Retrain, Reflavour, & Retcon in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

[@jordicanals6246]

"you should not hold yourself to the standards of a professional published broadcast media" : sure, you should expect more of yourself than they did with GoT S8!

[@DungeonDudes]

LOL!!!

[@LupineShadowOmega]

Savage...

[@VinceValentine]

That's easy, D&D (the game, not D.B. Weiss and David Benioff) has actual rules for teleportation while GOT does not. D&D also doesn't give you plot armor or force players to act completely out of character just because it's more dramatic.

[@j.s.4778]

Wanted to play an air genasi who could control the winds around them? Reflavored Swarmkeeper Ranger gives me everything Elemental Monk could not. Reflavoring subclasses is a powerful tool!

[@Observer31]

you can have a lot of fun with some classes that have a narrow RP flavor (obviously, not a fighter or rogue), by stripping that flavor away. Barbarian reflavor well, and so do monks.

[@teoyak]

I wanted my character to place runes on the party that would protect them from a discrete instances of damages. So I said runes are placed on party's clothes, and I "activate" them with my lore bard's inspirations !

[@Mallory-Malkovich]

"Many creators think subverting expectations is more creative than delivering on what was foreshadowed." I can't believe you guys came for JJ Abrams like that.

[@klobbson]

I think you mean Rian Johnson.

[@Mallory-Malkovich]

@@klobbson I definitely do not. Almost everything JJ has ever made has had an unsatisfying ending because of his "mystery box" philosophy of storytelling. No matter how you feel about _Star Wars,_ Rian Johnson Made _Knives Out,_ proving he knows how to make a great story with satisfying twists and a coherent conclusion. And yes, I'm still mad about _Lost._

[@ronn-ammon8975]

Osiris Malkovich : TOTALLY(!) agree with you about Abrams and Lost. He did the same with Fringe so much that FOX canceled it in disgust. But Lucas had done it with Star Wars before Jar Jar Abrams got there and put his "touch" on it.

[@dhaas4698]

It'd be cool for a characters fey patron to inform the character their contract had been sold to Orcus or Azmodeus LOL

[@logancuster8035]

Oh I love this idea so much ❤️

[@espenasper2775]

That sounds so cool

[@VinceValentine]

Or even employee leasing. "As you know, the Seelie Court is allied with the Angelic Hosts of Mount Celestia, and they require help from adventurers, so you will be working for them for a while. What? Of course I can do that, it's in the contract. Very fine print."

[@wilfchapman-gandy8120]

@@VinceValentine Warlocks should really unionize.

[@Buttonpusher42]

This sounds like how Leanansidhe hands off Harry Dresden's debt to Mab because he's essentially just currency to them

[@ssfbob456]

One of my players had a barbarian that, when Tasha's Cauldron came out, wanted to switch to the wild magic barbarian because it *really* fit his backstory (it really did). They had just finished running through a False Hydra scenario, so I gamed it that during the fight he had swallowed some of its blood, he got sick for 1d10 days, and his subclass shifted.

[@thicclander6785]

Low key could you explain how you ran it cause I have really wanted to run a false hydra for my players but am not sure how I could do so

[@lmungillo]

Sometimes, my players will guess something wrong that’s way cooler and so I’ll retcon behind the scenes call to make them right 😂

[@wilfchapman-gandy8120]

Yup

[@GaryBoyles342]

That's how one can make it seem like the DM is more prepped than the players realize!

[@chriskenney5511]

As an improv/sandbox dm i actually think my players have written as much of my campaigns as i have lol

[@bakured]

Same dude. Honestly, i think a bunch of people DON'T because they want to preserve an "original vision" and changing something on the fly would affect that vision too much. Sometimes, though, you just gotta admit your ideas could use improvement and pivot a little.

[@thelunchmoney3122]

That is essentially how I run my preferred style of campaign, the epic exploration sandbox. I prepare an "overall, world shaking event" that will (maybe) guide the players overall journey. But then I only ever prepare 1 or 2 sessions out. Because often the players make choices or guesses within the narrative that ends up being cooler than my original plan, so I simply alter the story arc to include that aspect.

[@dutch6857]

My favourite was Animated Armour re-skinned as plaster statues in a church the players had to get a relic out of. "Wait, why would there be all this armour in the chapel? What WOULD there be in a chapel?" And damage as chips and chunks knocked off was very visual.

[@fightingfalcon777]

I love the concept of the Gun Mage. I think that an alternative for shooting Dimension Door with that concept could be the bullet tearing a hole open in dimensions, going through the veil on one end and then coming out the other

[@ryanpeters3812]

And here I pictured it more like shooting yourself and the bullet pulls you, like you are a fabric, into a hole it makes, with a new hole appearing and the player being pulled out the same way. Or straight down, making yourself flush like a cartoon into a new space. Now I'm thinking of making all the spells cartoon antics in a real world. Roger Rabbit crossover, anyone?

