The End

A year ago I started this blog. It was my attempt to keep up to date with new trends and technologies. Although Pink Pulse wasn't as large a part of the blog and youtube channel as I hoped, she still contributed. I also dropped the vlogs early in the process since it wasn't something that appealed to me although I did get an insight into it and learned a few things from creating them. In conclusion, I learned a lot about this whole project, but I don't feel that it's something for me, so this is the end of this blog.

What have I learned
I've learned a few things. If I were ever to use blogs more professionally, I would strive to write shorter articles. I also learned to add pictures, and then there's networking and advertising, which is the main thing to do if used in a professional manner. I learned that all of this is not something especially for me, but that I could do it and greatly improve if there was a proper incentive.

Favorite articles
The article I've gone back to the most, and shown/talked to people about most often, is my article about competitive D&D. We're hoping to set something up next year in Denmark, so we'll see how it goes. 

Worst articles
The worst article I wrote I think is my first project update (along with every other project update). These articles were mostly filler, had too much text, and no pictures. I would strive to stay clear of such articles in the future if I were to write another blog.


That's it for this time. Thank you for following and hope you enjoyed some of the articles.

D&D Extra-Life 2014

I've created a 5 min video that shows gameplay footage of our 2014 25 hour D&D 5e game for Extra-Life:

Part 1: 14:09
@00:16 the event begins and I present it.

Part 2: 16:45
@00:50 there's a scene from the invasion of Greenest, where Ravincal shortly describes what the players are generally playing.


Part 3: 20:59
@01:19 there's a combat scene from where the players are chasing after surviving halflings and get ambushed by a rearguard.

Part 4: 23:55
@01:50 a viewer donates to join the game. It's the first time he ever tries to play D&D. 

Part 5: 00:57
@02:19 at this point we reached our goal of $750 and I explain about this threshold along with the next threshold goal.

Part 6: 05:36
@02:50 we've been playing for15½ hours and one of our players fall asleep as the rest of the party infiltrate a halfling cave at an outpost where refugee halflings from Greenest has sought protection from the Dragon Army of Tharsis.

Part 7: 09:12
@03:21 within the halfling cave the players find the barracks, and blow the halflings to pieces with a fireball spell.

Part 8: 14:00
@04:19 we have reached the end and gathered $770 for the Seattles children hospital.


 

D&D 5e profession example

Yesterday I posted drafts for an overview of professions. Here are 3 examples of recipes (Alchemy, enchanting, and cooking). We'll create many more recipes in the future that we may gather and put on the DMsguild.

Name	Alchemist's Fire
Profession	Alchemy
Description	You create a mundane mixture in a flask that ignites into unstoppable flames when the bottle is broken.
Trainer	Any alchemist in any town of population >2000
Recipe	Common. Can be bought from trainers and found in possession of spellcasters and alchemists in the wild.
Ingredients	Glass bottle Flammable liquid, preferably oil or similar Soaked jute cork
Tools	Alchemist's Supplies
Cost	Ingredients worth 25gp. If the ingredients above does not cover the total cost, then consumable tools are required in the form of the remaining cost.
Time	10 days
Difficulty	Difficult (DC 20)
Reward	1 Alchemist's Fire
Failure	15-20 nothing happens. Below 15, the alchemist's fire bursts and the alchemist takes 1d4 points of fire damage, losing all ingredients and tools.
Name	Potion of Healing
Profession	Alchemy & Enchanting
Description	You create a magical mixture in a flask that heal wounds when drunk.
Trainer	Specific NPCs in specific towns, mainly enchanters, a few alchemists, and divine spellcasters
Recipe	Common. Can be bought from trainers and found in possession of divine spellcasters in the wild.
Ingredients	Glass bottle Healing herbs Divine magical spells such as cure wounds
Tools	Alchemist's Supplies & Herbalism Kit
Cost	Ingredients worth 25gp. If the ingredients above does not cover the total cost, then consumable tools are required in the form of the remaining cost.
Time	2 days
Difficulty	Hard (DC 15)
Reward	1 Potion of Healing
Failure	See the DMG for more information on failed magical potions.
Name	Delicious Meal
Profession	Cooking
Description	You cook a meal that is so delicious that it put your guests in a better mood.
Trainer	Almost anyone can teach you to cook a meal that you can personally improve to a delicious meal.
Recipe	Common.
Ingredients	Relevant and diverse cooking ingredients for the meal prepared.
Tools	Cook's utensils
Cost	Ingredients as described above.
Time	1 hour
Difficulty	Hard (DC 15)
Reward	1 delicious meal (gives advantage on social skills involving food)
Failure	10-15 normal meal; roll below 10 and the meal is horrible and have the reverse effect of a delicious meal.

