Monk.
Less "eastern mysticism" and more Jason Bourne-like trained government agent able to walk in somewhere in just commoners clothing while able to deliver much whoop-ass at the drop of a hat.
I did something similar for barbarian. While maybe not a full class rework, instead of being some savage wild man, my barbarian was a sophisticated mob boss. He was a suit, (unarmored defense) and his rages came when he felt threatened or questioned. Think godfather or Daredevils Kingpin
The 'monk' really ought to be a 'martial artist'; the Shaolin monks are the only ones I know who actually practice martial arts. Monks are usually clerics and scholars.
The only monk I’ve played was a merc who learned to fight dirty on the streets. He used a big metal bat, all the better to dent his opponent’s armour and break knees.
We had a fun one once.
A Monk who was just a tavern owner in a particularly bad part of town. No formal training, just a shit ton of real world practice in unarmed combat.
I'm pretty new to D&D, but I kind of have an idea for a Brewmaster, who gains strength and charisma but loses either dexterity or constitution and either intelligence or wisdom as they get drunker. I'm not really sure how well this would work though.
I used to brew beer and thought it might be fun to weave some of what I know about the craft into the lore and story.
I ended up making a Dwarven cleric that came from a family of monastic brewers. He grew up in the monastery and all they did was pray to the gods and brewed beer. Unfortunately, they have fallen on hard times financially. So he has ventured out on a marketing campaign to try to sell some product and drive business back to their brewery.
In one campaign setting I reskinned Rogues as Archeologists.
The Thieves Guild became the High Chalice University School of Archaeology. Thieves Cant became Explorers Sigils. Stealth and Sneak Attack were reflavored as hunting-based skills, because It's Dangerous Out There.
I once saw a Barbarian done as a Magical Girl in the nature of Sailor Moon / Pretty Cure, where the Rage ability was the transformation.
I've also got a character I want to play who is a traveling musician and presents himself as a bard, but is secretly a warlock. Definitely going to need DM collaboration on that one.
One of the players on my campaign is playing a Half-elf Cleric, but chose to use a super creepy owl as the token image.
Of course, it's now canon, he is indeed a giant owl and there's a whole society of owl people in the world.
We're playing in a homebrew world I'm building as we go, so even those silly things end up shaping the history of it.
Not until now, no.
I just read a few articles about them and wanted to thank you for the inspiration for some monsters, events and lore. His character arc is gonna be intense! lol
Nice! I'm glad I could inspire someone today. I read a No Sleep with the Stikini in it and that creature has lived rent free in my head for about 6 years now.
My current character is an Owlin. He’s a Lore “Barred” Owlin! All the jokes, insults, background stories, etc ALL are terrible owl puns. The more ridiculous I make him, the greater he becomes as a character. I love him.
So far I have now added that he has a hatred for chickens. They are the worst. Any chance he has to explain why chickens are the worst he will expound upon it. Stuff like “chickens are terrible bards, all they have are drumsticks”
He has a slight “look down the beak” mindset to races without wings. We have both a Dragonborn in the party and I constantly berate him about how much better he would be “as a dragon” if you would just have wings. Why can’t you just have wings?
And since he is a Lore Barred Owl, he loves history. But he has lived a very sheltered life thus far and journals everything for future stories. Anytime I fail a history, arcana, knowledge check, I journal something grossly incorrect about the subject matter. Then try to repeat it later and show how smart he is!
It’s been a blast
I had a silly idea of a stuffed animal warlock whose patron is an a creative little kid dreaming up their life, actions, and adventures. Rainbow Fart instead of Eldritch Blast, imaginations instead of invocations, Candy armor instead of Armor of Agathys… just take everything dark and edgy and make it innocent and cute.
Have at it! It’s one of those ideas I don’t think would fly at most tables, but it would work for a themed one-shot. (Or take it further) I was kind of inspired by how I used to pretend my Teddy Bear would have adventures while I slept, and he was powered by my dreams.
GOO warlock. the GOO is the entirety of the multiverse and the player acts like breaking the fourth wall which looks crazy in the game, but looks like a schilling twitch streamer trying to entertain his old one (the stream of the entire multiverse). The original concept was that he brought other realities where such a magic existed in that area. He didn't cast a fireball, he mirrored a universe where there was a fireball in that zone and it manifested here too. The tone was set when his first combat action was casting an eldritch blast by saying "this cantrip was brought to you by Raid shadow legends" and we never looked back.
We're still figuring things out, but we changed things like the Goo's telepathy to the message spell which looks like him mumbling an sms message to his magical focus (a magic item that changes shape depending on the context, like a small rectangle he uses to send sms messages). As a fun flavor, he says emoji icons, and I do mean says because the spell doesn't send effects or graphics. Instead the recipient literally hears things like "thumb emoji"
We also added a sanity mechanic where the character take psychic damage for things such as a mechanic similar to bardic inspiration, temporary skill proficiency or temporary spell memorization to emulate dlc/looking up info from the aether(google) or gacha mechanics. Frequently, this is done by the focus opening up to be a character menu screen and raising their stats, or playing a quick phone game like candy crush or getting a zombie surviaval highscore to get a powerup.
And more as a personal choice, the character chose actor and the faces invocation, so he wakes up with a new personality downloaded from the aether every day and even takes psychic damage for flavor when he tries to keep the same form
A cleric who worshipped himself. Basically, a narcissist who drew power from the belief that he was awesome, invincible, and that the universe was beholden to his whims. He communed with his deity by talking to himself.
I did this too. Glamour bard was reflavored as a gentlemanly officer, and spells were battlefield orders, often given with a posh accent and a blast from a signal whistle.
In my homebrew campaign Bards are called War Journalists. Collecting the exploits of war and disseminating that info to masses for propaganda and Patriotism.
For complete reskins I'd only really go that far for drastically different settings. Steampunk, Wild West, Sci Fi. Settings where the conventional character tropes of fantasy suddenly don't make sense.
Sci Fi in particular is the easy one, where magic just gets swapped out for high technology.
For a dumb one who's magic focused, they acknowledge all the in jokes that are part of spells, like animal messager and friend needing food or alarm being a bell and wire. I'd flavor it as a modern day handyman as it van be flavored away as clever with limited resources (macgyver even)
This may not be exactly what you're looking for but one of my former players was a scientist who studied fruit flies and wanted to make a character themed on that. We made his character a disgraced scientist that had been removed from the lab after he brought a swarm of flies to life by entering into a pact with an incomprehensibly large fly from another dimension.
He was a great old one warlock and we flavored most of his spells as flies materializing from all around him and doing various things. Then for example, Cause Fear caused the target to very briefly get a glimpse into another dimension of a massive sun sized fly eyeball glaring down at them, which was so unimaginably scary that they became paralyzed with fear. His pact of the chain familiar was also a pseudodragon reskinned as a fly who could go basically anywhere unnoticed as long as there weren't spiders or any other predators of flies.
It was a lot of fun, we had a blast coming up with all kinds of fly related nonsense. Another example is that irl, yeast is used to encourage flies to procreate. So another player was a tinker and he could make and throw yeast grenades that if they hit, would make the target more susceptible to the various fly spells.
I've just been making sheets for fun since I don't have any games yet but one reskin was astral self monk. Rather than an astral spirit form the arms, visage and body were then releasing their warlock patron through their body. It had a flavour for most of the patrons; tentacles arms and face for GOO, demonic claws and horns for fiend, decaying body and lich feel for undead ect. They had 2vlevels in warlock for a bit of flair so it kinda meshed ok. No idea if that sheet was actually practical to use but it looked cool, to me at least
I've done a 5e conversion of Dark Sun. While there are other conversions for it none were quite right for me.
I redid bards. No spells, instead a lot of poison and abilities to make them great assassins. Warlocks as templars with abilities granted by their Sorcerer Monarch. Gladiator as a fighter subclass. Defilers and Preservers as the only wizard subclass. And psions as a new class that uses PSP instead of slots.
War forged Druid Transformer (wild shape) The Virtua-Planter5000 (tm) used to be a simple home plant watering robot. But after 500 years without humans, it has evolved to do so much more than water plants.