[@adamkaris]

My initial reaction was the first shot placed the bullet, then you shoot yourself in the head to teleport to it..... I think I need therapy

[@ryanpeters3812]

@@adamkaris or just blame it on persona 3

[@Kev_Lar]

The right amount of reflavor is a great way to head off over-eager homebrewers. As a DM, I've had a few players come to me asking for help with really specific build ideas. I love this, and lots of times they're super cool! The issue is, the most often encountered requests are for totally new homebrew subclasses or, even worse, a whole separate class. Example; I had a player who was talking about building a bender from Avatar. He liked the overall concept of the four elements monk, but we both agreed that it was a little mechanically weak and Mmch more importantly, that it didn't fit his vision. He was suggesting, specifically, a water bender. I asked him if his martial arts *had* to be his fists. He paused and thought about it. Instead of taking a subclass he wasn't altogether invested in, and worse, would have not come close enough to his vision of his character, we simply agreed that for the purposes of the RP aspect, his "bludgeoning damage" from his "fists" was the force of the water he carried on his hip. Lo and behold, he took magic initiate (wizard) for ray of frost, shape water, and shield. He could now blow ice from the water in his hands to slow enemies, create amazing (if limited in scale) feats with water, and even use a field of water or ice to shield him from blows once per long rest. It was far, FAR easier than making an entirely new subclass, and ended up being very fulfilling for him as both a mechanical and roleplay experience.

[@projectmobius]

I think the advice that more DM’s should definitely consider is that they are just one person and as such the story DOES NOT have to be perfect. Keep up the good work guys!

[@leandrochavez6480]

yeah, look at published adventures and all patches we have to make

[@orarinnsnorrason4614]

One of the best advice for any DM/player. Nobody's perfect.

[@thicclander6785]

Yeah I really have to keep that in mind. Cause I feel if I mess up something once or don't put enough detail my players will get mad. I know they won't but it's still a thought in my brain

[@fraidnaught9067]

Monty: "If you need any kind of big dumb brute just use the stats for a Stone Giant" Me: "I'm sure he meant Hill Giant." My Stone Giant NPC: _Beautifully engraving Monty's name on their most aerodynamic boulder_

[@Tomyironmane]

Well that's one way to get stoned.

[@olivierlipinski]

Rat Prince : "wait I am a kobold ? No,no,no!!!"

[@F3TTST3R]

I've always loved the Bard class mechanically, but never felt drawn to it thematically. However, I saw a suggestion to reflavor the College of Lore Bard as a witch, with their cutting words as witch's hexes and that made all the difference for me in deciding to play one.

[@LordOz3]

Player: "I think the king might be a raksasha." Me, who planned on the king being a doppleganger: "Now he is - I like that better."

[@TikiTreeOG]

Did you tell him?

[@Albatross0913]

That's awesome man

[@worldshaking00]

Reflavor: two different barbarians that took Path of the Totem Warrior... both took "Bear" for their first power pick but re-skinned. First one called it a Moose and the other a Rhino, as their totemic spirit animals.

[@BeaverThingify]

I'm running an island campaign and let my barbarian use a crab leg and be a "crab" warrior in place of bear.

[@r3liability]

One of the best reflavors I did was for a friend who really wanted to play as mermaids for their birthday one shot. A quick flip of races with swim speeds, and a bit of lore that Melora made them all special, and its been an annual game since.

[@basementmadetapes]

Reflavouring is my go-to tool. Done it to races, done it to subclasses. It can break open the game without introducing untested mechanics. Like path of the beast is a condition of a symbiote. Which is why the character can manifest teeth or claws or tail

[@TheRawrnstuff]

The Mystic class makes a great class template for a superhero campaign with just a little bit of reflavoring. The depth isn't there for an entire setting, but the flexibility of the class works wonders there.

[@basementmadetapes]

@@TheRawrnstuff and where do I find the mystic class?

[@scottieapplseed]

I've sooo many times tried to convince some purist old gamer friends that don't want to allow certain races because "oh this says they are from this plane or from too far away that you'd never be here" or not allow classes like artificer because "they don't have technology in this world". It's just a mechanic and a stat block that is already balanced; it doesn't HAVE to follow the typical lore, and I try to actively encourage my players to flavor their paradigm for how they bring their game mechanics to life.

[@benjaminstockwell5215]

One of my favorite "campaigns" was when i the dm played a king and every session i would hire a new group of adventurers to perform a different "task" for me. It was with a new group and i think every person got to play every class throughout the campaign. Was a ton of fun and got everyone hooked

[@cdfreester]

I REALLY like Monte's example of the gun mage. I might have to steal this idea for a future character of mine. And with respect to glaives and reflavoring, I reflavored a glaive to a ranseur, which was a weapon choice in older versions of D&D. All I did was switch the slashing damage to piercing damage. Done. Nicely done, gentlemen!

[@jakevalinho9911]

You guys have made me campaign so much better. I've started just a month ago and these videos help inspire my next session.

[@override367]

I just made the four elements monk a third caster and let monks uplevel spells using ki points by one level, additionally letting them flurry of blows if they use an action to cast a spell - alteratively if they take the attack action they can spend one ki point per spell level to cast a spell as a bonus action (or a cantrip). In play the player that wanted it has a lot of fun with it

[@maxmadeup7376]

You should give the wizard in your party more spell scrolls just a tip for DMing

[@jakevalinho9911]

@@maxmadeup7376 You should take your extremely fragile parchment papers and attempt to slam them into eachother at such a force that they blend colours

[@EZman45]

Key take away: if you want something, talk to your DM. Books are just "guildelines', your DM can always overrule it. In the campaign I'm playing now our DM is very generous aslong as it makes sense and you can sell your idea :D

[@Striker2054]

Reskinning is how I got Warhammer Fantasy Beastmen into a D&D game world. Orcs, Gnolls, and Centaurs have made for great templates to just reskin.

