Friday 23 February 2018

Random Advancement (Human)

I've been using the random advancement stuff in some of my games, but since I don't use race-as-class, I just let elf thieves pick if they want to roll on the elf or the thief table. HOWEVER, this creates an issue, since humans don't have a table of their own! I immediately set out to create one.

Sometimes humans are seen as boring 'cuz they're the 'default.' But I humbly disagree. Not surprisingly, mythology is filled with stuff about what it's like to be quintessentially human, much of it contradictory, but all steeped in centuries of meaning-making. Things like making fire, exploring, learning, and the contradiction between being social beings who want to be friends with everything, and kinda basically violent dickheads who trash everything without thinking about the consequences. Or we DO think about the consequences, and that's exactly why we trash shit.

Anyway, no way we're letting elves get all the fun
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01-3: Roll on the fighter table
04-06: roll on the thief/rogue table
07-09: roll on the wizard table
11-13: when you're bloodied (drop below 50% hp) and when you drop to 0 HP(or whatever is enough damage to knock you out/kill you in your system) you can react and make an attack
14-15: Disbelief is a powerful thing- you can roll to disbelieve & dispel magic once per day. It has to be obviously magical- if it has a plausible natural explanation you'll just believe in that
16-17: Steal one monster ability that you survive. It should be fictionally appropriate, and might have to be modified so it's usable by a human, but you get it. You cant steal body parts with this, like claws or wings (or can you?!?) but if the thing had the magical ability to fly I guess you could steal that. 
18-20: You can wield weapons that are a size too large for you. If you're not otherwise proficient in weapons, you still get this, but that's all you can wield 
21: you have to obey laws of hospitality, it's like a magical thing for you, but other intelligent creatures are forced to do the same for you. If you're polite, and don't break any major rules of etiquette, that giant will let you crash in it's castle. If you're known to be someone who's broken this before, it doesn't function. Doesn't work on orcs.
22-23: You're a poet and you didn't even realize that rhymed. But it did! You get one random poem per day, from the table found here. Use it or loose it! DM's worth their salt will require the player to at least paraphrase the poem. 
24-26: For each unique kind of creature you've killed (orcs, demons, fey, unicorn, etc) you get +1 damage on your first hit against a type of creature you've never killed before. You have to keep track of what the different creatures are. You can argue what counts as unique, but really rare stuff should always count (if there's only one surviving fire troll, for example)
27-29: if you're ever completely broke (no money in coins, gems, or other liquid assets), you somehow find 1d4 gp. Yes, this means you can give all your money to your buddy and take advantage of this windfall, but that only works once, and now they have all your loot. 
30-33: You get 1 extra hp for each 2 HD you have (round up). 
34-36: you have a favourite food, and when you eat it once per day to gain 1d8 HP. This should be rare and expensive enough that it costs 1d10 coins of whatever standard you're using. 
37-39: something of a polyglot, eh? Learn an additional language of you choice. It should be one that it'd make fictional sense for you to be able to learn, but you can argue with your DM about it. If you roll this again, you can make an intelligence check to understand enough of languages you don't REALLY know to have a basic conversation or get yourself in trouble (DMs note that failing the roll can mean 'hilarious misunderstanding' instead of 'you don't know what they're saying')
45-47: you have a 'floating skill slot' that you can declare at the beginning of a session. You pick pretty much any skill, but it's at half your normal effectiveness/rank whatever
48-50: if you die 'offstage' there's a 50% base chance you're not actually dead. The classic is falling from a great height, but exploding fuel refineries, shipwrecks, rocks falling and everyone dying, etc, might qualify. Note explosions from things like 'fireball to the face' isn't offstage, unless I dunno it sets off a chain reaction of some kind
51-53: you got that halfling luck ability from 5e: any time you to a natural 1, you can reroll. The first time, if you roll a 1 again too bad. Also, whenever you flip a coin or roll a five IN GAME, or other pure chance situations, you can roll twice and take the best result
48-50: That ambiguous human morality! Effects that detect alignment always show you at true neutral. If your game doesn't use alignment, maybe a bonus on saves versus being forced to do really morally non-ambiguous things? If you roll this again, you get to pick what alignment you appear as (altho you don't automatically know someone's casting a spell)
51-53: The gods must really like your jerk-ass! Whenever you receive supernatural healing, you heal an extra hp for every dice being rolled to heal you. So if it's 3d8, +3.
54-55: Good Soldier/team player. You can trade your initiative results with other players. If you roll this again (or if you use some weird kind of initiative at your table) then you can trade attack rolls, then saves. After that, you get nothing.
by Satine Zillah
56-57: The edge & momentum of the fight often go your way. When you roll initiative, you can roll for your first attack at the same time, and decide which roll you want to assign where. 
