame blade combined with the need for Dex for AC.
  • Rolled Song of Defense into Bladesong (it was already a dead level feature as it competed with shield)
  • Changed my original 20th level feature for them to 10th level, 20th is now an improved version of the feature (for reference, the 10th level version is that you can cast a cantrip in your bonus action when making weapon attacks. 20th level feature is that you can cast 5th level or lower spells in that bonus action).

Also, gave War Magic some love

  • Rolled half the 20th level feature (the line about getting max power surges on a long rest) into the Power Surge feature itself. Replaced it with a line that generates power surges when you use arcane deflection to not take damage.
  • Upped Power Surge damage from half wizard level to full wizard level.

Addendum

Also gave Power Attack (the reason you got Sharpshooter or Great Weapon master) and an inverse version called Aimed Attack (Sacrifice your Str/Dex mod on damage to double it up on the attack roll) as a generic rule anyone can do.

Moved the Cleave thing I did to Great Weapon Fighting to being a generic rule on weaponry with the heavy proprty. It's a nerf to my efforts on making Versatile weapons more interesting, as Versatile weapons were becoming the most optimal build in the Duncehack.

Reason for all this being is that I'm doing another overhaul of the fighting styles (the Class Options UA forced my hand) and rolling the 'feat tax' feats into either feats or fighting styles. Things like Great Weapon Master, Sharpshooter, Polearm Master, etc.

17/11/2019

Cleaning up the race writeups.

Did Dwarves, Halflings and Elves thus far.

It's not a terribly interesting task, but it is a time consuming one.

09/11/2019

Moved a line from Redemption Paladin from 20th to 15th level (specifically the part of using Cleansing Touch and Lay on Hands as a bonus action).

Did a new set of player options from UAs: Twilight Druid, Tranquility Monk and Treachery Paladin.

07/11/2019

So I blatantly ripped off a game I admire. So there's that.

Essentially I introduced the DM Workshop thing I've been kicking around for ages. Once again, thanks Anon for recommending Stars Without Number as well, great game.

Anyway, for this one: introduced a Leg/Job adventuring cycle like what Red Markets uses. I was planning on doing a full d100 chart for it, but A) I was ripping off the Red Markets one a little too close for comfort and B) it's a lot of work for next to no return. (If you're that dedicated to Random Encounter systems, you already have the d100 chart anyway, the important thing I was offer was the framework to use them in).

31/10/2019

This is directed to someone specific - You know who you are:

I know I said a month ago I'd fix up the stuff surrounding Warforged and then I just kinda didn't get around to it. Meatspace kicked me hard so I had to handle all that. Apologies. I've fixed it now.

For the rest of you:

I was incorrect on something about the Warforged (namely how much AC they got over everyone else). In the end it only works out to be roughly equvalent to having +4 armour.

So I cleaned that up a bit.

Prof Mod. -2 as the rough 'bonus guide' if your campaign uses +4 kit to balance it.

Otherwise, if you want to keep it to +3 as cap, the Warforged armour is 13+Dex/15+Dex (max.3)/18 base, gaining +1 AC at levels 5th, 11th and 17th - matching the cantrip break points.

Added a To-do list to the top of this document. I'll try and keep that updated.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

28/10/2019

Month's been hell. Apologies for my absence.

Fighter changes incoming, so get excited.

Alright, so the Combat Options has had some changes. Impact no longer has a restriction on thing that prone and push in the same action - it already has a 'shove action' restriction to account for the weird abuse cases anyway, which are usually class features. This is a direct buff to the Slam feature in heavy weapon fighting, as well as a sideways buff to fighters (more on that in a second). Also gave it + Str. Mod. damage.

Fighters needed more love, Barbarians were outshining them too much by quirk of Reckless essentially removing 1s (automisses at best, crit failures at worst) entirely, while Fighters were more susceptible because of their reliance on more attacks overall. This is why they get the Combat Mastery feature at 5th level, which removes automiss on weapon attack rolls of 1 from fighters entirely (if their modifiers are too low to make it a hit, it's still a miss. Basically means a 20th level fighter should never be missing a 10AC target). Barbarians already sort of had this in reckless, I've given Rangers a major boost to their accuracy (Foe Slayer earlier) - enough that the occasional 1 is heavily offset, and Paladins already had access to bless and access to their PHB capstones at 3rd often introduce a source of damage either not reliant on weapon attacks, or such a heavy compensation to said weapon attacks that 1s are a non-issue. Fighters on the other hand, while I gave them a lot, the combat reliability specifically I baked into other martials was still missing.

Next part is manoeuvres. God was I wrong in not touching these, I didn't realise just how bad the disparity between manoeuvres (looking at you Menacing) actually is.

So I've changed them.

There's... a hell of a lot to go through, but essentially the entire Manoeuvres subsection is now 2 pages long, with a 3rd page that details changes and the reasons why.