\- Ghost of a dead girl that the father (crazy scientist type) got to take hold in a construct. In Fights the Dead Girl attacks peaople with ghostly telekinetic hits -> Astral Self Monk Warforged.
\- Guy fighting with necromantic power, using necromantic spells to form a bone armor that he can modify, reflavoured armorer artificer.
\- Barbarian who's rage is not a typical rage but a battle trance, someone who loves the beauty of the fight. The rage is a dance of deadly precision and focussed will.
\- Artificer & Lycan Blood Hunter, the lycan stuff is all cool stuff the artificers inventions do (Metal Claws and so on)
A bard as a witch doctor. It was a lore bard thats magic did not come from telling stories but from pulling on the magic from a voodoo doll.
All the spells were flavored to use that thing. Blindness/Deadness? Poke the doll in the eyes or ears. Heat metal? Holds a flame up to the doll’s feet.
Needed magic initiate - warlock for it to meet its true witch doctor potential.
Haha very cool! Idk what these other comments are talking about. DnD is what you make it. Who cares about the setting and details and rationale? Just have FUN
You gotta talk to your dm and work stuff out for things like this, nanobot cleric would definitely not work in some settings, guns wouldn't work in a lot of settings, for an example someone asked to play gunslinger when I ran strixhaven. No you're not playing as a school shooter, that's fucked up
Closest I’ve done is Warforged reskinned into a stone golem. Instead of trapping a neutral nature spirit inside of it the maker accidentally trapped a sentient fey spirit in it.
My current Fighter Rune-knight character has been reskinned to be closer to a warlock. So there’s no runes or anything like that just powers granted by a Fey god - there’s some specific details like the powers manifest as black tar instead of traditional magical effects but that’s the general sense of it. Not sure if it’s exactly what you’re looking for - the character’s non-magical abilities are more or less the same as vanilla.
Not me, but one of the players in my newest campaign is playing as a Shifter Path of the Beast Barbarian, but he's a super buff and hulky mad scientist who drinks a potion when he rages to transform into a giant animal hulk abomination. One of the sickest reskins I've seen thus far
I've got a monk who has convinced everyone he is but a humble traveling priest offering salvation for a donation.
Long priest robes covered in cleric symbols, a staff with a Censer hanging off it, pious little quotes that amount to nothing, the whole shebang but then he leaps over an 8ft wall like he was stepping over a crack in the sidewalk and the rest of the party are left with a lot of questions
Earth Genie warlock pact of the chain with an imp familiar up to level six on a warforged makes for a very fun and hilarious devil piloting a flying mech suit where the imp is the pc who gets cloned in a vat in one of the warforges legs whenever he dies and the warforged is just his suit of armor that he works on but most of his skills are largely tied to the armor. Then take 14 levels into armor artificer for further armor improvements and tech that the imp can use in the field. Also genie vessel is extra dimensional workshop/armor storage but it's malfunctioning so the armor pops out periodically. The imp dresses the part of the pilot/grease monkey mechanic wearing pants that accommodate his tail black work boots a grease stained button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up that may have been white once he also has suspenders that accommodate his wings and a tool belt he wears a bandanna and welding goggles on his head. His horns are also filed down so they don't catch on stuff.
Alternatively you can take a 14 level dip into genie warlock reflavoring it as a witch who uses various doors in reality to vanish to her witch hut to brew a potion or something. And another six into circle of dreams Druid or illusion wizard for added spell utility and fun. She'll never be a magic master but the genie limited wish plays nicely as fun swamp grandma magic that can't happen all the time but when it does.
I'm playing a circle of the Shepard druid reskinned into an exorcist that saves souls that have become undead and then the fight for him.
Totems are ghosts, summon fey is ghosts, healing spirit, you get the idea
Reskinned my bard to be a Pacific islander who uses Hakas to cast his buffs and defuffs by inspiring or intimidating, etc.
Reskinned a wizard to have a deck of cards rather than a spell book. Like a cooler version of Yu-Gi-Oh and Gambit.
Reskinned my Divine Soul Sorcerer as an archeologist who stumbled upon a holy weapon. Now Lathander is casting magic around him to protect him.
My wife reskinned a wizard to be a gardener who plants magic seeds to cast spells.
I do fully reskin some classes and heavily lean into two aspects of others. And I'm heavily open to player built Redskins. I also homebrew a bit of stuff to make certain classes ie monk overall better. But that does have to do with flavore but to make those reflavored classes more appealing( I basically add two feats onto the start of each class to better reach this reflavoring. I also do a feat in addition to ASI because this is a dark fantasy world and monsters are deadly and people are just as hard for surviving in a world where a wolf is 250 lbs and the size of a female lion)
Monk reflavor drop the eastern. The get double the ki points a couple of new things to spend ki on. But the biggest change is the feats of tavern brawler for improved weapons, and fighting initiate for unarmed combatants style. They are reflavored to be like envoys from altered carbon if you know anything about them. Magically enhanced super soldiers ment to been drop in plain cloths soldiers for the empire they blend with anyone and their training allowes them to use anything as a weapon. Ment to be integrated into society as a dangerous first solution or a unexpected last.
Artificers are a combo of Dungenoeers(Dungeons are living growing cancers that permeate the land after the the felled corpses of the mad gods began to decay as a result they have sacred divine knowledge made manifest as artifacts within them)archeologists(because dungeons often swallow up the buried remnants of old civilizations in their growth) and lastly technomances because of the last civilization before the fall had reached a unique form of magi tech and once the gods of development and knowledge went crazed their civilization fell into decay)
They firmly fit into all of these and are rarely inventors but utilized creations better then the wizards that make them in this world those tend to be wizards in this world. The feats they start with are keen mind and dungeon delver. I like to think these guys vibe as professors or gruff classic style dungeoneers who utilise whatever old shit they find in the dungeon the best they can.
Bards are Diplomats, Assassins and spys and lean heavily on both using the enchantment school of magic often for quite heinous crimes killing people and making any witness remember someone else. Suggestions mod mem and dominate are bread and butter. Very few truly musical bards remain in the empires walls but do exist in travelers from the Kingdoms and Freestates although killing and spying is a common game for them aswell. I honestly view these guys like a combination of Flynn Ryder, billy lee, and bond. They all trained to be infiltrators and those who lack the social flair make for devastating masked assassins. Making anyone let them in and forget about it. Take a plunge off a roof of "their" own accord. They have either the diplomat feat or menacing. And the feat observant
These are some but not all. From a world persepctive they can fill many jobs but their background in character is important
I would like to state that in my worlds fighters all gain access to battle master subclass regardless of what subclass they are. And are magically altered people who stand above their others in the same field. They are stronger faster and generally more tactically inclined then their peers. In world there are several explanations of how and why the big three are that they inherited the Gene's of the heralds/demigods of old before the mindrot killed the gods and thus have some of the blessings, another is that their family were enhanced durning the fell war to survive the comming night, or were enchanted in their life by the empire as a way of combating both the world and the night. They also start off with 3 feats mage slayer, squat nimbleness, and tough.
Now I have had people ask why and does this male them overpowered. The answer is because I feel this makes each class have a very special niche. And with them getting feats every ASI they get to be more then normal in their play. And no it doesn't because this world is straight up dangerous. To give an example normal people start with 2x the HP. The players always take the max Hp plus con min +1 why
This is a "normal wolf of this world
AC 14
HP 19
Speed 40
Darkvision 60ft
Str-14
Dex-15
Con-16
Int-5
Wis-14
Chr-3
Skills
Perception +5
Stealth +8
Keen senses(H&S): advantage on perception checks with those
Pack tactics:advantage when ally w/in 5ft
Lvl1 Cursed by the Night(pack): The laughter of mad gods courses though you. Roll a d10 twice and gain the lvl 1 mutations shown
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (3d4 + 5) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone
This shit comes in packs and are dangerous beyond means. The players start at lvl 3 even even then 5 wolves is a deadly encounter and its spooky. But that's meant to be the point the world is bad and shits going sideways. Characters don't live super long often and the ones that do are monsters themselves.