58-59: whenever you get a mutation from a random mutation table, you can roll twice and pick the best one.
60-61: You get the 'use weird device' skill (even if your system doesn't use that skill, or doesn't use skills at all. Figure something out.) The first time you encounter some weird magic thing or technology, you get a free roll to see if you can get it to work. If you succeed, pick two: 1: you can use it immediately, 2: you know what it does, 3: you avoid any side effects.
Seems like a good idea
62-63: You get the benefit as if drawing from a deck of many things. One card, but if you roll this you can't opt out. Effects take place over the next Haven turn, so if you get the castle one you inherit a castle somehow, if you get death then the grim reaper is gonna show up soon so get your affairs in order.
64-65: Dirty Fighting. You know better than to fight fair. Once per encounter, you may declare that you are fighting dirty before rolling to hit – you get +2 to-hit for your next attack, and if it hits the target is stunned for d3 rounds (as if they were surprised and unable to act, so your backstabby friends might want to take advantage of that) in addition to taking regular damage. Probably from getting bit in the groin, let’s be honest, but any discernible weak point will allow this to work. If you get this again, you can blind them instead. Then get sneak attack +1d6 (like a thief or rogue)
66-67: Fire keeper. Humans invented for, right? Or at least some Prometheus guy stole it for our benefit. Torches last twice as long for you, and you can start and keep fires going in anything less than gale-force winds. Once per day you can gain resistance to one fire attack or effect, and if you do your next attack deals +1d8 fire damage
68-69: You’re super good at dodging. +1 AC. Treat it like an extra bonus from Dex, except your Dexterity score doesn’t actually go up. This bonus is double if you use it actively, like taking the Defense action on your turn in 5e.
70-71: You may befriend any one animal, or monster of animal level intelligence.  It must be solitary when encountered. No dice rolls are necessary, you simply make a new friend who will follow you and be loyal as long as you treat it well. You may only use this ability once. Reroll if you get this result again (unless your pet already died, in which case you get a replacement, even though nothing will ever replace them in your heart)
72-73: Your parents/grandparents/great grandparents were really into 'frolicking' in those Elven glades. Roll on the Elf chart.  If you get a result like "Gain a spell slot as usual" you get it as a spell-like ability.
74-75: I guess you come from a mining family. Roll on the Dwarf chart.
76-77: By sleeping a lot all at once, you can 'bank' rest- you can have a number of nights 'stored' equal to your constitution modifier. This doesn't count as a 'long rest'it just let's you avoid the effects of fatigue
78: The rumours are true – that thing you wanted? The Tablet of Making? The Hand of Dominion? The power-armour gauntlets? The Giant Death Ray? It’s there. 4 sessions worth of adventure away or less. Tell your Referee, who then must place it.
You must have a fair shot at it – like any other treasure, but there’s no guarantee you will get it. If you don’t get it by the fourth session you can keep trying or let it go and roll again on this table. However, if you choose to roll again and then you do get the thing somehow anyway, you lose whatever gimmick you rolled. your Ref needs to think up some clever reason why.
79: you've got blood from so many different lineages in you, no one knows what's what. Treat yourself as being whatever creature type is most advantageous for using magic items and stuff. For hostile effects you still count as vanilla human.
80-81: if there's ever a effect that applies to characters randomly, it won't be you. Unless it's beneficial and you want in!
82-83: when you're in your own house you're treated as having 2x the number of hit points
84-86: Pick an environment you’ve spent a lot of time fighting in: city, dungeon, wilderness, desert, sea, etc. Whatever it is, you can now anticipate wandering monsters a round ahead of time in that environment and are immune to (mundane) surprise there. If you re-roll this, pick another environment or get an extra round of anticipation, your choice.
87-88: When you have line of sight on a banner or battle standard of a cause you're loyal to, you get +1d4 to attacks, saves, and skill checks
89-90: did you know humans kinda evolved to be endurance predators? +2 Constitution


91-92: Humans are super bossy kinda control freaks. You can use Command once per short rest. If you know the creature's name, they get disadvantage on the save
by SpaciousInterior
93: Borrowed Fate: steal another character's d20 roll once per day. Record the result, and then you can use it in place of one of your own rolls
94-95: when you use a book for the first time, you can just flip through it to find out something useful. Rolling this again means you can get more than one useful thing. 
96-97: Add an extra weapon damage die to critical hits. 
98-99: any weapon you use has an exploding die for damage. That means if you roll the max number (6 on a d6, 12 on a d12, etc) you roll another die of the same kind and add it.
00: Second Sight. You can see invisible creatures and through illusory disguises with a simple Wisdom check. You can sense ethereal creatures, and astral presences show up as an aura.


From Tomb Of Annihilation. Dinosaur riding. That's the kind of shit humans get up to. 




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