[@___i3ambi126]

Honestly, I feel like I retcon things to make the players correct more often than i make them wrong. Sometimes the players have ideas that I like more than what I had planned, so that's what happens.

[@captainthorrek262]

It's uncanny how often these episodes come up right in time for when I'm working on the episode's subject matter

[@thicclander6785]

Honestly I always find it relevant to current problems

[@Thetruepianoman]

Refloaver. On a side note, I particularly like that your guys advice isn't just tailored towards making a great game and story but also making it inclusive and healthy for everyone involved

[@blundermoth4720]

Please, the word is REFLOAVOUR

[@marks6928]

Concerning reflavouring, I did this with a character recently. I played a gnome artificer who had been transformed into a squirrel, and had then built a man-sized mech suit which he piloted from inside its head. Mechanics wise he was actually a warforged sorcerer. When he cast spells, I described it as various weapons firing from the mech: when he cast magic missile, an array of small heat-seeking missiles would shoot out from his chest, and fireball was a large cannon on his back. It was great fun.

[@geckothegreene]

Especially love the bit about reflavoring monsters- Monty does such a good job of this in the Drakkenheim campaigns. It is a move I fully stole after seeing it be used so well, and has made a huge positive difference in my own campaign. Reflavoring existing monsters has saved me a ton of prep time, and made for some very memorable encounters for my players.

[@zachbrown9350]

DnDBeyond makes re-skinning monsters very easy with their "homebrew monster" tool. You can start building a monster with everything filled in based on a published stat block, then tweak what you want. You can even access your homebrew version in the encounter builder/combat tracker.

[@PTGumby]

Everyone talks about Kelly's style yet Monty always rocking that full clean-cut beard. Enjoying the vids and the podcasts! Thanks!

[@CuriouGeorg]

You guys give such great advice. Clear concise and logical, with things to potentially look out for both good and bad. I appreciate what you guys do.

[@lawrenceboivin6706]

In our Return of the Nine campaign my Pugilist sacrificed himself in a fight to save his companions. The Raven Queen Warlock in the group made arrangements for my Pugilist to meet her. After running through her trials the Raven Queen sent him back as a Phantom Rogue who didn’t remember his old companions but still remembered the general gist of the campaign.

[@greenhawk3796]

Reduce, reuse, re- wait a minute... ahhhh you got me!

[@darkenna]

Reanimate!

[@minorasimulator]

one of the favourite characters i've made was a rogue who was a human grandma and her weapons were knitting needles (reskinned daggers)

[@MrVotiga]

One of the most rewarding "retain" moments I've had was with my wife's druid. They started as a Circle of the Land druid, but didn't like the spell casting. So I scrambled their attributes and switched the character to Circle of the Moon, and they've been having a blast with it ever since. A huge difference in experience for my wife

[@practicepositiveprogress5396]

When it comes to subverting expectations, people think that is the same thing as a plot twist. But it's not. The best plot twists are the ones where you can look back and see all the foreshadowing that was done before, now that you have this new context. The best plot twists ultimately make sense on some level. Unfortunately, something that comes with that is that sometimes people catch on. And sometimes you aren't being subtle enough so it isn't actually a plot twist.

[@hunormenyhart181]

One of my favorite characters I played was a halfling history teacher, who was just extremely lucky. He was a divination wizard/lore bard with tons of luck-based feats and the spells he "cast" were just random strokes of luck. Like his catapult spell was a branch or tree falling on the enemy. :D

[@Altakotumo]

I've been running Tomb of Annihilation with a group for over a year now. They just got to the bottom of the tomb and one of my players (a Halfling Life Cleric) has been doing such a great job roleplaying the trickster god possession that I let her swap her WIS and CHA and exchange her Cleric levels for Celestial Warlock ones. She also took pack of the chain, so she now has a unicorn rabbit (almiraj?) that is as tall as she is as her familiar.

[@AzraelThanatos]

It's one of the things I remember most with 3.5 where most of the community would often reduce everything to the basic abilities and build the flavor back in that you would want with it. Some classes had neat abilities that could be fluffed a very different way and still operate exactly the same way mechanically. Other than for specific abilities that had class specific levels, well, mixing and matching classes, feats, skills, tricks, spells, and gear to make a character that functioned how you wanted tended to be more of the "class" for the character than being treated as a specific class.

[@Ubersupersloth]

I think retconning CAN work so long as it makes sense. The magic space metal you said doesn’t seem to melt no matter how hot it gets? It turns out it was an illusion or the metal you tried to set on fire was enchanted or something like that. If you just say to the players “Uh, the metal actually melts if you burn it now. Forget that it didn’t melt earlier”...that’s not great. That thunder step that shouldn’t have worked but did? A devil has been secretly helping you along to try and get the party in its debt to take their souls. I’m gonna say that going “that didn’t happen” (unless it’s done IMMEDIATELY after the action like “oh wait, I don’t say that” or “Wait, hang on, I don’t cast that spell”) is gonna almost always feel bad for the players.