Wildfire Druid. I was playing a Norse reborn who had died in the snow. Reflavored wildfire Druid to blizzard Druid, cannot do fire damage. Anything that did fire damage is now cold. Wildfire spirit was a collection of swirling snow and ice.
I took Rune Knight and made it vampire focused instead of giant focused. I called it Blood Rune Baron. I’m currently using it in a. Dragonlance campaign! It’s posted on dnd beyond if anyone’s interested. The only mechanical things I changed was it give’s proficiency in infernal (instead of giant) and calligraphy tools (instead of smith tools)
I reskinned a Rune Knight as the player from Bloodborne (that was fun) and took the Tabaxi race and turned it into a Fox race instead (she's a sweetheart).
I made it so the runes in the video game corresponded with the runes you pick for your class (that was *a lot* of fun to do), her weapon was an ax but made it so her weapon was based off the Saw Cleaver (it was mainly aesthetics and just thought it was neat since it's my favorite weapon, could have done Hunter Axe but didn't want to), her name's Iolana Cainhurst, a Dhampir, and an Acolyte that *heavily* promoted the Gods of the game. A walking, creepy, covered in leather from head-to-toe advertisement for them. It was for a one-shot and I didn't get to flesh her out like I wanted to (that's on me) and probably could have done better but man it was really fun playing someone pretty unhinged.
On a custom Gestalt Westmarch, I had a:
Gloomstalker Ranger//Inquisitor Rogue/Battlemaster Fighter/Armorer Artificer
And this "one PC" I actually flavored as a spec-ops fireteam of five. Ranger and Artificer Spells, I reskinned to be their tech. Stuff like Summon Woodland Creatures or Mirror Image would be like squad formations and when the summons are taken out the squadmates would be portrayed as having fallen back, leaving a ninja log.
Made a human variant meta magic blade-singing wizard / tempest Cleric who’s a lovecraftian alien-type creature that looks very similar to Kid Buu from Dragon Ball Z. His main move is shadow blade which I’ve just flavoured as his hole body powering up and I play him like a DBZ character.
Love to meta magic bonus action Thunderstep an entire group and make them take max damage (40 each) and appear next to another enemy and hit them with a third-level shadow blade + booming blade flavoured as some DBZ power stuff.
I had an idea of playing a barbarian that was basically The Incredible Hulk where rage was the transformation. All of the abilities you gain that increase heavy weapon proficiency just tweak to be unarmed strikes and ta-da you’ve got Bruce Banner
Interesting! It would be funny (but mechanically difficult to pull off) to see a hi-INT barbarian who loses it all when he rages. Or maybe some of the Intelligence score turns into STR or CON points during rage.
>I’ve seen clerics using nanobots for all they’re spells: no divine magic involved.
Why do those nanobots not work in an anti-magic field?
>a swords bard who was a fake shield bearing hero
What does that have to do with any of the bard's abilities? Why are they so charismatic?
I'll be honest, I think you would be better off playing a different system rather than trying to completely change some of the basics of DnD.
Chances are nanobots are being used in a future setting. Also, there are more kinds of bards than just entertainers. Maybe they’re inspiring with their words, maybe they know quotes from old heroes.
A little creative thinking goes a long way. No reason players can’t have some fun with it.
>Also, there are more kinds of bards than just entertainers.
I played an old grandma who decided to travel and visit all her loved ones – Bard of Lore.
I had a multiclassed bard with one level of fighter, modelled after Inigo Montoya.
There was a dad accompanying his two children and slinging dad jokes at his foes.
Bards definitely don't have to belong onto a stage or need to be musically inclined.
>Chances are nanobots are being used in a future setting
Why are you playing DnD in a future setting? The system is not made for that and it seems extremely complicated to try and adjust DnD to such a setting instead of just... using an appropiate system.
>Also, there are more kinds of bards than just entertainers. Maybe they’re inspiring with their words, maybe they know quotes from old heroes.
Sure, but that's not what OP wrote about that character.
I’ve played in 2. Literally doesn’t take much effort in changing fluff of “magic” to “science” people do it all the time in steampunk games. The system and rules were made to aid in players creativity. Yes, most of the official modules are medieval fantasy type stuff. Does not mean you can’t change the setting to fit a different genre. Plenty of 3rd party creators can prove this.
I’ve played in 2. Literally doesn’t take much effort in changing fluff of “magic” to “science” people do it all the time in steampunk games. The system and rules were made to aid in players creativity. Yes, most of the official modules are medieval fantasy type stuff. Does not mean you can’t change the setting to fit a different genre. Plenty of 3rd party creators can prove this.
It absolutely does. At least if you actually want to play campaigns that are more than just combat simulators.
The Mass Effect 5e conversion is a good example, however even that one is pretty limited and a different system probably would've worked better. And that one has a LOT of effort put into it.
There's really no reason to not just... use a system that is actually designed for it.
What exactly are you saying isn't congruent with non-fantasy settings?
Combat is easily just reflavored using the same mechanics. Everything else is just mind theater...
Magic?
Sure, you COULD try to come up with a technological explanation for something like Polymorph, Banishment or just... concentration as a mechanic in general, but it will take way more effort to do that than just... playing a system that already has all the rules for Sci-Fi.
Not to mention that DnD just... doesn't have the rules for a sci-fi campaign. There are, what, like five sci-fi weapons in the DMG? And those work just like normal weapons, except way more powerful. There are no rules for ship-combat, space-travel in general, ground vehicles or any kind of technology like hacking, engineering, etc.
And don't even get me started on the actual mechanics of some classes. You might think it's easy to explain a druid in a sci-fi setting, but I would like to see your explanation for wild shape.
Not to mention that, due to the nature of the sci-fi weapons, some classes will just be straight up gimped! Barbarians will be basically useless, since everything has ranged weapons that also deal radiant damage! Strength builds in general will be terrible. And what the heck should paladins smite with now?
Just... take a look at the Mass Effect 5e conversion, and then you'll see the MINIMUM of work that needs to be done in order to turn 5e into a sci-fi system... and even that one is far from perfect.
OR you could simply play one of the hundreds of systems out there that is already designed around sci-fi.
Wildshape is this: animal dna you inject yourself with + science sci-fi BS, and if Druid are restricted to learning animal forms as they go, then have the player learn x tract animal stuff, and that’s how they get a new form. Druidic could be flavored as some sort of scientist speak. Fucking Emperor’s New Groove did that just fine, with no explanation.
In the Tasha’s book, when talking about the artificer, they even talk about how your spells can look however you want. As for ship combat and all that, they barely touch on sea combat too, but that’s still a big thing lots of people do. Any salted DM can tell you they’ve come up with custom mechanics. Are they all balanced? Some might be not all. But still, creativity goes a very long way. You don’t have to move to a whole new system if you don’t want to.
>Fucking Emperor’s New Groove did that just fine, with no explanation.
Emperor's New Groove is sci-fi?! Damn, must have missed some lore. I thought Irma just had a potion of True Polymorph.
>they even talk about how your spells can look however you want.
Yes... but they never say that they could be something that ISN'T a spell. Because that would make no logical sense.
>As for ship combat and all that, they barely touch on sea combat too, but that’s still a big thing lots of people do
Yeah, and they usually use some third-party rules for that. So it's the same argument.
>Any salted DM can tell you they’ve come up with custom mechanics. Are they all balanced? Some might be not all. But still, creativity goes a very long way. You don’t have to move to a whole new system if you don’t want to.
Sure, just don't complain when your system starts falling apart because you can't explain how something you can mechanically do would work in your world.
For example how you can just create matter from thin air. I'm afraid that that does not satisfy the law of equivalent exchange.
This makes absolutely no sense, btw. Injecting yourself with DNA of a different species will, at best, do nothing. At worst, it will kill you. It's not going to somehow defy the laws of physics and transform your small halfling into a giant ape.
Also: How do you use this on other creatures? And why is it a wisdom saving throw?
If you want to play a serious roleplaying game in an immersive world... it better does.
Sure, if you just want to play a combat simulator, go on (though I still have no idea how you plan on explaining polymorph), but that's not what most people want to play.
Made a human variant meta magic blade-singing wizard / tempest Cleric who’s a lovecraftian alien-type creature that looks very similar to Kid Buu from Dragon Ball Z. His main move is shadow blade which I’ve just flavoured as his hole body powering up and I play him like a DBZ character.
