"Do I get the bonus from the Sword of Ogre decapitation?" "Actually, that only works on ogres" (Later) "What did you turn him into!?" "An ogre" "Why!? Those things are dangerous!" "Sword... of... ogre... decapitation"
Jackson Bockus it wouldn't be hard to reskin alchemist as tinker. Consumable items created based on materials gathered in the field? That manticore blood has special iron in it. It gets turned into a special flywheel that is going to work once. I don't know. We can swing anything, this is d&d!
Will there be animal master or hound masters? To raise fighting hounds and mounts. Also sometimes my party finds the eggs of a creature like a Hooked Horror or a Basilisk, an animal master could train breed or take care of them for them.
These could also be part of units or mount for units, like Worgs in Lotr. And if the players find a breeding pair, they could even raise Giant Eagles to make flying units. If that area of the keep was very varied, with steep cliffs, it could be known as the Rookery or something. Not to mention having flying units is a big advantage.
Nope, it's TOTALLY different- it's Rightbirth. And somewhere in my head I can hear this! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K5V0Fx50ViI.html Of course I kid!
You mean there's DIALOGUE? Dude. This book is PACKED. I get that there is a thought that a part of the success of this kickstarter is the support the community has been wanting to give to Matt Colville, but I think it's also because of the basic idea: "If the product is good, people will buy it" and this is a product that people really want.
Hehe, yeah, that word. Si-jil is the correct pronunciation for the inscribed symbols. Siggle is the correct pronunciation for the Planescape city in the center of the multiverse. That's one of those words that I got wrong originally, too, because it was a word I read many, many times but never heard spoken aloud.
The npc dialogue is not only useful for world building and a good starting point for fleshing out characters, it also provides inspiration for encounters: 1. The players are informed that the Miners have dug too deep and too greedily, and have unearthed an old tomb -> surprise dungeon time! 2. The players use their spy to recruit a different follower -> how does this work? Do the players enact the spy's plan, playing as a handful of low-levelled followers, diverting a blacksmith from joining a neighbouring keep? Or rescuing a talented prisoner from a couple of towns over? Great stuff, Mr Colville! Carry on the good work.
Might it be reasonable for a Tailor to get involved in crafting enchanted robes, cloaks, shoes etc. and other clothing? I don't imagine that this would gel terribly well with the "harvesting monster bits" method of enchantment that you've described for other Artisan Followers*, but I think having a high-level tailor who, with the guidance of a spellcaster, can make you a sweet Cloak of the Bat or a pair of Boots of Elvenkind or a Robe of Useful Items would be pretty awesome. * I suppose blood, venom, or other monstrous bodily fluids could be used for dyeing the thread they're working with, or bits of bone, horn, scale, hide, feathers etc. could all be used in ornamentation, so maybe it's not as much of a stretch as I initially thought to make magical garments using harvested monster bits.
Consider that a tailor would have some skill involving quilting work, and that padded armor was often a quilted design, it's not a terrible stretch to even team a tailor and smith together for some weirdness in hybridizing armory with monster-bits... Dragon-scale could be tooled by an armorer quicker and easier and (likely) cheaper than by a tailor's shop, but the tailor could then use the tooled (and shaped?) scales for a far higher quality (looking) garment of protection versus the given breath weapon of the beast... (ie Red Dragon scales = fire proof) Just for a start... So it's not so much that a "full AC bonus" is necessary, but that the resulting cloak or robe would present a partial bonus AND the fire-proofing (or other proofing) while remaining fashionable or even inconspicuous... depending on Role Play needs/wants. ;o)
With the harvesting of the monster brain, I would take it in a different direction for my game. The alchemist distill the memories of the monster into a potion which the player character can imbibe to gain the memories of that creature. This potion might give important plot details, or grant the combat focused characters a feat, or could give the caster of the group a new spell.
Worldtraceur it's ok matt, my best friend constantly pronounces grimoire are "grimmory" and tome as tomb and tomb as tome It just makes him more interesting lol
Hey Matt, just wanna say that the more info I've gotten about this book, the more and more it intrigues me. What my players do with the monster parts they collect, how the world around them reacts to their deeds, how they go about leaving a lasting impact on my world not just by what they kill but by what they build, these are all aspects of running the game I've struggled with. Thanks for pouring so much passion into this project, I can't wait to get the book in my hands!