[@VonSnootingham]

Reflavoring is my bread and butter. In the last year, I've had four different characters with the spell Fairy Fire *mechanically*, but not one of them has ever had a spell called Fairy Fire. One is a celestial warlock whose patron is a spirit of the sun, specifically of twilight, so for her, it's not fairy magic, but the glow of a sunset encompassing her enemies and it's called Crepuscular Glow. For my Spores Druid, whose all about plants, fungus, and decay, he coats his enemies with Biolumiscent Spores. That druid then died and his replacement character is actually his soul stuffed into a scarecrow with a watermelon for a head. The new character's race is the UA origin, the Reborn. His subclass changed from Spores to Stars, but instead of playing it as a druid dedicated to the stars, I play it as essentially a ghost druid. Instead of channeling the power of the stars and having an astral form that looks like a constellation, it's literally the spirit extruding out of the scarecrow body. And Stars Druid has a star map that they get that gives them some powers, but if they lose it they can spend and hour to summon a new one. My possessed scarecrow's version of this is basically a dreamcatcher/soulcatcher that was stuffed into the scarecrow for luck. That's the thing that caught the dead druid's soul and what is anchoring it in the body, A LA Alphonse Elric from Full Metal Alchemist. My DM and I decided that if it gets destroyed, my soul will be released and I straight die. I'm very proud of the way we reflavored this.

[@giucarvalho7427]

this is so creative, i love it!

[@pearcesun]

29:30 I described a half-orc to two players in a one-shot, my buddy and his girlfriend, by saying “a large, burly specimen with dark grey-brown skin answers the door to the blacksmith. As you look up at his towering stature, you notice two small tusk-like teeth sticking out of his bottom lip.” My buddy immediately recognized it as an orc or a half-orc and said so to his girlfriend who never played before, and it was just super satisfying to see

[@dicksonmattxenoblade6491]

I just recently had an idea of having a character use a deck of tarot cards as their spellcasting focus. Functionally it would be the same as casting the spells normally, but instead of using a typical spellcasting focus, it would be the character taking a card that could represent that spell the best. I’m still working out things but I hope it’ll be great.

[@speculativemusings3593]

Wild Magic Sorcerer sounds like it’d be great with that flavor. I can picture a Tournament of card users, Yugioh-style!

[@joshuatran1556]

One of my characters is a Wild Magic Barbarian. Instead of being random, I reflavored each of the surges into spiritual armaments used by his ancestors that he conjures.

[@hawkthetraveler6344]

That's a sweet idea!

[@Tristan_Shuler]

My DM let me even swap my STR and DEX scores because I wanted to play an archer Ranger instead of a sword and board one. And he let us swap spells out a few times just to test them out. Granted we only started playing D&D last year.

[@RyanTreadaway]

I'm about 9 months into my first DnD campaign. At first, I THOUGHT I wanted to play an arcane trickster rogue because the flavor was cool and I came up with a cool backstory. I quickly learned I actually wanted to play a full caster. Due to a series of terrible rolls by the whole party, we had a party wipe after about a month. Due to some quick thinking by the DM, 3 of the 5 of us actually survived and we had a side mission of trying to bring myself and the other person who died back to life. I told my DM I wanted my character to stay dead. I rolled a lore bard and was able to keep the same story and flavor because my bard and arcane trickster were old friends with the same goal.

[@fenixmeaney6170]

I'm literally planning a grimdark campaign and was thinking of trying to reflavor things for added eeriness through defamiliarization This episode is so useful

[@espenasper2775]

This is an amazing video and something DnD needs in the books. This is something that would have been great to know in my first campaign DMing.

[@Thetruepianoman]

With these three R's we're going to be discussing what they R

[@CuriouGeorg]

I chuckled when he said it.

[@jansolo4628]

When discussing homebrewing with some online friends, someone came up with the idea of a Monk who gains robotic enhancements to punch people. Right at that moment, I realized how easy it is to make Astral Self Monk become exactly that! Spirit arms? It's my monk's robotic arms attached to their back. Astral visage? Nah, just some cool gadgets that was installed into their head. The whole thing? Basically the Ship of Theseus.

[@mephi2go]

This really was an inspiring episode, especially the part about reflavouring. Love it!

[@lord6617]

18:30 I love Matt Colville's method of doing NPCs - who/what is the npc, how many rounds do I expect it to live in combat, give it abilities so it has different and interesting actions for each round, and go. You don't need to fill out the entire spellcaster's spell list for example, unless the players are like, capturing a spellbook or something.

[@lockwoan01]

The Expected Twist - The King is an Evil Rakshasa. (Seen it a mile away.) The Unexpected Twist - The King is a *Good* Rakshasa. (Okay, didn't see that coming.)

[@wilfchapman-gandy8120]

The king is a good Rakshasa being threatened into doing evil deeds by a High Nothic in order to harvest life force from the citizens in order to turn the Nothic back into the evil archmage he used to be.