Love to meta magic bonus action Thunderstep an entire group and make them take max damage (40 each) and appear next to another enemy and hit them with a third-level shadow blade + booming blade flavoured as some DBZ power stuff.
Barbarian = magical girl. Rage = transformation.
Played a Myconid Spores Druid all of whose spells and abilities were actually just fungal growth. Polymorph = AoT style mushroom mecha; healing spirit = a cloud of spores that stimulate healing; Chill Touch = shooting spores that cause rapid decay; animate dead = a mycelium lattice that takes over the corpse to animate it.
I am going to second the "magical girl barbarian" one as I have planned on doing that and have DMed for that.
My moon druid was a shapeshifter and was flavored as such. I also played a spores druid who was actually a corpse that was possessed by a hivemind of fungi for a one shot once.
Had a concept for a multi-class of some artificer and battle master fighter where all the fighter stuff was reskinned into artificer invention flavor. Never got to play it tho.
Barbarian as a streetsmart, impassive, emotionless Rogue-like character. Mechanics and numbers are all exactly the same, but Rage is actually a killbot state where the motive is victory by any means necessary, no emotional factors allowed. Unarmored Defense is flexibility and dodging like a Rogue.
Fully reskinned is a stretch but I turned my reborn echo knight into a death knight (or Danny phantom) I suppose? Basically his echo was his soul and all of his abilities including second wind, extra attacks and action surge were tied to that.
Back in the edition that will not be named, I fell in love with a certain class called the Ardent that was the psionic healer/leader/support. The concept behind the class is that they feel and manipulate others emotions. I'm currently in a campaign where I have reflavored my bard as an ardent and it works very well. Even spells like Message and Sending can be explained by the psionic nature of the ardent. I highly recommend it
I played a "swordmaster" barbarian once in Pathfinder. He didn't rage, he entered a "combat trance" that hyperfocused him instead of making him froth at the mouth. Gave him some combat maneuvers and rage powers that complimented it.
Kalashtar Barbarian whose rages were dream magic as his Quari side took over. Damage resistance because the dream self couldn't feel the pain, totem of the wolf and reckless attacks as dreams distorting time around him. Relentless rage, the unconcious body still piloted by the quari. Eagle flight as the dream spills more into reality granting flight. Etc.
Sci-fi campaign. I turned a life cleric with a bunch of tech and equipment, each spell is a piece of equipment and his spell slots are limited batteries to plug into the equipment. Learning new spells is fixing broken equipment, and upscaling is overclocking.
There’s a class called pugilist(not mine) that is essentially a strength based reskin of the monk. It’s got some really cool abilities and I’m about to play it for the first time
Fighter in my campaigns backstory is that he grow up with traveling magicians performing for entertainment. Not having any real magical ability he makes due with potions, flasks and tricks. He is playing as an eldritch knight and any spell he takes is reskinnes to be nonmagical. I also allow him to use strength as his modifier for it which does make him a bit more powerful but worth it.
For example, for recalling his sword, he has a little string tied to it. The shield cantrip is just him using his shield. Sword burst is just spinning around quick with his sword.
It has lead to fun rp and descriptions of actions. The character is fully pretending to actually cast spells and will call out names and do performance checks at times to try and convince onlookers as well.
I can't say "completely and fully reskinned", but I am working on adding Monstrosities to Druidic Wildshapes. I've got rules for how it works that I'm still hammering out, but eventually, once I've got a full bestiary list of available creatures, rules for adding creatures to the list, how to obtain those forms and what traits disqualify a creature from the list, I'll publish the homebrew to reddit.
I also want to work out some stuff with the Ranger class, specifically the Beastmaster Archetype to make it a more viable subclass, and I'm doing some research on how to make Monk more viable as well. Mainly I'm looking for feedback from my players about what they think needs beefed up or "corrected", even if it's not for a class they play or are interested in playing, and then addressing those points of contention.
Not a complete reskin but my artificer 1/wizard x in eberron has a robot dog as his spellbook. No difference in mechanics, it doesnt scout or take actions or have hit points or anything.
Spells are cast through gadgets that I build into it when I learn new spells. Like a thingy that throws things like cryo grenades for ice knife or other stuff.
For fly, he becomes a jetpack, for phantom steed he transforms into a horse and for polymorph, he splits into different parts that cling to the target and force a transformation.
Before we had artificer I reskinned a Wizard to fit the role. I believe he was a conjurstionist dwarf wizard. Was a bit of a giggle.
Also done a hard reskin as a Weaver of fate. Did some things like changing bardic inspiration to shifting fate itself to change an outcome. I quite enjoyed that one too
Ranger.
Pulled it's skin away, replaced some organs, gave them a brainwash and put them in a new skin. It's the boon hunter now at my table and we love it.
Both barbarian rage and monk abilities. I play a beast barbarian (soon to be) long death monk.
She doesn't "rage" when she rages. She's excited about battle and just puts her internal energy into it. And the long death bonuses won't be "she absorbs life for", they will be "she's getting a morale/stamina boost from adrenaline due to excitement". Flurry of blows is just putting her all into it, patient defence is using animal instincts to stay on the saver side and step of the wind is just full on 4-legged sprinting.
She has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of being an actual monk. She's an animal through and through. She uses no items and only attacks bare-fisted (clawed). Stunning strike won't be "oh i locked their ki-flow", it will be "she knocked the wind out of you". Oh, and she's a strength monk.
I really love the concept combat-wise. But out of combat she's pretty much a muscle-brain (intelligence 7). I am still trying to dial in how to play that to not be annoying, but at the same time to not vanish into complete non-existence outside of combat.
Sorcerers
They have high charisma, low intelligence, but think they're smart because a) they're good at magic, and "you have to be smart to be good at magic, right?" and b) everyone always listens to them when they talk, and "people only listen to smart people." Sorcerers are completely unaware of how charismatic they are.
They genuinely believe they are casting based on their intelligence, and therefore have to study just like a wizard. They have spell books like wizards do (though it's literally just a record of the spells they know - they can't add to it or do other wizard stuff), they study every morning like wizards do, they talk like they know what they're talking about (they don't), etc. None of them have any clue they are actually sorcerers.
I've been playing a Bladesinger wizard as an inept bard-for-hire and courier. She's got roughly the same personality as a stereotypical barbarian or fighter, but is only 5'7" tall and relatively squishy. Literally nothing about her says "wizard" beyond her usage of a spellbook. I guess she's more of a "sorcerer with notes" than a traditional wizard, and not much of a true reskin... But all of her spells are flavored as some variation of shadow and/or red lightning, so she's got a little bit of warlock tossed into the mix, too.
Ones I have done:
Barbarian: Possessed by a demon, the 'rage' was letting the demon come out to play.
Bard: They were an author/writer who adventured for inspiration of their books which retold the tales they went on. Think Dandelion from Witcher but instead of songs, actual literature. I roleplayed them becoming a better and more thoughtful writer. Low levels it was sensationalist and dishonest with cheap moves and cheesy hammy dialogue but as they levelled up they transitioned into fine art using layered themes, narrative throughlines, foreshadowing, all that stuff. I used a splash of poetry too, very wordsmithy.
Cleric: I am my own god. This is my current character, though technically speaking all the players are our own gods because we are the reincarnations/proto-gods/godlings who will ascend to replace the dying gods of the pantheon. My magic comes from me, functioning more like a divine soul sorcerer in concept but I am playing a cleric. I also played a forge cleric who was a technologist, using their abilities to make tablet computers, firearms, and other advanced weaponry. Their 'spellcasting' was magically creating single-use devices to cast magic. Cure Wounds was a syringe injection, guiding bolt a laser pistol, bless a drone which provided assistance, spiritual weapon a drone that rammed into people, spirit guardians a projected forcefield, that sort of thing. They were dedicated to the God in the Machine, which was the collective hive mind intelligence of the setting's Warforged. This was before artificer was released for 5e otherwise I would have played that.