D&D 5e professions

I'm currently playing in a D&D 5e game with a DM who is relatively new to D&D. He has started creating his own rules for professions, and when I reviewed them I noticed that they were extremely similar to the actual D&D 5e rules. I therefore rectified his text and sent it back to him. The image here is the first draft, and below is the second draft with my corrections.

 Professions

Learning professions:

You must be proficient with an artisan tools to know the profession. To learn a new profession you must spend 250 gp and 250 days with an appropriate teacher to gain proficiency with the relevant tool. 

Crafting Professions:

The following professions are currently available and require the corresponding artisan tool and proficiency to use the tools.

Jewelcrafting

Alchemy

Smithing

Leatherworking

Tailoring

Calligraphy

Brewing

Carpentry

Cartography

Glassblowing

Masonry

Painting

Pottery

Tinkering

Weaving

Woodcarving

Forgery

Poison making

Utility Professions:

Riding

Lock Picking

Cooking

Gaming

Performing

Navigating

Jewelcrafting:

Jewelcrafting allows a player to craft gems, dia­monds, and magical stones into necks, rings or other kinds of jewelery.

The DC to create a specific item reflects the difficulty in creating the item. Combine this profession with enchanting to craft the magical gemstones.

Materials are found within rocks or bought.

Alchemy:

This profession allows the player to create vials with different natural effects.

The DC to create a specific item reflects the difficulty in creating the item. Combine this profession with enchanting to craft magical potions, oils, and ointments.

Materials are found within herbs, creature parts, environment or bought.

Smithing:

Use this profession if you are constantly losing your gear, want new and better gear, or want prettier gear. Creating armor and weapons require the understanding of different materials.

The DC to create a specific item reflects the difficulty in creating the item. Combine this profession with enchanting to craft magical armor and weapons.

Materials often need to be refined and made.

Materials for this profession might be expensive and very hard to find.

Leatherworking:

Do you like the speed and agility provided by fine leather gear. This profession makes you able to create agile and light armor.

The DC to create a specific item reflects the difficulty in creating the item. Combine this profession with enchanting to craft magical armor and gear.

Materials are found in different animal hides.

 

Enchanting:

Would you like your weapon to have a magical property? Or your boots to give that added speed?

Refer to the enchanting rules below.

Materials are rare and unique to the recipe.

Tailoring:

Do you like fine fabric, silk, string and needles.

With this profession you are able to create wonderful stuff.

The DC to create a specific item reflects the difficulty in creating the item. Combine this profession with enchanting to craft magical armor and gear.

Materials are web, silk, string. Rare componants might be needed for greater creations.

Calligraphy:

Unlike enchanting, this profession allows you to bind spell scrolls directly to items.

The DC to create a specific item reflects the difficulty in creating the item. Combine this profession with enchanting to craft scrolls or imbue items with magical writing or people with magical tattoo.

Materials spell scrolls

Riding:

Mounts? Flying? More speed? Road Travle?

Taking care of animals? More Speeeeed?

Lock Picking:

Chests? Locks? Doors? Solving Puzzles?

Items? Cause, don’t hide stuff from me!

Cooking:

Great feasts? What part of the animal is great? + rep to people and factions

Well fed? Buffs?