[@lockwoan01]

@@wilfchapman-gandy8120 Said Nothic would have to be significantly powerful to threaten a Rakshasa - Nothics have a CR of 2 and the lowest threat a Rakshasa is a Zakya Rakshasa, the martial variant from Eberron, with a CR of 5, with the normal Rakshasa being a cr 13........ or maybe the Nothic is holding a child hostage, a child who happens to be related to someone the Rakshasa viewed as a Worthy Opponent (either in combat or through debating, or whatever), and had a lot of respect for, and thus doesn't want anything bad to happen to the child.........

[@wilfchapman-gandy8120]

@@lockwoan01 The reason for it is GM's discretion, I picked nothic because Liches and Dragons are everywhere and Nothic is cool. Maybe the Nothic has some very robust leverage or maybe the Nothic is bizarrely powerful, the beauty of playing these games is that anything could happen depending on where you want the game to go or the theme. If you want there to be a bit of intrigue, a very intelligent Nothic with leverage might not be a threat to the players physically, but a more personal threat to the Rakshasa, so the Rakshasa might task them in secret with hunting it down, or the Rakshasa redoubles its efforts to kill them because it knows that the moment the comparatively pathetic Nothic figures out it's being hunted it will use its leverage. Or, in a more fight-focused game, it's a particularly powerful, CR 13-15 Nothic that used to be a CR 20 wizard, meaning the players have to hunt it down and kill it before it can complete a ritual to turn itself back.

[@lockwoan01]

@@wilfchapman-gandy8120 That makes sense. The info would have to be very important, or the Nothic very powerful.

[@isaacgraff8288]

"Yes, I killed the previous king and took his place. He was a tyrant. He was about to send his forces into a dragon's den without giving them proper information. Here is what you are missing, his kingdom was failing, my kingdom is thriving."

[@rclammo]

Yes Reflavoring is GREAT! I am about to run an Artificer and I am renaming spells to fit a more Sci-Fi Flavoring. Minor Illusion=Compact Hologram, Fairie Fire = Targeting Matrix, Shatter = Sonic Repulser, Invisibility=Active Camouflage, Fireball=Plasma Burst to name a few :).

[@Belbo-il-Biggins]

With the idea of reflavoring enemies, maintaining the original stat blocks, you guys saved me a lot of times reworking new monsters. As a new master I thank you for all the precious advice, my greetings from Italy.

[@emerynoel567]

I love reflavoring. I had a Artificer Armorer for a few sessions. His story was that he had stolen a suit of magic armor from a mind flayer. All of the spells, abilities, and feats he had were mechanical enhancements of the suit. Like Flash of Genius was from the HUD and magic missile was a fold out cannon. Very Iron Man, and very fun to play!

[@thebitterfig9903]

That's been ringing in my brain. It'd be sweet to steal that core concept, but with Dragon Scale Mail, where some of the dragon's magic and evil tendencies find their way into the Artificer. It might work well for someone less into steampunk, but still into the Artificer kit.

[@garrettstambaugh6271]

I use a reallly "soft" kind of retcon pretty often. Sometimes I have players who want me to tell them how they feel as part of a description, like "The sight of the bleeding walls and fleshy floor turns your stomach and fills you with existential dread." But other players don't want that put on them and would rather describe how they feel themselves. And sometimes those two types of players are at the same table! So I might give that bit of narration and then let the players chime in with their minor retcons if they want to: "No, I'm not afraid at all. Instead I'm suddenly filled with uncontrollable hunger," says the Lizardman Chef inside the flesh chamber.

[@RoninRaconteur]

I use flavor for a lot of what I do. I've spent time talking to my players on that. Helping them know that everything works the same, but the way they see it and describe it is in their hands and minds. Never really did the retraining but I like that thought a great deal. Retcon....well, it's a necessary evil of writing as you both explained. Even with notes you are bound to miss something especially with several hours of play. I'm super glad you guys made this video.

[@Deafwing]

I had a little sidequest which I put into the Tyranny of Dragons campaign I'm running where there was a wizard experimenting with mashing/stitching/fleshweaving together all kinds of creatures with dragon kin. Of course, they were all existing monsters, just with a new coat of paint, but it made for a fun session. My players were constantly second-guessing themselves for a change.

[@Boba-licious]

So glad I watch this video! I’m a new dm with many new players and after watching this, I gave them the option to retcon their characters if they were not having fun and many of them did and are much happier now so thank you Dungeon Dudes for saving my campaign!!!

[@ashleyien1222]

Kelly rocking the hats to cover the lock-down hair. XD Yes, Yes, Yes! "Foreshadowing!"... will always be in my memory from a certain campaign... I shall always mentally hear that word in the voice of a unicorn named Windcharger... Great advice.

[@GunnerM60]

I have a DM's Guild product that greatly expands Tome Pact Warlock options. The thing attracted me to Tomelock was getting the Book of Shadows to get 3 cantrips from ANY class list. But, RAW the Tomelock doesn't get any more spells that way except rituals via Book of Ancient Secrets. An invocation in this PDF I got allows Tomelocks to get 3 spells from any class list up to 5th lvl! This fits the knowledge seeking side & prowess of Tomelock but also the roleplay side of a Warlock being granted stronger magical power from his/her patron.