Dude some of this stuff is SO EXACTLY what i've really really wanted and felt like NEEDED to be fleshed out for D&D 5e but haven't had the time to really sit down and crack into and write for myself while simultaneously working multiple jobs and running and playing in a campaign and I really appreciate you taking the time to create it in such a comprehensive way. I will definitely buy your book.
Matt you are huge inspiration for me as a wanna-be creator and as a crap DM. Please keep up your amazing work and stay true to your original intentions. I'm so excited to see you grow and evolve.
Dan Chaparro perhaps put that under blacksmith but i thought you could have the tailor make magic items like the scarf of the raven, or the boots of dashing speed stuff a tailor could make
Strong positive reaction here. Loving the artisan followers so far, and I really like that you're gonna let the dials for granularity be easily adjustable.
Love these ideas! Ever since my friends and I started playing in the early 2000's we were harvesting stuff from monsters and making weapons and whatnot - so I'm ready to see what Matt's ideas are and love that there's gonna be a system involved and that it involves multiple characters!
I definitely love the dial mechanic you've included for the magic items: having different options for different campaigns certainly works well. I'm certainly looking forward to this!
I would love to try and make monster weapons that were not strong against the monster that it was made from, but strong against creatures those monsters were effective against example: a giant blood sword would be +1 against everything but +3 against all all creatures who are either smaller than you or smaller than the giant you slew
Will there be a special character sheet page to keep track of your followers? I don't know how many other people feal the same, but I love heaving all my character sheets look good and match each other.
Colville does love his HANDOUTs/props, so I guess it would be awfully disappointing for such a professional product to neglect that D&D/tabletop staple.
i like that you're experimenting with your own rulings! my friend and i are sharing DMing a game we play @ lunch, we both worked together to create a spell research system that wizards can use during downtime to research spells, we scaled it so that 9th lvl takes AGES to do, and lower levels aren't as much, and we each adapted it to our own game-worlds. very fun stuff! so i think what you're doing with Alchemy is AWESOME! keep it up. sorry i didn't get on the kickstarter though. moving down to texas and getting used to new life down here exciting stuff!
I was skeptical on pitching in on this Kickstarter at first. After watching your updates, I am more comfortable with this and after this update i'm looking forward with excitement waiting for my hand to get my hardcopy.... keep up this good work.
Totally lifted the +1/+3 weapon idea off of you for one of my players. Gave a Tiefling Monk the "Abyss Watcher Spear" that has a personal mission against Abyssal creatures. He loves it, even passed over a few +2 weapons because he gets to feel like such a badass against Demons. Thanks Matt :)
I like the artisan followers so far. Have you considered adding traders/merchants to take on the tasks of selling/tracking down and buying magic items for party. Always something my groups find tidius.
I love these videos, they increase my excitement for this book! On Alchemy checks, I can see it being done as an Intelligence (Medicine) check, if the group doesn't use skill challenges.
As a DM, this book really makes me excited. But as a guy who loves to watch stories unravel and specially to see you, Matt, develop stories and plots, I'm really excited about the stream. You mentioned many times that you could make a video about it. When you have the time, please do it. Tell us everything you can. I can't wait to watch.
I wonder if there will be a sheet for your Stronghold. Like a character sheet, but used to track building levels and what buffs are active and such. All this artisan stuff sounds awesome, but also quite a lot to track for a player that might not fully understand it.
I don’t know if it would add an unwanted extra layer of complexity, but could you have specialisations within some of the artisan roles? Blacksmith specialises into armorer, farrier, swordsmith and so on, and gate some boons behind the specialisation. It’s kinda like what you were saying with potions; giving people more power in specific situations is fun, and incentivises players to have personal goals. Could it also be fun to know that your guy can make fantastic armor but for the best swords you’ll need to travel?
Reining down power by specifying types of targets is brilliant! I also enjoy skill checks because it gives value to success rather than just an arbitrary time sink (do this = you get this)
One way to use these artisan followers I would really like for a regular campaign is to have services in a given town that are byond general store, blacksmith, magic shop, etc. I havent seen the final product yet, but some of these mechanics look like they could be turned around to make a living town.
