is there wny good way to play a bladelock in 5e
got a wacky diea for a half orc / orc tiefling who’s a warlock on a jpurney to find a way to purge his demon blood out of his body!
also got an idea tp play some kinda undead fighter who’s got a bishamon from darkstalkers body situstion who has the head of an a neutral evil spellcaster on his shoulders he can throw to cast magic
Xanathar’s has a new Warlock patron that’s specifically for bladelocks and makes them very viable
But I, who have been wanting to make a bladelock for the longest time (it’s like the #1 build I’ve been jonesing to do and am going to shoehorn it in if I ever play another 5e game), think that is lame as shit and it’s way more fun to bend the regular lock into something meleeworthy.
Basically there’s two ways to do it. One is Dex, since you are automatically proficient with your pact weapon so you can use rapier (otherwise rapier is martial and locks only get simple proficiency), and it fills out your AC. You got no shield proficiency so you may as well do 2-weapon fighting and get the feat to back it up.
Two is taking one or two levels of Fighter up front before switching to lock. That gives you heavy armor, shields and martial. You can do Str instead of Dex (slightly more dmg output), pick any fighting style you want (2hand, 2weapon, sword & board all have pros & cons), AND you get proficiency in constitution saves which is awesome for concentration checks, which is important cause you’ll be in melee a lot. I really love the concept of this build.
Can anyone recommend a lightweight ruleset that meets as many of the following criteria as possible:
Best i have found so far is 1 Pot RPG but it’s not quite right
Making my own is hard because i’m very indecisive.
I think Swords and Wizardry fits the bill. It has both ascending and descending AC options. It may be longer in terms of pages than what you are looking for though.
The Black Hack is a good choice
not free, but I can share my pdf w/ you
20 pages, funny dice, ascending ac, old D&D, 6 dollars for the pdf
yall
I remember the previous article
The thrust that racial characteristics in fantasy is unsalvageable obviously correct but he’s eliding an argument about Tolkein in favor of surrounding history, I wish people wouldn’t speak so broadly because I don’t want to defend this sort of world-building but this is clearly unfair
both articles are solid but don’t really say anything I not only know but have argued about frequently in the past
just wait till you find out about the orcs in my game (in probably 3 years whenever the players reach the orc ‘dominion’)
Digging out from decades and decades of racialized fantasy is such an immense project, it feels like every time we get a burst of pop-culture that brings it to a new audience, from international reinterpretations to the move from books to comics to TV to movies we get set back and need to push the nuance upwards.
I should think more about how the transition works from childhood media, which is all about categorization and simple explanations, to adult understanding, and the best way to shift that
I really like your brain kobolds by the way
thanks, they’re just cranial rats but as a sapient species, which I guess are just a coincidental re-invention of the Tines from Vernor Vinge’s Fire Upon the Deep (which I hadn’t read yet, but one of my friends told me about the similarities which compelled me to pick the book up)
there are some differences from the tines but if you want a good idea of kobold cultural norms, Fire Upon the Deep is recommended reading
Yeah, it’s got a real different context when it’s a species that humanoid, as opposed to rats – when they devolve it’s into goofy but recognizably human variants, instead of beasts; it inspired some neat thoughts about societal knowledge vs personal and the importance of keeping your underclass unable to gather and speak to each other(!)
hm should I link NoRA in the comments 
Thanks for the suggestions! I’d discounted both of those but i can’t remember why, will look at them again.
Hm… okay, the thievery Eberron campaign ended well. Ever since my frog died, her replacement was fun to rp.
The next campaign is called “Dark Sun”, sort of a Fury Road-y setting in a blighted end-of-world tone. I’d originally wanted to play as The War Boys, but explosives don’t exist in this world, so I can’t make that work.
Looking for any ideas
Dark sun is a great setting and the art was a known influence on fury road
Play the doof guitarist, a heavy metal bard in a metal poor setting
gosh I missed all the orctalk get hype for my never-to-be-finished IF kindagame about inhabiting a variety of goblins dealing with colonial inroads by the “civilizing” races it’s real heavy-handed! I hate it so far!
quickly descended into “how and in how many ways can I communicate the cultural weight of making tools out of the previous generation’s bones”???
My character got killed at the end of a one-shot by another player’s evil character. Kind of irked me but i told the player what i thought (short version: yeah it’s in character but who made the character / i don’t want to play pvp), hopefully it’s not cos they hate me or anything.
But anyway, it made me think about how players impose their will upon the game / other players. Like i was playing a stupid barbarian character, so i was already doing stuff that could affect how other people enjoy the game (eg walking straight into the dungeon without scouting it, etc.).
I know what it’s like to play in a game with annoying characters so i guess i’m reconsidering my own approach. It just seems so hard to find other people who are on the same wavelength about D&D, so stuff i find annoying most people seem to enjoy and vica versa. The more i play 5th Edition the more i dislike it, but it’s the system that most people play. Maybe style is linked to system more than i thought.
Ttrp is an intensely social activity and, like all social activities, involves a constant dynamic of push and pull, always dilating and constricting your range of acceptable inputs and outputs. Exactly how much barging-in-without-scouting are your fellow players going to tolerate? Depends on their natural predilections, the character they’re trying to play, the game they envision in their head, how much they personally like you and the length and quality of your shared history, whether their spouse yelled at them that morning, etc. Social generosity is always being balanced against self-care and -integrity.
Unfortunately the type of people who are most enthusiastic to play ttrpgs tend to be the type of people least able to read a room and manage this dynamic. I think that’s often why they’re attracted to it - the layer of mechanical rules and geek context security blanket gives them a structure they can practice and experiment in, without all the crushing anxiety that might come from a more chaotic and freeform social situation like a party. But that puts one in the position of being these people’s guinea pig. Not fun real quick.
I dunno - at some point you just have to decide your tolerance level for other people’s bullshit, and if the friction grows too hot, have a talk. Unconsented pvp is a big old red line for me, any reasonable person should be able to understand that. If this guy (and it’s gotta be a guy right) won’t get it, you’re within your rights to make it a “me or him” situation.