[@lockwoan01]

Sometimes a player has an experience that makes them want a change, and it ties into the story. For instance, in my first DM's homebrew campaign, I was a Human Champion Fighter, and had joined at Level 6 (idea was that he was once the Commander of the Royal Guards of some country, only to find that his king was killing innocent non-humans and thus staged a rebellion against him, killing said king, only to get betrayed). Then the DM got Writer's Block, and so another player decided to do LMoP, where I played a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer, and thus got a taste for magic. Well, anyways, when the DM had recovered after LMoP was finished, we were going to continue his story. I decided to mention my character having a wife, who was a wizard, specifically, a necromancer, much to his nervousness. Idea is that my Champion Fighter was actually an Eldritch Knight Fighter (16 Strength, 16 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 15 Intelligence, 10 Wisdom, 12 Charisma), learning magic from his wife (a half-Drow by the way) but had been keeping quiet about his magical talents, due to prejudice against magic users in his homeland. Sadly, 2020 being the way it was, and the DM moving away, this won't be possible now. Maybe another campaign.

[@lockwoan01]

One thing I've noticed is how often some npcs and beasts are reskinned as others. Case in point - Scouts, Elks, and Animated Swords. For Scouts, there's at least half-dozen of them - some being local versions of scouts, with a simple weapon swap, like the Barovian Scout, while others might be something like the Wood Elf, which is just the Scout with Wood Elf traits, while others get both racial traits and a weapon swap. Then there's the Elk - it's been reskinned as Reindeer, Golden Stag, and an Awakened Elk. Then there's the Animated Sword - there's a small armory of flying weapons. Now I'm waiting for a reskinned Scout with a reskinned Elk companion, armed with a reskinned flying sword.

[@lexistential]

When your apothecary playtest came out, I offered to let the players in my campaign take a level in it (they were levelling that session anyway), and one actually wanted to completely replace their class with it because it really appealed to them, which I was happy to do. I would rather my players enjoy themselves than feel like they're forced into a situation by a decision they made when they had never even played the game before

[@ColinKillick]

I did exactly the fiend to celestial switch you describe, and it was one of the most pivotal and enjoyable parts of our whole campaign for me

[@Armphid]

This is timely, and I like a lot of the insights here. Using reflavoring in particular can be a very powerful took for a GM. My SO ran a game for us where she did a lot of that, taking a statblock and using it for an entirely different creature than was expected and it was a real treat for the whole group. not the least because it kept our friend's son who joined this game and is a total lorehead who has a bad habit of using meta knowledge guessing the whole time.

[@thesonofdormammu5475]

The worst is when you make a character that is close to what you want but not exactly. Then later on you find a template that is exactly what you wanted but it's too late.

[@hawkthetraveler6344]

Talk to your GM most want you to be as happy as possible, just don't look to play test constantly as most folks will get frustrated.

[@VinceValentine]

I have actually changed the BBEG right at the beginning of the campaign. The PCs met him right upon entering a city where he seemed like normal townsfolk, but the players metagamed a bit and said he reminded them of a video game villain. So I changed it all, the character became a good guy who befriended the party and doesn't realize he's being manipulated by the actual villain. The guy they previously disliked is now a helpful mentor who needs to be rescued in the final battle.

[@25Pedroh]

Recently in a game of stormking's thunder, a warlock changed his patron from the great old one to the celestial, it was an epic roleplaying moment, it made so much sense for the character, and the player is just loving the new abilities. I feel the warlock is great for this sort of change, it just works so well.

[@williamketter9886]

Literally minutes before this video dropped I scheduled a meeting with my group to talk about restructuring our campaign. Y'all are prescient for real.

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

In general I like to tell players that their characters aren't their class. They're their background. Your guy isn't a fighter. He's a sailor or a soldier. You caster isn't a wizard. They're an acolyte or a scholar. Your warlock is never going to admit she's a warlock in public. She's whatever her day job is. I do this because the mechanics are just mechanics and can be applied to just about anything. Sure, some classes and subclasses have very heavy themes and flavoring, but all of them can be reflavored to fit any number of other themes, concepts, and archetypes. One example of reflavoring I love is a summoner character I've made. He's a reseracher who found the wrong tome of eldritch lore in the back of the library one day. The secrets within the tome drove him to the edge of madness, turning his nightmares into a pocket dimension from which he can summon horrific nightmare creatures into the waking world to fight for and shield him on the battlefield. And the class build for that nightmare summoner character is echo knight fighter with at least 2 or 3 levels of war wizard.

[@masonmysliwy8879]

Holy hell the idea of a campaign that is a guild never crossed my mind until today... i love it

[@illoney5663]

10:13 Switched my Paladin from Great Weapon Fighting to Blessed Warrior to better fit the character after Tasha's release. DM agreed and it was done after a large story beat + level up, just the perfect way to handle that. Same DM also allowed my Cleric to switch from Grave domain to Twilight domain at an earlier point. Fully complete with a revelation from the new deity with a clear connection to the old one. Really flavourful and fits the character much better. The absolute best thing I can say about this DM is that they're excellent at working in player motivations, story and is just generally awesome when it comes to working with players in situations like this.

[@dahelmang]

Some people seem to think foreshadowing is boring. Thank you for being the voice of reason!

