Cross Planes Drifter: Intelligent Ape (Chimpanzee) for D&D 5E

After reading Trey's post on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, I decided to whip this up.

Intelligent Ape, Chimpanzee            

Medium humanoid (apex), any alignment                                                   

Armor Class 13 (Hide Armor)
Hit Points 11(2d8+2) 

Speed 40 ft.

   Str            Dex         Con           Int         Wis         Cha
16 (+3)     14 (+2)     13 (+1)     15 (+2)    14 (+2)     12 (+1)

Skills Acrobatics +4, Athletics +5, Insight +4, Survival +4
Tools Horses

Senses passive Perception 12

Languages Common, Sign Language
Challenge 1/2 (100 XP)

Natural Climber Chimpanzees climb at their full speed.

ACTIONS

Melee Attack—Machete +5 to hit (reach 5 ft.; one creature). 

Hit: 1d6+3 slashing damage.

Ranged Attack—Rifle +4 to hit (range 60/180 ft.; one creature).  Hit: 2d6+1* piercing damage.

*When you roll a 1 or a 2 on a damage die for an attack you made with a  firearm you can reroll the die, but you must use the new roll even if it is a 1 or a 2.

MotU Monday Extra: The Power Sword (For D&D 5E)

The Power Sword +3 Longsword

While in possession of the Power Sword you add +3 to any Constitution, Strength or Wisdom saves.  Also, when saving against spells you may gain disadvantage on the roll, if you succeed the spell is reflected back at the caster (DC 14).

Wizard's Amulet Pregens 1 per Page (For D&D 5E)

Yesterday I raved about the quality of Necromancer Games Wizards Amulet, with my only grip being the way they laid out the Pregens in the PDF.

Well one of my players in that game (and my DM for the Starter adventure), Ben Bach, took the time to reset the layout with one Pregen per page.

And after making sure with the Necromancers/Frog Gods it was cool to share, I'm posting the link right here.

If someone has a better idea on presenting the file, I'm all ears.

Here you go:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dDeOiwtFQfyHrnMdCB_wvvbz-10ZIF2noug7mOnzeWI/edit

Enjoy!

Everything YOU Need to Run D&D 5E OR I ran the Wizard's Amulet for D&D 5E from Necromancer Games last night!

Our regular DM wasn't feeling up to running, so I opened up my PDF of the Wizard's Amulet, printed out the Pregens and we were up in playing in less than 20 minutes.

The adventure focuses on Exploration and Combat and outlines what each Scene is designed to for and guidelines and story to use if you need it.

We only made it about two-thirds of the way through in a two hour period, but I highly recommend the adventure for DM's.

Prep time is fast and the PDF is well organized to ease the DM's job.  Encounters have some options and both boxed text to read aloud and plenty of information to use or ignore.

The Pregens are all well thought out and encompass more than the four classes of Basic D&D, but their presentation is my biggest criticism. To conserve layout space, I'm assuming, the characters flow together on the pages (instead of having 1 or 2 characters clearly delineated per page) and this can means pertinent information, including stats may be on less than 1/4 of the next or previous page.
My solution was to cut them up and paste them together, so with all that we were still up and playing within 20 minutes, which isn't bad.

I really recommend the Wizard's Amulet (it's free after all) and also think you should check out Necromancer Games' 5E Kickstarter.

Between Basic DnD and the Wizard's Amulet you have everything you need to star playing 5E right now, in less than 20 minutes!

Masters of the Universe Monday: Skeletor (For D&D 5E)

Mortally wounded in battle with his half-brother Captain Randor,

Keldor turned to his dark-arts master Hordak to save his life. Merging Keldor with the extra-dimensional being Demo-Man from Despondos, Keldor was forever changed into Skeletor, Overlord of Evil! He gathered together the greatest outcasts and evil warriors of Eternia in his quest to gain entry into Castle Grayskull and obtain what he believes is the universe's ultimate power source.

Skeletor                                        

Medium Humanoid, Chaotic Evil                                                     

Armor Class 16 (Breast Plate)
Hit Points 23 (5d6+5) 

Speed 30 ft.
Proficiency Bonus +3

   Str            Dex         Con           Int         Wis         Cha
14 (+2)     15 (+2)     13 (+1)     19 (+4)    12 (+1)     9 (-1)

Skills Arcana +7, History +7, Insight +4, Relgion +7

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11

Languages Common, Despo, Hordik
Challenge 2

ACTIONS

Melee Attack—+1 Sword +6 to hit (reach 5 ft.; one creature). 

Hit: 1d8+3 slashing damage.

Ranged Attack—+2 Havoc Staff +7 to hit (range 30/90 ft.; one creature).  Hit: 1d10+2 necrotic damage.

Ranged Attack—Dark Magic (Recharge on a 5,6) +7 to hit (range 150 ft; one creature).  Hit: 4d6 necrotic damage.

My little girls's first time Dungeon Mastering D&D 5E (Kettlecorn)

So last night, my 10 year old daughter, E ran DnD 5E.  This wasn’t her first time being a game master (her & my 13 year old son ran their friends through separate games at their birthday parties last year), but it was her first time running by herself.

Her players were my son and I and I was shocked how confident, quick to improvise and just plain naturally good she was at it.  She even did different voices for her NPC’s and gave them little distinct trademarks for us to remember.

I was beat last night so we played for less than an hour, but the setup was thus:

The town of Kettlecorn, within 20 miles from Phandelver no less, has been the site of numerous disappearance of late.  Sadly these abductions range from livestock to small children and the town believes orcs are responsible.  But the crimes don’t fit what we know of orcs, so the town’s sheriff has brought us in to help (this was all her set up, by the way).

“Us” is Hollis Mcavoy a Halfling Detective and Thorax Bugsman, who is one-eight cricket, and a Fighter.

After interviewing some victims and witnesses, we found a clue that points to the a nearby forest filled with “pixies, faeries, elves, witches and a few goodly folk” we made plans to set out and investigate further.  We have decide the orc theory is hogwash.

More soon.

A New Dawn...

So tomorrow, officially, the DnD 5E Starter and and DnD Basic will both be available, to some degree.

I've been playing 5E now since February 2013.  And I'm still excited to see it.  Heck, I'm still play testing for WotC and have a fairly finished version of the Player's Handbook since January and I'm STILL excited to see it all.

One of the groups that's plays DnD Encounters with me has finished Dead in Thay and will begin running the adventure in the Starter Set tomorrow.  I'm making a Halfling Rogue named Hollis Mcavoy of the East Bend Mcavoys.  I can't wait.

I'm sure the road ahead is paved with much uncertainty for the 5E, but what I've seen has been well made and rife with backwards compatibility.  And that's all I want.

See you tomorrow.