06/10/2019

Apologies for absence, life's been busy. Not resting on my laurels, that's for certain.

First thing's first: I'm going to be seperating out as much as I can into a set of Development Documentation. I can't see an elegent way to seamlessly keep the people who like reading Dev notes (like myself) and people who just want the rules equally happy.

Working on the race document cleanup.

Part 1: Just clarified something in the sidebar talking about my Steppefolk example. No big deal.

24/09/2019

Realised (rather, was told) I only did half the job with that optional rule for moving Hexblade's CHA mod thing to blade pact - the proficiencies should be moved too.

Put in a sidebar in Fighter and Rogue archetypes - was informed that the restriction to evocation and abjuration on Eldritch Knight and illusion and enchantment on arcane trickters were entirely flavour things.


20/09/2019

Added Dash to Ranger's Guerilla Tactics at 5th level. I forgot Revised Ranger was given that feature.

18/09/2019

Buffed Second Wind, increasing the die type to d12, adding Con mod to the amount of HP restored, allowing them to use it even if a condition would deny them actions, and letting them refresh the use of the ability when an enemy smacks them with a critical hit.

Also gave fighters an optional rule to let them do some minor skill monkeying. Called Rote Skills, gives them specialisations.

It should be as strong a first level as I've made other martials now. Also, had to redo the layout of the rest of the fighter document as a result which kind of sucked.

Moved fighting styles in Paladin and Ranger to 1st level. Ranger to keep parity with Paladin. Paladin because the 1st level is so ungodly boring.

17/09/2019

Added optional sidebar in Barbarian for Dex Barbarians. Was sure to warn people that I don't recommend the rule.

Added optional sidebar in Warlock about Cha Mod scaling off Blade Pact. Was also sure to warn people that I don't recommend this rule.

Added optional sidebar in Monk about Str Monks. Was very much sure to warn people that I don't recommend the rule. Also removed the restriction of Two-Handed and Heavy on the Martial Arts feature because it literally only affects Greatclubs - a weapon no one used anyway.

15/09/2019

Added a third line to Versatile Weapon Master, thought for a while it needed one but didn't know what to put in.

I had it suggested to me that they should be able to whip the shield out as a reaction (or some kind of AC boost) but given Defensive Duellist exists, I'm hesitant to tread on it's toes as a feat.

Instead I let them use the block action off shields that are doffed. Figured that would be the better option overall.

13/09/2019

Done the quick and dirty weapon's overhaul. Consider it an apology for the fact the main one's taking so damn long.

Added a line in Conquest Paladin's Aura: If the creature is frightened by a spell or effect that would allow a saving throw to end the effect, damage inflicted by this aura does not allow that saving throw. Thanks anon for pointing out that anti-synergy.

Was informed my Combat Options writeup wasn't in the Link Dump. I AM A GOD DAMNED RETARD. Anyway, fixed now.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

10/09/2019

Added a component pouch to the Ranger class after reading the rationale from the Sage Advice as to why they don't get a casting focus (it's literally just 'they don't get 1st level spells')... but Paladins get their holy symbol. Given that a component pouch is just a belt full of pouches, exactly what a ranger would use, they... don't get them... It just made me irrationally angry alright?

09/09/2019

Changed Dragonborn (Dreadcaller) Hardened Resistance to Short rest. Feedback implies that long rest was way too restrictive for it to be worth half a feat on its own.

Changed the jump spell on the Air genasi to at-will. Jump is not a great spell...

Added Dwarven Fortitude (renamed Fortitude), and Squat Nimbleness (renamed Nimbleness) to the half feat list. Both had their racial restrictions removed.

Added Avariel Elf Subrace to the Common Races writeup because... well, they sure as hell ain't going to give them an official release.

08/09/2019

Added Darts to the list of weapons Monks can use for Martial Arts feature.

05/09/2019

Added a line to Rogue and Hunter Ranger that Uncanny Dodge while using a shield (with which they are proficient) also applies the Block action.

Went through and clarified who gets what shield proficiencies too:

  • Barbarian, Clerics that get Heavy Armour Proficiency, Fighter, Paladin gets proficiency in greatshields.

  • Bard, Rogue gets proficiency in bucklers.

Given what I'm doing with my weapon overhaul, giving Rogues bucklers for free seems fair.

03/09/2019

A lot here so I'll dot point them properly:

  • Added a futher optional rule to Barbarians after realising that Two Weapon Fighting rule made dual wielding supremely optimal for a Barbarian in all instances. The optional rule lets them use any source of bonus action melee attacks during their attack action as opposed to their bonus action. Specified melee because Crossbow expert exists.