[@override367]

In the UA for tashas, Bards, Sorcerers, etc could switch ONE spell per long rest, and in extensive play testing it (as both dm and as a player), it fixes nearly all of the problems people have with those classes. Spells that no bard or sorcerer would ever picked can now be picked without fretting about it too much, and it absolutely does not hurt the balance of your game at all

[@leodouskyron5671]

You can also recon character species (magic items, reincarnation , Divine intervention, wish, true polymorph) and be open to players recons as well if it is to broaden the rp on that character (not to empower them). The key to many of these things is a good back channel to talk between DM and player and to not do this stuff to empower the players ability to hit but to amp up the fun.

[@Hubabuba258]

When you mentioned changing a subclass after an important story moment I immediately thought about my first character, who was a Half-Orc Barbarian. I knew really nothing about which subclass is worth taking (that was before we got such wonders as your subclasses rankings) and at level three I picked a Storm Herald as it just fit my character thematically. Yeah, poor choice, I know. He also had this internal struggle between his more calm and noble human side and his violent and impatient orcish side. Anyway, our party found a magical rope that... I actually don't remember what it was doing, but you had to hang yourself on it and there was a 50/50 chance to either die or gain something awesome, can't really remember what it was. At one point my Barb decided to use it and well... he survived and decided that all that human bullshit is not really for him, therefore embracing his orcish side and with that (mostly because I had almost no fun playing the Storm Herald) I went for the Berserker (Yeah, I were a sucker for poor choices). The fact that DM allowed it was awesome and it really fit the narrative. I wasn't able to suffer much because of the Berserker because that character died two sessions later, but it was an epic moment nonetheless.

[@christopherealy8025]

I used reflavoring on one of my rogue characters. They were a ronin style samurai warrior, and I reflavored my sneak attack to be hyper lethal cuts. I used a homebrew katana that used finesse instead of versatile, and took up the swashbuckling archetype, reflavoring the abilities to match, but never changing them mechanically. It was one of the funnest characters I have ever played.

[@malogranatum4914]

I’ve used a lot of reflavouring as a player just in creating my and other players’ characters. I helped a friend create a gnoll character by simply taking the features of the orc player race in the Eberron sourcebook. I also have a character concept for a half-fey (either wood elf or half elf) raised by her human relatives and then later trained to sort of use the tricky nature of the Feywild against itself (and her enemies in general) while she herself keeps her mind a centre of focus and calm (Way of the Drunken Master monk). Haven’t played her yet, but I’m really excited about this concept and will probably play her as my first monk character! I’ve also more recently been looking at some adventures for ideas for when I finally try my hand at DMing and coming across suggestions of giving certain monsters and NPCs the statblocks of other monsters right there in official materials! It’s a nice reminder to consider just using and slightly tweaking what’s already published for 5e, which miiiiiiight come in handy with me eyeing up the Planescape setting from 2e.

[@elizabethrowe5960]

Reflavoring is the bomb! I have a Curse of Strahd campaign going on with players who are too familiar with the material. There's a certain part (not to spoil anyone) where there are just too many cats, and a catless basement that I wanted to change out. They got down there to find an ailuryloth, a reskinned bone devil in the form of a black cat with a minor breath weapon added on--"Tuna Breath." It went over quite well.

[@thepopemichael]

Kelly is always 1000x more fashionable than I will ever be.

[@zeketerry3419]

BEWARE! You could be correct!

[@jacquelinealbin7712]

His emo bangs are *chefs kiss*

[@stevenmanley8924]

Don’t let your dreams be dreams!

[@itzybitzyspyder]

Ugh

[@garretlemire4327]

There are two acceptable hair styles for men. Crew cut or buzz cut... are the scissors in your house broken son? - Ron Swanson

[@bme3317]

Great video -- these are great techniques to make games a lot more flexible. I particularly like Reflavor. I came up with an Artificer who had a light saber (Green Flame Blade Spell and Radiant aspect) and Bowcaster (crossbow with Reloading aspect).

[@jayday545]

I was running a game with all new DnD players and I was a new DM. After 2 sessions I gave everyone an opportunity to choose a completely new character to replace or make some slight changes to their current characters. It made sense because there were a couple that didn’t quite realize what their character would do. Plus several died in the first 2 sessions and this was with a preset game where I went with a lower quality of enemy.

[@kevjab3895]

A gunner wizard casting Dimension Door is just him using a Portal gun

[@yeahminecraft1627]

There was a retcon I had with one of my own characters, who was originally an Eldritch knight fighter, but then we took a break from the campaign and by the time we restarted suddenly the Artificer had come out, which the battle smith just fit the character a lot better, so my DM let me switch my class entirely. As for reflavoring, I actually ran a whole Sci-Fi campaign using mostly base 5e rules. It was clunky at times, but mostly worked fine as the main thing I changed was adding custom races, weapon and vehicle rules and not much else. I reflavored spells as special tech or gadgets and used existing monsters just replacing their weapon or changing their look to fit the setting, with few mechanical changes. I wanted a big boiling-acid breathing space monster, so I just took a black dragon statblock and changed some of the breath weapon dice to fire damage. I needed a drone that shoots swarms of flesh-eating nanomachines at targets - took a Bodak statblock. Done.

