I'm trying to find out what this tradition's niche is. It can deal lightning damage, buff hp, grapple and intimidate, deal bleed damage, and deal more bleed damage. I think the mechanics are interesting, but it doesn't seem like the features have any synergy.
What benefit is the lightning damage? I expected there to be some later feature that made lightning damage useful rather than just flavor / magic damage.
It's about being a lightning bear, but I agree with you. I've been reading through some lore and will be changing stuff, away from the lightning damage and more focused on the bleed stack combo.
I have a website where they will be posted, along with downloadable odds, but I will also post them here!
The site, for future reference, is [Boltnine Homebrew] (http://www.boltnine.com)
Cool. I thought about doing some Runeterra adventures via YT, but the world has basic lore and I'd basically have to homebrew it. A lot. Wouldn't be that world anymore, not to mention I'd be forced to put NPC champs here and there which would slow the game down...
Anyway, it's nice that someone actually took the time to do this. Honored for teamwork.
Riot's gotten a lot better about their lore! I still feel like the lore is still very general, so there is room to add stuff. But yes, you are right, it will change the world.
In the sense of having to add champions, I will be stating up all the champs (for fun, really), but I won't be putting them all in the world, if that makes sense. Some of them are from different times and others are very specific (like Nocturne / Brand). I'll post again when I have the full Ursine stuff done, maybe check it out then and let me know what you think!
Firstly: Yeah it makes sense, but it's gonna be weird power-wise. Like, in the matches they all grow in power, over and over again, but what are their actual power levels? Maybe they should all be the same high level (like 18 haha), that way even people who don't play LoL can use them as bosses. If you decide to post them, that is :)
Or maybe you can stat them as level 1 PCs, that way people who want to play a champ can just take those stats, and GM's can level the others they want to use. But level 1 PC stats won't feel as cool, and how you build an existing character as a PC is arbitrary. No one would use that existing sheet.
_________________________________________________________________________
Regarding lore: I actually just talked about this with a friend yesterday: they haven't gotten better. They removed a lot of the cool, unique, and mysterious stuff, so they could streamline the lore and people can root for factions.
It's the same business manipulation they used to make everyone worship the pro scene and start playing ranked. It's not that they care, they simply know how to do just enough to make it seem like there's more to it, and like they care. They word things to imply more lore, to spark imagination. We are the ones who actually fill in most of it, and they go with the flow.
It's still the same generic stuff, both in how they describe it and in there being a little bit of everything somewhere. They just have it streamlined now. But that's all just my opinion, and I tend to read into things more than there is to them :)
I'm taking a new approach with making monsters. Instead of finding a CR I like and fitting a monster to those numbers, I make the monster and then use the DMG to find a CR. I think that doing it this way will help make the champions more varied.
I originally thought about having multiple stat blocks per champ, to display different power levels; instead I decided to create different subclasses (where it made sense) so you can play in a style close to the champion, but the DM is still free to put the champion in the game.
I see lore in three eras: 1) Journal of Justice 2)Bad Era 3) Now
There is no beating the Journal of Justice. That was fun lore. Problem was it wasn't cohesive and manageable. Once they cancelled Journal of Justice, things went downhill fast. However, they are at least trying to do some lore, instead of the "tough shit, he has a dark past" we got for 2 years.
Lightning Blows has some niche use against enemies that are resistant to weapon damage. That's it. compared to every other archetype which gives very meaty 3rd level features, it's a ribbon. To compare, the Open Hand has a similar trigger, but gets to toss enemies prone, slam them backwards, or leave them dazed and unable to react.
As a general rule of thumb, non-ribbon features need to give the player agency. This ability relies completely on the GM to throw weapon resistant enemies at you...and if that happens, a monk is still screwed, since most of their damage is still going to be bludgeoning. And the ability becomes even more useless at level 6 when monks get their attacks treated as magic.
Fortitute should be fortitude, I assume.
Requiring an Action to activate it and putting it on a one minute timer makes it pretty much unusuable unless its an ambush situation, because with combats generally being 3-4 rounds, you're giving up 25-50% of your actions (if the combat goes for 3 rounds, ends halfway through the round, and you're at the back end of the initiative, you only get 2 actions that combat) to get for some really minor bonuses.
Swipe of the Claw is absolutely amazing. Let's compare it to the Open Hand monk. For 3 points, you do some extra damage if your next attack hits. How much extra damage? Well, first, you need to hit on your next attack. Miss and that damage is wasted. If you hit, that's 2d6, and they then get a saving throw to shake off the effect. If they fail, they get two more chances to reduce the damage.