    • This was then promptly changed due to feedback, as it became apparent that while I aimed this at PAM, it got to several levels of ridiculous with GWM as well.
  • Given my flurry feature on two weapon fighting, I also had to swing the nerf bat at Reckless Fury. Now it's 'you ignore external disadvantage imposed to your weapon attacks when you reckless', not 'always swing at advantage when you reckless'. This change won't affect anyone using it 'normally', but any janky interactions, such as how flurry works, will be affected. Note the wording here, means this is also a nerf to Two Weapon Fighting as they now have to buy out the feat to clear the disadvantage to the flurry feature, and means they can't just superadvantage while giving their battleaxes reach.

    (For reference, this is ~80 damage nerf over a minute to a 20th level berzerker.) I deserve this - focused too hard on fighters as a kind of benchmark for melee damage output.

  • Changed Great Weapon Master's bonus action attack to being just a free attack. With everything I've done to all other weapon styles, Greatweapons are kind of left behind (as I didn't give them any combat options really, whereas versatile, duelling, pugilist, dual wielding and sword and board all got a ton of love). Yes it means that they can trigger as many times as you crit in a round.

    • Almost immediately reverted this change as the potential of infinite attacks at 4th level was really hammered into me.
  • Removed the once per turn restruction on Versatile Weapon Master. Mathing it out, it still lags slightly behind some of the other weapon layouts in raw damage. This is even factoring in the fact they should have reliable advantage from bonus action shove.

  • Realised Crossbow expert needed some work and did it, and left it as an optional rule. It means that the janky thing of 'and at the end of my turn I draw and fire my hand crossbow!' is now explicitly in the RAW.

I really need to get on top of my weapons stuff.

Also, at present Versatile weaponry has the highest damage output with the redone crossbow expert, but doing so requires 3 feats (Crossbow Expert, Versatile Weapon Master, Sharpshooter), 3 fighting styles (Archery, Duelling, Great Weapon Fighting), two different magical weapons down the road.

Can do slightly less damage, but with a far lower bar to entry with a Spear + Polearm Master + Versatile Weapon Master, Great Weapon Fighting and Duelling, and you only need one magical weapon instead of two when you get to that point.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK

01/09/2019

Clarified that Great Weapon Fighting works on non-weapon damage dice like Divine Smite.

Because it needed to be clarified.

Added proficiency in longbow, heavy crossbow and blowgun in scout rogue.

Did one of the UA overhauls: Twitter Archetypes, the Cleric Domains (Beauty, Darkness, Destruction) and the Warlock Patron (Llolth)

Have fun with your Eilistraee worshipping, Chaotic Good Drow Darkness Cleric.

Added lines to Ranger's Natural Explorer when it was pointed out to me I left out the Land's Stride feature and that the phrase 'remains alert to danger' doesn't actually mean anything in game terms.

31/08/2019

Fleshed out the Ranger Part 1 sidebar on the first page with my actual thoughts on small scale changes to Ranger that would make them worth playing.

28/08/2019

Added a sidebar to Barbarian giving the option rule that Brutal Critical provides instances of weapon damage dice instead of just extra damage dice (i.e. greatsword brutal criticals deal extra 2d6 per 'die' of brutal critical).

Caveat here that the optional rule has my future weapon's overhaul in mind. If you're not using my weapon's overhaul (when I finish it) then I wouldn't recommend using it.

25/08/2019

Second pass on the Backgrounds - Part 1 - Inspiration document (For reference I made the inspiration mechanic too powerful as it gave crits on demand, relegated that to optional rule sidebar. Also introduced the idea of a new rest tier for those worried that inspiration refreshing on a long rest is too frequent). Now I need to do my document on Rest systems because that's reared its head in importance.

Changed the order of this changelog so that most recent is at the top.

23/08/2019

Changed the dates in this changelog to August (from July) because I'm a retard who doesn't know what number corresponds to what month.

Finished up Backgrounds - Part 1 - Inspiration.

19/08/2019

Added sidebar explaining why halfling lucky is weighted the way it is.


18/08/2019

Hooked up my Homebrew Link Dump to the regular Link Dump.

Fixed up formatting in the Descryer writeup, added in Sunlight Sensitivity (which was always intended to be there).

Added a line in Monk, under Martial Arts: "At 11th level, when you use your Martial Arts feature to make an attack in your bonus action, you may make two attacks instead of one."

Removed a worthless sidebar from the Paladin Writeup (Regarding an older version of the capstone)

Added a sidebar in Barbarian to explain some of my changes.

Added cantrips to the Cleric Spell list (blade ward, control flames, create bonfire, gust, infestation, magic stone, minor illusion, mold earth, shape water, true strike)

Week of 12/08/2019

Added tool proficiencies and redid all the starting equipment on all the classes to add tools.

Everything prior to 12/08/2019

I spent a good 4-5 months building this thing. I didn't expect this to wind up being an actual thing people follow so I didn't keep a Changelog.

CHANGELOG | DUNCEHACK