[@mikecarson7769]

Thank you so much for sharing your good advice, plus reference to your examples of successful homebrew and customization. I guess the key is to learn how to work within the boundaries of the rules, like creating a haiku or a sonnet?

[@jajsem1109]

I love you guys. Always make me feel better about my game. And at the same time, helping me to do a better job.

[@togruta4]

I reflavored the game to run a campaign in a cyberpunk setting, and the biggest alteration I made was changing the word "magic" to "hyper tech," and letting the players figure out what that looked like. We had a ton of fun

[@asher1136]

In a game I am currently running, I actually have a player who wanted to use greatswords, but take polearm master. So he was doing damage like a glaive did despite greatswords doing more damage normally, but he got the reach and the bonus attack that is normally the butt end of the polearm was instead a pommel bash. It was pretty interesting how he described his actions.

[@CharlesBlazer]

My favorite reflavors that I've played: My current Bard smokes a big pipe, so I reflavored Stinking Cloud as "We Get It, You Vape." Everyone loves it, and I've never seen Stinking Cloud get used so much before in any game. We Get It, You Vape has become that character's signature spell. I also reskinned a Drunken Master Monk as a drunken gold-panning prospector armed with a frying pan. Changed ki points to points of "Guts and Gumption" and kept everything else pretty much exactly the same. No mechanical changes at all. It worked perfectly. And, as a DM, I had a spell caster NPC who used "wineomancy" -- he bottled spells into wine bottles, and would throw or break the bottle onto the battlefield to create magical effects. Just an ordinary spellcaster underneath, but the players remembered him and his wine fondly. (RIP)

[@biorph8597]

I find retraining is especially useful in campaigns that you think will go one way but go entirely a different way. Even for prepared casters like Wizards this can be useful. You might take a spell thinking that you'll have an opportunity to buy spell you want at a later date only to get shoved into the middle of a jungle for the rest of the campaign and have no ability to buy or copy additional spells at all, or at least for a long while.

[@skittlesilly]

For a quick easter one shot I did with my sister and friend last week, I grabbed the berserker statblock, gave him eldritch blast, and made it an estranged rabbit warlock who served the same archfey one of my players served.

[@ericpeterson8732]

In our current homebrew campaign, I played a homebrew class called the engineer, a non-magical version of the artificer. It looked cool, but played badly. So I retired that character and started a new one, a mastermind rogue. But the bonus action help kept interfering with my cunning action abilities that I needed to protect myself. So at level 7, I changed my subclass to swashbuckler. We had to do a couple of training montages with a NPC who took that subclass, "to get the basics down" but now I am much happier with my swashbuckler.

[@jessecunningham9924]

I have personally had fun reflavoring Druid spells to match their environment. My Mountain Druid, for example, reflavored all of his wild shape forms into animals found in a mountain biome, such as reflavoring the panther into a mountain lion. I also had a lot of fun reflavoring all the spells into mountain-themed ideas, such as changing Spider Climb into Gift of the Mountain Goat. My group has reflavored Goodberry a numbers of times into things like Goodwine and even Dwarf Bread! Re-theming spells personally is a lot of fun and a perfect way to make your character distinct.

[@swordof6252]

Reflavoring is something I love in D&D! So much so, that I'm currently working on several videos going over each class and separating the flavor from the mechanics! The first one is already up!

[@sunstar8782]

Reflavoring has another use too: fixing spell caster subclasses. For example: storm soul. One of the reasons it's so weak is because of how little lighting spells there are. However, you can reflavor almost ANY fire spell into a lighting one. It's the same spell mechanically, but now other damage types get more variety, and other damage type users a serious power up

[@WeShallLoveOn]

I do often let my players do this but changing damage type falls outside of reflavoring as it changes the games mechanics even tho it's a minor change. The storm sorcerer doesn't have any abilities that are affected by the damage type of your spells so this wouldnt really make them any less weak(tho it would make them feel more storm-like). The storm sorc abilities still suck. A good reflavoring option would be to reskin a tempest cleric or just the lightning draconic sorc into a storm mage.

[@bretthughes3637]

One thing that I’ve started doing now as a more seasoned DM is adjusting elemental spells based on what the character want. So Firebolt can become ice or lightning bolt. They are functionally the same except the damage type. However, they can’t shift it cast by cast. If they want Firebolt and Icebolt then they have to take them both as cantrips. I only allow this for spells that do fire, cold, lightning, acid, and poison. I’ve also looked at adapting spells that do radiant or necrotic and allowing them to swap the two but I’ve run into several spells that this cause issues with so I’m still working out the kinks.

[@j.f.5162]

I wish I had this resource when I was starting out DMing. Well done!

[@sierraandrews9921]

I have a characer in my backlog who i made ages ago who is a shifter warlock of the fined mechancially, but I did a bunch of reflavouring with the DM so that they are actually human, but their pact isn't a "Giant fiery demon gives you power through a deal and now sits on their thrown in the abyss" rather the fiend is a part of her and shares her body, sorta like the chaos possesed from warhammer 40k, and the shifter parts was torepresent her allowing that demon to let loose. It is still wanna my fav character concepts even tho it is entirely just reflavouring.