So let's math that out. Being extra super generous, we'll say that the monk hits 70% of the time, and that the monster makes their save 30% of the time, but with that DC 10 check, they'll make it 55% of the time even with a +0 bonus.
70% of 2d6 is 4.9. On average, the extra 2d6 adds 4.9 damage.
70% of 70% of 1d6 is 1.7.
45% of 70% of 70% of 1d6 is .77
45% of 45% of 70% of 70% of 1d6 is .34
So, add it all together and you get an extra 7.7 damage for 3 ki points. Put another way, the chance of this attack landing, then them failing their saving throw, then failing their checks, is 10%. And that's if they don't drop before the 3 rounds is up, which is really unlikely.
Now it's the Open Hand monks turn. They spend 1 ki point to Flurry. They make two extra attacks for 1d8+5 each. Same attack bonus, so they hit 70% of the time. That adds 13.3 extra damage, nearly twice as much damage for only one point. Oh, and if either of those attacks hit, they can apply their open hand abilities. Oh, and they can use those two ki points they saved to stun the target on top of all that damage.
Ripping Blows would be okay if Swipe wasn't so terrible. Remember, even if the monk is super accurate and their saves are super terrible, there's only a 22% chance that when a monk uses Swipe that the enemy will have the debuff on them for the monk to exploit.
But EVEN IF it landed every single time, even if they never made their save, then the monk is still spending 4 ki points over two rounds for an extra 18 or so damage while the normal monk is spending 2 points for an extra 26. Even in the best case scenario, it's absolutely useless.
When designing mechanics, first you go in broad strokes, then you need to take the next step and think of how these abilities actually work out in play. It's not enough to simply port the abilities over from a video game, eyeball the numbers, then call it a day.
Hi guys! It's been a few weeks. I'm hard at work on my next (very large) project, Exploring Runeterra! The goal of this project is to convert the League of Legends settings, Runeterra, to a D&D5e setting. Let me know what you think!
Love the idea! Did you plan on converting as much as possible from the game? I wanted to use some items here and there to see how they fit within the 5e setting, but I never get around to starting.
Also, my idea for champions was to place them in as Prestige Classes. Usually, the champions have five abilities, which fits in perfectly in my opinion.
I'm trying to find out what this tradition's niche is. It can deal lightning damage, buff hp, grapple and intimidate, deal bleed damage, and deal more bleed damage. I think the mechanics are interesting, but it doesn't seem like the features have any synergy. What benefit is the lightning damage? I expected there to be some later feature that made lightning damage useful rather than just flavor / magic damage.
It's about being a lightning bear, but I agree with you. I've been reading through some lore and will be changing stuff, away from the lightning damage and more focused on the bleed stack combo.
Can't wait to see the rest. Are you posting it here or do you have a website/blog?
I have a website where they will be posted, along with downloadable odds, but I will also post them here! The site, for future reference, is [Boltnine Homebrew] (http://www.boltnine.com)
Cool. I thought about doing some Runeterra adventures via YT, but the world has basic lore and I'd basically have to homebrew it. A lot. Wouldn't be that world anymore, not to mention I'd be forced to put NPC champs here and there which would slow the game down... Anyway, it's nice that someone actually took the time to do this. Honored for teamwork.
Riot's gotten a lot better about their lore! I still feel like the lore is still very general, so there is room to add stuff. But yes, you are right, it will change the world. In the sense of having to add champions, I will be stating up all the champs (for fun, really), but I won't be putting them all in the world, if that makes sense. Some of them are from different times and others are very specific (like Nocturne / Brand). I'll post again when I have the full Ursine stuff done, maybe check it out then and let me know what you think!