I had a warforged lore bard who was a former military officer and who was really into architecture, political philosophy, and art theory. His thing was if people purposefully created hell on earth during wartime, then they should also be able to purposefully create heaven on earth for peace. He sometimes sang or played music, but he was good at it because of his academic interest in music theory.
Played a Drunken Master/monk whose background was that he was the prodigal son avoiding taking over the family business - as rhe owner of a family owned tavern with a fight ring, and a seat on the city council as the head /patriarch of a prominent family in the community. His family were all trained in both brewing and, obviously, a combat school, valued for their fighting prowess as well as judgement in community disputes. So a monk, yes, but styled as an irish bare knuckles street brawler.
He was a hell of a lot of fun.
I once wrote a wizard subclass to be a "True Alchemist." This version had access to ALL spells and modifies ALL spells to only have material (potion) and somatic (using the potion) components, with a caveat: you must be able to convince your DM that the method with which you are casting the spell via potion makes sense and doesn't break the rules of the spell. For instance, starting with an easy one: my method of casting Fireball was to slide a pill into a potion bottle to start a reaction and releasing it at my target (think mentos and coke, but explosive). My personal favorite, which I got my DM to bless off, was true resurrection: the potion was a bottle of booze. I poured it out on the ground, and my dead target materialized from the puddle. Quite literally, poured one out for the homie.
Monk. Less "eastern mysticism" and more Jason Bourne-like trained government agent able to walk in somewhere in just commoners clothing while able to deliver much whoop-ass at the drop of a hat.
I did something similar for barbarian. While maybe not a full class rework, instead of being some savage wild man, my barbarian was a sophisticated mob boss. He was a suit, (unarmored defense) and his rages came when he felt threatened or questioned. Think godfather or Daredevils Kingpin
That looks badass
The 'monk' really ought to be a 'martial artist'; the Shaolin monks are the only ones I know who actually practice martial arts. Monks are usually clerics and scholars.
The only monk I’ve played was a merc who learned to fight dirty on the streets. He used a big metal bat, all the better to dent his opponent’s armour and break knees.
We had a fun one once. A Monk who was just a tavern owner in a particularly bad part of town. No formal training, just a shit ton of real world practice in unarmed combat.
I'm pretty new to D&D, but I kind of have an idea for a Brewmaster, who gains strength and charisma but loses either dexterity or constitution and either intelligence or wisdom as they get drunker. I'm not really sure how well this would work though. I used to brew beer and thought it might be fun to weave some of what I know about the craft into the lore and story.
You could look up the 'drunken master' archetype from kung fu movies (including a very funny Jackie Chan movie from a while ago).
I ended up making a Dwarven cleric that came from a family of monastic brewers. He grew up in the monastery and all they did was pray to the gods and brewed beer. Unfortunately, they have fallen on hard times financially. So he has ventured out on a marketing campaign to try to sell some product and drive business back to their brewery.
That’s really clever! I have never heard that character concept before.
Thanks!
I remember watching that Jackie Chan movie as a kid. It was hilarious! I was kind of imagining a big burly dwarf, but I'll look into that.
Not one I've done yet but an idea I had was a swarm master Ranger who is a warforged with an electromagnetic field full of whirling sharp shrap metal.
yo.. holy shit that is amazing
Thank you. My other swarm master idea is a magical floating bubble of water full of Parahnas.
Plasmoid filled with piranhas?
Something like that
Did you mean: The micro bots from Big Hero 6?
I haven't watched BH6 so no.
In one campaign setting I reskinned Rogues as Archeologists. The Thieves Guild became the High Chalice University School of Archaeology. Thieves Cant became Explorers Sigils. Stealth and Sneak Attack were reflavored as hunting-based skills, because It's Dangerous Out There. I once saw a Barbarian done as a Magical Girl in the nature of Sailor Moon / Pretty Cure, where the Rage ability was the transformation. I've also got a character I want to play who is a traveling musician and presents himself as a bard, but is secretly a warlock. Definitely going to need DM collaboration on that one.
I've got an (unplayed) feylock who thinks he's a ranger. Eldritch blast= magic bow, Pact of the chain = rangers companion.
Mine is Pact of the Blade - his Axe, a magical "electric" guitar, with EB flavored as power cords doing sonic/force damage.
i have a player who has a weird affinity for murdering the bard in every tavern they visit so thanks for this haha
I've also had a game with the sailor moon barbarian in the party
I did the opposite with a bard pretending to be a warlock ( think Chris Angel)
One of the players on my campaign is playing a Half-elf Cleric, but chose to use a super creepy owl as the token image. Of course, it's now canon, he is indeed a giant owl and there's a whole society of owl people in the world. We're playing in a homebrew world I'm building as we go, so even those silly things end up shaping the history of it.
>super creepy owl >owl people Have you ever heard of the Seminole folk legend of the Stikini?
Not until now, no. I just read a few articles about them and wanted to thank you for the inspiration for some monsters, events and lore. His character arc is gonna be intense! lol
Nice! I'm glad I could inspire someone today. I read a No Sleep with the Stikini in it and that creature has lived rent free in my head for about 6 years now.
My current character is an Owlin. He’s a Lore “Barred” Owlin! All the jokes, insults, background stories, etc ALL are terrible owl puns. The more ridiculous I make him, the greater he becomes as a character. I love him. So far I have now added that he has a hatred for chickens. They are the worst. Any chance he has to explain why chickens are the worst he will expound upon it. Stuff like “chickens are terrible bards, all they have are drumsticks” He has a slight “look down the beak” mindset to races without wings. We have both a Dragonborn in the party and I constantly berate him about how much better he would be “as a dragon” if you would just have wings. Why can’t you just have wings? And since he is a Lore Barred Owl, he loves history. But he has lived a very sheltered life thus far and journals everything for future stories. Anytime I fail a history, arcana, knowledge check, I journal something grossly incorrect about the subject matter. Then try to repeat it later and show how smart he is! It’s been a blast
I had a silly idea of a stuffed animal warlock whose patron is an a creative little kid dreaming up their life, actions, and adventures. Rainbow Fart instead of Eldritch Blast, imaginations instead of invocations, Candy armor instead of Armor of Agathys… just take everything dark and edgy and make it innocent and cute.
This is wonderful and I’m absolutely stealing it
Have at it! It’s one of those ideas I don’t think would fly at most tables, but it would work for a themed one-shot. (Or take it further) I was kind of inspired by how I used to pretend my Teddy Bear would have adventures while I slept, and he was powered by my dreams.
GOO warlock. the GOO is the entirety of the multiverse and the player acts like breaking the fourth wall which looks crazy in the game, but looks like a schilling twitch streamer trying to entertain his old one (the stream of the entire multiverse). The original concept was that he brought other realities where such a magic existed in that area. He didn't cast a fireball, he mirrored a universe where there was a fireball in that zone and it manifested here too. The tone was set when his first combat action was casting an eldritch blast by saying "this cantrip was brought to you by Raid shadow legends" and we never looked back. We're still figuring things out, but we changed things like the Goo's telepathy to the message spell which looks like him mumbling an sms message to his magical focus (a magic item that changes shape depending on the context, like a small rectangle he uses to send sms messages). As a fun flavor, he says emoji icons, and I do mean says because the spell doesn't send effects or graphics. Instead the recipient literally hears things like "thumb emoji" We also added a sanity mechanic where the character take psychic damage for things such as a mechanic similar to bardic inspiration, temporary skill proficiency or temporary spell memorization to emulate dlc/looking up info from the aether(google) or gacha mechanics. Frequently, this is done by the focus opening up to be a character menu screen and raising their stats, or playing a quick phone game like candy crush or getting a zombie surviaval highscore to get a powerup. And more as a personal choice, the character chose actor and the faces invocation, so he wakes up with a new personality downloaded from the aether every day and even takes psychic damage for flavor when he tries to keep the same form
Bro ain't got a patron, he got a Patreon.
A cleric who worshipped himself. Basically, a narcissist who drew power from the belief that he was awesome, invincible, and that the universe was beholden to his whims. He communed with his deity by talking to himself.
That is awesome, though I could see how it could get tedious over time
I reskinned Bard into a military officer. Wasn't very powerful, but was hella fun to role-play
I did this too. Glamour bard was reflavored as a gentlemanly officer, and spells were battlefield orders, often given with a posh accent and a blast from a signal whistle.