These all seem great! I love the character dialogue, those little nuggets are what I am going to enjoy between the meat of information. Also, the spy is what I hope my player's get, the option to alter between a few choices instead of having to only have what they roll is so appealing I may just give them a spy to be able to have that opportunity anyways
I need these rules! Matt inspired me to give my players a Keep and a town, and followers. Now I can't wait for the rules to go along with that stuff to make it that much cooler for everyone. Everything is sounding great so far
I like it :D Love the prepackaged replies for that Man-at-Arms, I made some for a Cleric I played once and it really gets you in the right mindset as DM/player about what your characters should be saying and how they ought to behave.
As a DM and person who is better at revision than creation, I have to say, the example blurbs make thinking about the _person_ the follower is _much, much_ easier. I’d like as much of that included in my copy as possible. :P Thank you!
I want to go into a thing on "My lord" vs "Sire" king/horse, blah blah, bullshit. The truth is, it's MY hangup and it's fun flavor text! Love this !Keep up the good work! I can't wait to get mine!
Just want to clarify how "sigil" (a magical symbol) is pronounced. "Sidjel" The middle bit sounds like sounds like "ridge" Your spelling "sijel" made it seem a bit like the "i" should sound like "eye", this is not the case
I love this! I love the idea of gathering strange and obscure magic components to make unique and awesome potions and items! Where can we buy it when it comes out if we couldn't back the Kickstarter?
I know I'm coming to this late and I am probably going to be buying the print version of the book when its ready but I LOVE the idea of an 'evil' pc with a blacksmith in his keep doing his best to churn out arrows of slaying vs elves and dwarves and GNOMES!
Yeah, if your group wants to play a civ-type meta-game, Kingmaker's a great model. What I found with an old group was that only a few were into that sort of game... and we kinda figured-out a way to build a highly efficient kingdom, so the die rolls usually went in our favor.
It was my birthday yesterday, so I finally (I was waiting for it) backed the KS. Minis, books, stickers, t-shirts, and a stream! I can't wait. To be clear, if it hadn't coincided with my birthday, I would have been in on day one...
Everything sounds great, this book is going to be great. Additional artisan ideas: armorer for magical armor. And trader or merchants so the players can get someone to sell their items for them while they adventure or get items they can’t make.
This all just sounds enormously fun. It's going to be a long wait for this to be released, especially since my group is on a quest now to acquire a keep! Eek!
Hi Matt, have you considered adding a gamekeeper/warden/hunt-master follower, or a falconer? As those would have been a part of any medieval lord's retinue. Maybe you could make it so that as the party gets to higher level, the game-warden could provide parts from lower level monsters that are native to the stronghold's surroundings as potions ingredients, in addition to the meat for the table that would be their primary job. That way the party could focus on collecting monster parts from higher level monsters, of large quantities of lower level monster parts.
Tavern falls under "Establishment" which is a type of stronghold, specifically geared toward information gathering. Healers are clerics, and are dominated by temples/chapels, and similar. - This is already built in.
I’m been running a game for 27 months now. Have one of my players hooked on a keep. This content is gold to me. I was floundering as to what to do now he has a keep. I’m going to push some politics and some followers. Great stuff Mr Colville. Thank you.
LOVE THIS! Love the killing of monsters to make magic items, but i hope that there is also maybe an equally cool, Finding rare minerals or plants and being able to bring them back to your artisans to craft magic items with. Maybe arcana/nature/ maybe history to know the thing and its importance, and survival/medicine to harvest the thing, maybe even athletics to be able to harvest carry it home. just a thought! keep up the good work!
Thanks Matthew! Loving the updates and can't wait to get my hands on a physical book! Quick question; will the book contain a "Stronghold Sheet"? E.G. a character sheet for managing stronghold changes for my players?
Well, you got me. I need to get this! Shipping fee to South Africa or not( I know could have just got the pdf but books are great!). One of the biggest complaints I have had recently from my players is " Hey, what do we do with all this gold?" . I supposed I could have made a gold sink for them but I am lazy. Really excited to use this with a Hex crawler sandbox to transition in to world influence sandbox with level progress. Great Content Thanks!
Do you think it would benefit people to put into the book a step by step on how to create an Artisan follower in the model that you have done the others?
I know i would find that useful, as i doubt most campaigns would need an npc specifically to bind elementals to things like in eberron, and an artificer to build the contraption in the first place.