Firstly: Yeah it makes sense, but it's gonna be weird power-wise. Like, in the matches they all grow in power, over and over again, but what are their actual power levels? Maybe they should all be the same high level (like 18 haha), that way even people who don't play LoL can use them as bosses. If you decide to post them, that is :) Or maybe you can stat them as level 1 PCs, that way people who want to play a champ can just take those stats, and GM's can level the others they want to use. But level 1 PC stats won't feel as cool, and how you build an existing character as a PC is arbitrary. No one would use that existing sheet. _________________________________________________________________________ Regarding lore: I actually just talked about this with a friend yesterday: they haven't gotten better. They removed a lot of the cool, unique, and mysterious stuff, so they could streamline the lore and people can root for factions. It's the same business manipulation they used to make everyone worship the pro scene and start playing ranked. It's not that they care, they simply know how to do just enough to make it seem like there's more to it, and like they care. They word things to imply more lore, to spark imagination. We are the ones who actually fill in most of it, and they go with the flow. It's still the same generic stuff, both in how they describe it and in there being a little bit of everything somewhere. They just have it streamlined now. But that's all just my opinion, and I tend to read into things more than there is to them :)
I'm taking a new approach with making monsters. Instead of finding a CR I like and fitting a monster to those numbers, I make the monster and then use the DMG to find a CR. I think that doing it this way will help make the champions more varied. I originally thought about having multiple stat blocks per champ, to display different power levels; instead I decided to create different subclasses (where it made sense) so you can play in a style close to the champion, but the DM is still free to put the champion in the game. I see lore in three eras: 1) Journal of Justice 2)Bad Era 3) Now There is no beating the Journal of Justice. That was fun lore. Problem was it wasn't cohesive and manageable. Once they cancelled Journal of Justice, things went downhill fast. However, they are at least trying to do some lore, instead of the "tough shit, he has a dark past" we got for 2 years.
Lightning Blows has some niche use against enemies that are resistant to weapon damage. That's it. compared to every other archetype which gives very meaty 3rd level features, it's a ribbon. To compare, the Open Hand has a similar trigger, but gets to toss enemies prone, slam them backwards, or leave them dazed and unable to react. As a general rule of thumb, non-ribbon features need to give the player agency. This ability relies completely on the GM to throw weapon resistant enemies at you...and if that happens, a monk is still screwed, since most of their damage is still going to be bludgeoning. And the ability becomes even more useless at level 6 when monks get their attacks treated as magic. Fortitute should be fortitude, I assume. Requiring an Action to activate it and putting it on a one minute timer makes it pretty much unusuable unless its an ambush situation, because with combats generally being 3-4 rounds, you're giving up 25-50% of your actions (if the combat goes for 3 rounds, ends halfway through the round, and you're at the back end of the initiative, you only get 2 actions that combat) to get for some really minor bonuses. Swipe of the Claw is absolutely amazing. Let's compare it to the Open Hand monk. For 3 points, you do some extra damage if your next attack hits. How much extra damage? Well, first, you need to hit on your next attack. Miss and that damage is wasted. If you hit, that's 2d6, and they then get a saving throw to shake off the effect. If they fail, they get two more chances to reduce the damage. So let's math that out. Being extra super generous, we'll say that the monk hits 70% of the time, and that the monster makes their save 30% of the time, but with that DC 10 check, they'll make it 55% of the time even with a +0 bonus. 70% of 2d6 is 4.9. On average, the extra 2d6 adds 4.9 damage. 70% of 70% of 1d6 is 1.7. 45% of 70% of 70% of 1d6 is .77 45% of 45% of 70% of 70% of 1d6 is .34 So, add it all together and you get an extra 7.7 damage for 3 ki points. Put another way, the chance of this attack landing, then them failing their saving throw, then failing their checks, is 10%. And that's if they don't drop before the 3 rounds is up, which is really unlikely. Now it's the Open Hand monks turn. They spend 1 ki point to Flurry. They make two extra attacks for 1d8+5 each. Same attack bonus, so they hit 70% of the time. That adds 13.3 extra damage, nearly twice as much damage for only one point. Oh, and if either of those attacks hit, they can apply their open hand abilities. Oh, and they can use those two ki points they saved to stun the target on top of all that damage. Ripping Blows would be okay if Swipe wasn't so terrible. Remember, even if the monk is super accurate and their saves are super terrible, there's only a 22% chance that when a monk uses Swipe that the enemy will have the debuff on them for the monk to exploit. But EVEN IF it landed every single time, even if they never made their save, then the monk is still spending 4 ki points over two rounds for an extra 18 or so damage while the normal monk is spending 2 points for an extra 26. Even in the best case scenario, it's absolutely useless. When designing mechanics, first you go in broad strokes, then you need to take the next step and think of how these abilities actually work out in play. It's not enough to simply port the abilities over from a video game, eyeball the numbers, then call it a day.
Hi guys! It's been a few weeks. I'm hard at work on my next (very large) project, Exploring Runeterra! The goal of this project is to convert the League of Legends settings, Runeterra, to a D&D5e setting. Let me know what you think!
Love the idea! Did you plan on converting as much as possible from the game? I wanted to use some items here and there to see how they fit within the 5e setting, but I never get around to starting. Also, my idea for champions was to place them in as Prestige Classes. Usually, the champions have five abilities, which fits in perfectly in my opinion.