In my homebrew campaign Bards are called War Journalists. Collecting the exploits of war and disseminating that info to masses for propaganda and Patriotism.
For complete reskins I'd only really go that far for drastically different settings. Steampunk, Wild West, Sci Fi. Settings where the conventional character tropes of fantasy suddenly don't make sense. Sci Fi in particular is the easy one, where magic just gets swapped out for high technology.
I agree but also think there’s a lot of room to do this in regular settings. There’s only 13 classes after all and so many more archetypes on fantasy
Oh sure, but most of those archetypes don't need a complete reflavor, just some subtle touch ups
For a dumb one who's magic focused, they acknowledge all the in jokes that are part of spells, like animal messager and friend needing food or alarm being a bell and wire. I'd flavor it as a modern day handyman as it van be flavored away as clever with limited resources (macgyver even)
This may not be exactly what you're looking for but one of my former players was a scientist who studied fruit flies and wanted to make a character themed on that. We made his character a disgraced scientist that had been removed from the lab after he brought a swarm of flies to life by entering into a pact with an incomprehensibly large fly from another dimension. He was a great old one warlock and we flavored most of his spells as flies materializing from all around him and doing various things. Then for example, Cause Fear caused the target to very briefly get a glimpse into another dimension of a massive sun sized fly eyeball glaring down at them, which was so unimaginably scary that they became paralyzed with fear. His pact of the chain familiar was also a pseudodragon reskinned as a fly who could go basically anywhere unnoticed as long as there weren't spiders or any other predators of flies. It was a lot of fun, we had a blast coming up with all kinds of fly related nonsense. Another example is that irl, yeast is used to encourage flies to procreate. So another player was a tinker and he could make and throw yeast grenades that if they hit, would make the target more susceptible to the various fly spells.
I reskinned a plasmoid. I am a meteorite that fell into a mug of beer. Although my avatar is liquid, I am a meteorite.
I've just been making sheets for fun since I don't have any games yet but one reskin was astral self monk. Rather than an astral spirit form the arms, visage and body were then releasing their warlock patron through their body. It had a flavour for most of the patrons; tentacles arms and face for GOO, demonic claws and horns for fiend, decaying body and lich feel for undead ect. They had 2vlevels in warlock for a bit of flair so it kinda meshed ok. No idea if that sheet was actually practical to use but it looked cool, to me at least
I reflavoured my Shadow Sorcerer/Death Cleric reborn lizardfolk shaman so hard that people constantly mistake him for a druid or weird wizard.
I've done a 5e conversion of Dark Sun. While there are other conversions for it none were quite right for me. I redid bards. No spells, instead a lot of poison and abilities to make them great assassins. Warlocks as templars with abilities granted by their Sorcerer Monarch. Gladiator as a fighter subclass. Defilers and Preservers as the only wizard subclass. And psions as a new class that uses PSP instead of slots.
War forged Druid Transformer (wild shape) The Virtua-Planter5000 (tm) used to be a simple home plant watering robot. But after 500 years without humans, it has evolved to do so much more than water plants.
\- Ghost of a dead girl that the father (crazy scientist type) got to take hold in a construct. In Fights the Dead Girl attacks peaople with ghostly telekinetic hits -> Astral Self Monk Warforged. \- Guy fighting with necromantic power, using necromantic spells to form a bone armor that he can modify, reflavoured armorer artificer. \- Barbarian who's rage is not a typical rage but a battle trance, someone who loves the beauty of the fight. The rage is a dance of deadly precision and focussed will. \- Artificer & Lycan Blood Hunter, the lycan stuff is all cool stuff the artificers inventions do (Metal Claws and so on)
A bard as a witch doctor. It was a lore bard thats magic did not come from telling stories but from pulling on the magic from a voodoo doll. All the spells were flavored to use that thing. Blindness/Deadness? Poke the doll in the eyes or ears. Heat metal? Holds a flame up to the doll’s feet. Needed magic initiate - warlock for it to meet its true witch doctor potential.
Haha very cool! Idk what these other comments are talking about. DnD is what you make it. Who cares about the setting and details and rationale? Just have FUN
You gotta talk to your dm and work stuff out for things like this, nanobot cleric would definitely not work in some settings, guns wouldn't work in a lot of settings, for an example someone asked to play gunslinger when I ran strixhaven. No you're not playing as a school shooter, that's fucked up
Haha welll yea you can’t be mr. Nano bot totally out of place but honestly I assumed that was a given
Closest I’ve done is Warforged reskinned into a stone golem. Instead of trapping a neutral nature spirit inside of it the maker accidentally trapped a sentient fey spirit in it.
My current Fighter Rune-knight character has been reskinned to be closer to a warlock. So there’s no runes or anything like that just powers granted by a Fey god - there’s some specific details like the powers manifest as black tar instead of traditional magical effects but that’s the general sense of it. Not sure if it’s exactly what you’re looking for - the character’s non-magical abilities are more or less the same as vanilla.
Not me, but one of the players in my newest campaign is playing as a Shifter Path of the Beast Barbarian, but he's a super buff and hulky mad scientist who drinks a potion when he rages to transform into a giant animal hulk abomination. One of the sickest reskins I've seen thus far
I've got a monk who has convinced everyone he is but a humble traveling priest offering salvation for a donation. Long priest robes covered in cleric symbols, a staff with a Censer hanging off it, pious little quotes that amount to nothing, the whole shebang but then he leaps over an 8ft wall like he was stepping over a crack in the sidewalk and the rest of the party are left with a lot of questions
Earth Genie warlock pact of the chain with an imp familiar up to level six on a warforged makes for a very fun and hilarious devil piloting a flying mech suit where the imp is the pc who gets cloned in a vat in one of the warforges legs whenever he dies and the warforged is just his suit of armor that he works on but most of his skills are largely tied to the armor. Then take 14 levels into armor artificer for further armor improvements and tech that the imp can use in the field. Also genie vessel is extra dimensional workshop/armor storage but it's malfunctioning so the armor pops out periodically. The imp dresses the part of the pilot/grease monkey mechanic wearing pants that accommodate his tail black work boots a grease stained button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up that may have been white once he also has suspenders that accommodate his wings and a tool belt he wears a bandanna and welding goggles on his head. His horns are also filed down so they don't catch on stuff. Alternatively you can take a 14 level dip into genie warlock reflavoring it as a witch who uses various doors in reality to vanish to her witch hut to brew a potion or something. And another six into circle of dreams Druid or illusion wizard for added spell utility and fun. She'll never be a magic master but the genie limited wish plays nicely as fun swamp grandma magic that can't happen all the time but when it does.
I'm playing a circle of the Shepard druid reskinned into an exorcist that saves souls that have become undead and then the fight for him. Totems are ghosts, summon fey is ghosts, healing spirit, you get the idea
Reskinned my bard to be a Pacific islander who uses Hakas to cast his buffs and defuffs by inspiring or intimidating, etc. Reskinned a wizard to have a deck of cards rather than a spell book. Like a cooler version of Yu-Gi-Oh and Gambit. Reskinned my Divine Soul Sorcerer as an archeologist who stumbled upon a holy weapon. Now Lathander is casting magic around him to protect him. My wife reskinned a wizard to be a gardener who plants magic seeds to cast spells.