Downtime (page 127 in the Dungeon Master’s Guide)
The campaign benefits when characters have time between adventures to engage in other activities. Allowing days, weeks, or months to pass between adventures stretches the campaign over a longer period of time and helps to manage the characters’ level progression, preventing them from gaining too much power too quickly.
Allowing characters to pursue side interests between adventures also encourages players to become more invested in the campaign world. When a character owns a tavern in a village or spends time carousing with the locals, that character’s player is more likely to respond to threats to the village and its inhabitants.
As your campaign progresses, your players’ characters will not only become more powerful but also more influential and invested in the world. They might be inclined to undertake projects that require more time between adventures, such as building and maintaining a stronghold. As the party gains levels, you can add more downtime between adventures to give characters the time they need to pursue such interests. Whereas days or weeks might pass between low-level adventures, the amount of downtime between higher-level adventures might be measured in months or years.

Crafting Magic Items (small excerpt from page 129 in the Dungeon Master’s Guide)

An item has a creation cost specified in the Crafting Magic Item table. A character engaged in the crafting of a magic item makes progress in 25 gp increments, spending that amount for each day of work until the total cost is paid. The character is assumed to work for 8 hours each of those days. Thus, creating an uncommon magic item takes 20 days and 500 gp. You are free to adjust the costs to better suit your campaign…

Crafting (small excerpt from page 187 in the Player’s Handbook)

You can craft nonmagical objects, including adventuring equipment and works of art. You must be proficient with tools related to the object you are trying to create. You might also need access to special materials or locations necessary to create it. For example, someone proficient with smith’s tools needs a forge in order to craft a sword or suit of armor…

Practicing a Profession (small excerpt from page 187 in the Player’s Handbook)

You can work between adventures, allowing you to maintain a modest lifestyle without having to pay 1 gp per day. This benefit lasts as long you continue to practice your profession…

D&D Monster Stat Cards

I'm currently doing some extra work on the mass battle quadrins (see bottom of post), and one of the things I've created to give myself a better overview doing the combat encounters are monster stat cards.

Monster stat card

Here's an example of a stat card I've created. 

Visual design
Step 1 - Size: I've created a card that enables me to print 9 pieces of them out on an A4 paper.

Step 2 - Background: I found a parchment background that I've used as the background.

Step 3 - Theme: I found a dark banner symbolizing chaos, which is the enemy faction of the adventure that I'm creating monsters for. I will probably create a green grassy theme, sky blue theme, and other such theme for other factions of future adventures.

Step 4 - Top: The top border was the hardest for me to find. I needed one that was aesthetically pleasing but also symmetrical with a center, so I could use it to center text on to the card more easily. I will probably use different borders for different factions.


Text
Step 5 - Name: I added the name of the monster at the top of the card.

Step 6 - Stats: I then added relevant stats such as initiative, speed, AC, HP, saving throw, attack and damage, special abilities. I replaced level with initiative from the stat cards from the Miniature's Handbook, since I don't need level on these cards, and I added saving throw at the bottom since I wasn't sure where else to place it. The special abilities can also easily include additional features and explanations, but I've tried to keep it short.

Step 7 - Commander Effect: If the creature serves as a commander of a group of enemies, that creature is given a special effect as part of the mass battle rules I'm using. In this example the creature is an Avatar of Chaos, since it's a commander of a chaos force consisting of elementals, primarily fire elementals. I've given other commanders different effects.

Step 8 - Image: As a final touch I've added an image with 50% opacity to illustrate the monster, which should make it easier for me to find a specific monster quickly when sifting through the cards.

What's a quadrin?

A quadrin was an old copper coin, which Webster explains was “in value [worth] about a farthing”. Its name can also be used figuratively of any tiny amount of something, or an insignificant amount of cash.

I use the word quadrin to cover everything from combat encounters, non-combat encounters, events, and locations. In this case a quadrin is used to describe an amount of a small adventure, which is part of a larger campaign, thus a tiny part of the campaign. It is easier to use than “encounter” since not all parts of the adventure are combat or non-combat encounters and it thus also adds a streamlined word I can use so I don’t have to differentiate between an event, a location, and an encounter.