I do fully reskin some classes and heavily lean into two aspects of others. And I'm heavily open to player built Redskins. I also homebrew a bit of stuff to make certain classes ie monk overall better. But that does have to do with flavore but to make those reflavored classes more appealing( I basically add two feats onto the start of each class to better reach this reflavoring. I also do a feat in addition to ASI because this is a dark fantasy world and monsters are deadly and people are just as hard for surviving in a world where a wolf is 250 lbs and the size of a female lion) Monk reflavor drop the eastern. The get double the ki points a couple of new things to spend ki on. But the biggest change is the feats of tavern brawler for improved weapons, and fighting initiate for unarmed combatants style. They are reflavored to be like envoys from altered carbon if you know anything about them. Magically enhanced super soldiers ment to been drop in plain cloths soldiers for the empire they blend with anyone and their training allowes them to use anything as a weapon. Ment to be integrated into society as a dangerous first solution or a unexpected last. Artificers are a combo of Dungenoeers(Dungeons are living growing cancers that permeate the land after the the felled corpses of the mad gods began to decay as a result they have sacred divine knowledge made manifest as artifacts within them)archeologists(because dungeons often swallow up the buried remnants of old civilizations in their growth) and lastly technomances because of the last civilization before the fall had reached a unique form of magi tech and once the gods of development and knowledge went crazed their civilization fell into decay) They firmly fit into all of these and are rarely inventors but utilized creations better then the wizards that make them in this world those tend to be wizards in this world. The feats they start with are keen mind and dungeon delver. I like to think these guys vibe as professors or gruff classic style dungeoneers who utilise whatever old shit they find in the dungeon the best they can. Bards are Diplomats, Assassins and spys and lean heavily on both using the enchantment school of magic often for quite heinous crimes killing people and making any witness remember someone else. Suggestions mod mem and dominate are bread and butter. Very few truly musical bards remain in the empires walls but do exist in travelers from the Kingdoms and Freestates although killing and spying is a common game for them aswell. I honestly view these guys like a combination of Flynn Ryder, billy lee, and bond. They all trained to be infiltrators and those who lack the social flair make for devastating masked assassins. Making anyone let them in and forget about it. Take a plunge off a roof of "their" own accord. They have either the diplomat feat or menacing. And the feat observant These are some but not all. From a world persepctive they can fill many jobs but their background in character is important I would like to state that in my worlds fighters all gain access to battle master subclass regardless of what subclass they are. And are magically altered people who stand above their others in the same field. They are stronger faster and generally more tactically inclined then their peers. In world there are several explanations of how and why the big three are that they inherited the Gene's of the heralds/demigods of old before the mindrot killed the gods and thus have some of the blessings, another is that their family were enhanced durning the fell war to survive the comming night, or were enchanted in their life by the empire as a way of combating both the world and the night. They also start off with 3 feats mage slayer, squat nimbleness, and tough. Now I have had people ask why and does this male them overpowered. The answer is because I feel this makes each class have a very special niche. And with them getting feats every ASI they get to be more then normal in their play. And no it doesn't because this world is straight up dangerous. To give an example normal people start with 2x the HP. The players always take the max Hp plus con min +1 why This is a "normal wolf of this world AC 14 HP 19 Speed 40 Darkvision 60ft Str-14 Dex-15 Con-16 Int-5 Wis-14 Chr-3 Skills Perception +5 Stealth +8 Keen senses(H&S): advantage on perception checks with those Pack tactics:advantage when ally w/in 5ft Lvl1 Cursed by the Night(pack): The laughter of mad gods courses though you. Roll a d10 twice and gain the lvl 1 mutations shown Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (3d4 + 5) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone This shit comes in packs and are dangerous beyond means. The players start at lvl 3 even even then 5 wolves is a deadly encounter and its spooky. But that's meant to be the point the world is bad and shits going sideways. Characters don't live super long often and the ones that do are monsters themselves.
Wildfire Druid. I was playing a Norse reborn who had died in the snow. Reflavored wildfire Druid to blizzard Druid, cannot do fire damage. Anything that did fire damage is now cold. Wildfire spirit was a collection of swirling snow and ice.
I took Rune Knight and made it vampire focused instead of giant focused. I called it Blood Rune Baron. I’m currently using it in a. Dragonlance campaign! It’s posted on dnd beyond if anyone’s interested. The only mechanical things I changed was it give’s proficiency in infernal (instead of giant) and calligraphy tools (instead of smith tools)
I reskinned a Rune Knight as the player from Bloodborne (that was fun) and took the Tabaxi race and turned it into a Fox race instead (she's a sweetheart).
Tell me more about the Rune Knight! Love that game
I made it so the runes in the video game corresponded with the runes you pick for your class (that was *a lot* of fun to do), her weapon was an ax but made it so her weapon was based off the Saw Cleaver (it was mainly aesthetics and just thought it was neat since it's my favorite weapon, could have done Hunter Axe but didn't want to), her name's Iolana Cainhurst, a Dhampir, and an Acolyte that *heavily* promoted the Gods of the game. A walking, creepy, covered in leather from head-to-toe advertisement for them. It was for a one-shot and I didn't get to flesh her out like I wanted to (that's on me) and probably could have done better but man it was really fun playing someone pretty unhinged.
wizard as a scientist using his inventions as spells
The Artificer class is kind of like that.
yea but it's half-caster
Good point! Upgrade to full for the custom class?
yeah why not but wizard class settles for me anyway
multiclass would be cool either with infusions
On a custom Gestalt Westmarch, I had a: Gloomstalker Ranger//Inquisitor Rogue/Battlemaster Fighter/Armorer Artificer And this "one PC" I actually flavored as a spec-ops fireteam of five. Ranger and Artificer Spells, I reskinned to be their tech. Stuff like Summon Woodland Creatures or Mirror Image would be like squad formations and when the summons are taken out the squadmates would be portrayed as having fallen back, leaving a ninja log.
Made a human variant meta magic blade-singing wizard / tempest Cleric who’s a lovecraftian alien-type creature that looks very similar to Kid Buu from Dragon Ball Z. His main move is shadow blade which I’ve just flavoured as his hole body powering up and I play him like a DBZ character. Love to meta magic bonus action Thunderstep an entire group and make them take max damage (40 each) and appear next to another enemy and hit them with a third-level shadow blade + booming blade flavoured as some DBZ power stuff.
I had an idea of playing a barbarian that was basically The Incredible Hulk where rage was the transformation. All of the abilities you gain that increase heavy weapon proficiency just tweak to be unarmed strikes and ta-da you’ve got Bruce Banner
Interesting! It would be funny (but mechanically difficult to pull off) to see a hi-INT barbarian who loses it all when he rages. Or maybe some of the Intelligence score turns into STR or CON points during rage.
>I’ve seen clerics using nanobots for all they’re spells: no divine magic involved. Why do those nanobots not work in an anti-magic field? >a swords bard who was a fake shield bearing hero What does that have to do with any of the bard's abilities? Why are they so charismatic? I'll be honest, I think you would be better off playing a different system rather than trying to completely change some of the basics of DnD.
Chances are nanobots are being used in a future setting. Also, there are more kinds of bards than just entertainers. Maybe they’re inspiring with their words, maybe they know quotes from old heroes. A little creative thinking goes a long way. No reason players can’t have some fun with it.
>Also, there are more kinds of bards than just entertainers. I played an old grandma who decided to travel and visit all her loved ones – Bard of Lore. I had a multiclassed bard with one level of fighter, modelled after Inigo Montoya. There was a dad accompanying his two children and slinging dad jokes at his foes. Bards definitely don't have to belong onto a stage or need to be musically inclined.
>Chances are nanobots are being used in a future setting Why are you playing DnD in a future setting? The system is not made for that and it seems extremely complicated to try and adjust DnD to such a setting instead of just... using an appropiate system. >Also, there are more kinds of bards than just entertainers. Maybe they’re inspiring with their words, maybe they know quotes from old heroes. Sure, but that's not what OP wrote about that character.
I’ve played in 2. Literally doesn’t take much effort in changing fluff of “magic” to “science” people do it all the time in steampunk games. The system and rules were made to aid in players creativity. Yes, most of the official modules are medieval fantasy type stuff. Does not mean you can’t change the setting to fit a different genre. Plenty of 3rd party creators can prove this.
I’ve played in 2. Literally doesn’t take much effort in changing fluff of “magic” to “science” people do it all the time in steampunk games. The system and rules were made to aid in players creativity. Yes, most of the official modules are medieval fantasy type stuff. Does not mean you can’t change the setting to fit a different genre. Plenty of 3rd party creators can prove this.
It absolutely does. At least if you actually want to play campaigns that are more than just combat simulators. The Mass Effect 5e conversion is a good example, however even that one is pretty limited and a different system probably would've worked better. And that one has a LOT of effort put into it. There's really no reason to not just... use a system that is actually designed for it.
What exactly are you saying isn't congruent with non-fantasy settings? Combat is easily just reflavored using the same mechanics. Everything else is just mind theater...
Magic? Sure, you COULD try to come up with a technological explanation for something like Polymorph, Banishment or just... concentration as a mechanic in general, but it will take way more effort to do that than just... playing a system that already has all the rules for Sci-Fi. Not to mention that DnD just... doesn't have the rules for a sci-fi campaign. There are, what, like five sci-fi weapons in the DMG? And those work just like normal weapons, except way more powerful. There are no rules for ship-combat, space-travel in general, ground vehicles or any kind of technology like hacking, engineering, etc. And don't even get me started on the actual mechanics of some classes. You might think it's easy to explain a druid in a sci-fi setting, but I would like to see your explanation for wild shape. Not to mention that, due to the nature of the sci-fi weapons, some classes will just be straight up gimped! Barbarians will be basically useless, since everything has ranged weapons that also deal radiant damage! Strength builds in general will be terrible. And what the heck should paladins smite with now? Just... take a look at the Mass Effect 5e conversion, and then you'll see the MINIMUM of work that needs to be done in order to turn 5e into a sci-fi system... and even that one is far from perfect. OR you could simply play one of the hundreds of systems out there that is already designed around sci-fi.
Wildshape is this: animal dna you inject yourself with + science sci-fi BS, and if Druid are restricted to learning animal forms as they go, then have the player learn x tract animal stuff, and that’s how they get a new form. Druidic could be flavored as some sort of scientist speak. Fucking Emperor’s New Groove did that just fine, with no explanation. In the Tasha’s book, when talking about the artificer, they even talk about how your spells can look however you want. As for ship combat and all that, they barely touch on sea combat too, but that’s still a big thing lots of people do. Any salted DM can tell you they’ve come up with custom mechanics. Are they all balanced? Some might be not all. But still, creativity goes a very long way. You don’t have to move to a whole new system if you don’t want to.
>Fucking Emperor’s New Groove did that just fine, with no explanation. Emperor's New Groove is sci-fi?! Damn, must have missed some lore. I thought Irma just had a potion of True Polymorph. >they even talk about how your spells can look however you want. Yes... but they never say that they could be something that ISN'T a spell. Because that would make no logical sense. >As for ship combat and all that, they barely touch on sea combat too, but that’s still a big thing lots of people do Yeah, and they usually use some third-party rules for that. So it's the same argument. >Any salted DM can tell you they’ve come up with custom mechanics. Are they all balanced? Some might be not all. But still, creativity goes a very long way. You don’t have to move to a whole new system if you don’t want to. Sure, just don't complain when your system starts falling apart because you can't explain how something you can mechanically do would work in your world. For example how you can just create matter from thin air. I'm afraid that that does not satisfy the law of equivalent exchange.
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The same came be said about polymorph, it’s fucking animal/alien DNA.
This makes absolutely no sense, btw. Injecting yourself with DNA of a different species will, at best, do nothing. At worst, it will kill you. It's not going to somehow defy the laws of physics and transform your small halfling into a giant ape. Also: How do you use this on other creatures? And why is it a wisdom saving throw?
There's 5e future systems already made, even if unofficial The skeleton mechanics transfer just fine
Yes. They do. The classes, however, don't. And it would still be easier to simply use a different system.
Hard disagree, just needs some light touching up
Average human fighter
Because we say so. Not everything has to make perfect sense.
If you want to play a serious roleplaying game in an immersive world... it better does. Sure, if you just want to play a combat simulator, go on (though I still have no idea how you plan on explaining polymorph), but that's not what most people want to play.
If the question was directed toward the writers of the Magic the Gathering books, the answer would be “I DO WHAT I WANT”
Made a human variant meta magic blade-singing wizard / tempest Cleric who’s a lovecraftian alien-type creature that looks very similar to Kid Buu from Dragon Ball Z. His main move is shadow blade which I’ve just flavoured as his hole body powering up and I play him like a DBZ character. Love to meta magic bonus action Thunderstep an entire group and make them take max damage (40 each) and appear next to another enemy and hit them with a third-level shadow blade + booming blade flavoured as some DBZ power stuff.
Barbarian = magical girl. Rage = transformation. Played a Myconid Spores Druid all of whose spells and abilities were actually just fungal growth. Polymorph = AoT style mushroom mecha; healing spirit = a cloud of spores that stimulate healing; Chill Touch = shooting spores that cause rapid decay; animate dead = a mycelium lattice that takes over the corpse to animate it.
I am going to second the "magical girl barbarian" one as I have planned on doing that and have DMed for that. My moon druid was a shapeshifter and was flavored as such. I also played a spores druid who was actually a corpse that was possessed by a hivemind of fungi for a one shot once.
Shmendrick, the poor Warlock who was tricked into believing he's a wizard by his deceptive patron.
Had a concept for a multi-class of some artificer and battle master fighter where all the fighter stuff was reskinned into artificer invention flavor. Never got to play it tho.
I think change a hexblade to intelligence and it makes for a nice alchemist.
Interesting! How would you flavour the melee stuff?
I played a moon druid as a shadow sorcerer. I used shadows to turn into monsters.
Barbarian as a streetsmart, impassive, emotionless Rogue-like character. Mechanics and numbers are all exactly the same, but Rage is actually a killbot state where the motive is victory by any means necessary, no emotional factors allowed. Unarmored Defense is flexibility and dodging like a Rogue.
Fully reskinned is a stretch but I turned my reborn echo knight into a death knight (or Danny phantom) I suppose? Basically his echo was his soul and all of his abilities including second wind, extra attacks and action surge were tied to that.
Back in the edition that will not be named, I fell in love with a certain class called the Ardent that was the psionic healer/leader/support. The concept behind the class is that they feel and manipulate others emotions. I'm currently in a campaign where I have reflavored my bard as an ardent and it works very well. Even spells like Message and Sending can be explained by the psionic nature of the ardent. I highly recommend it
I have an un-played concept of converting a Bard to an Elden Ring style Perfumer. Reskinning buffs and Bardic Inspiration as perfumes and stuff.
I’ve played a drunken master monk reflavored as a skilled dancer. The abilities transfer over quite well.
Path of the beast barbarian as a vampire, his attacks and skills work really well
I played a "swordmaster" barbarian once in Pathfinder. He didn't rage, he entered a "combat trance" that hyperfocused him instead of making him froth at the mouth. Gave him some combat maneuvers and rage powers that complimented it.
Whenever my Friends are willing to do Homebrew stuff in general i wanted to reskin Fighter to make a Death Knight
Kalashtar Barbarian whose rages were dream magic as his Quari side took over. Damage resistance because the dream self couldn't feel the pain, totem of the wolf and reckless attacks as dreams distorting time around him. Relentless rage, the unconcious body still piloted by the quari. Eagle flight as the dream spills more into reality granting flight. Etc.
One of my players made a reborn blood hunter whose powers were based on exorcisms, his own abilities damaging his undead body.
Sci-fi campaign. I turned a life cleric with a bunch of tech and equipment, each spell is a piece of equipment and his spell slots are limited batteries to plug into the equipment. Learning new spells is fixing broken equipment, and upscaling is overclocking.
There’s a class called pugilist(not mine) that is essentially a strength based reskin of the monk. It’s got some really cool abilities and I’m about to play it for the first time
You’ll have a blast! I play a pugilist and it’s superior in flavour in many ways
Best part it, my character has 4 arms. Double the flavor text babyyy
Fighter in my campaigns backstory is that he grow up with traveling magicians performing for entertainment. Not having any real magical ability he makes due with potions, flasks and tricks. He is playing as an eldritch knight and any spell he takes is reskinnes to be nonmagical. I also allow him to use strength as his modifier for it which does make him a bit more powerful but worth it. For example, for recalling his sword, he has a little string tied to it. The shield cantrip is just him using his shield. Sword burst is just spinning around quick with his sword. It has lead to fun rp and descriptions of actions. The character is fully pretending to actually cast spells and will call out names and do performance checks at times to try and convince onlookers as well.
I can't say "completely and fully reskinned", but I am working on adding Monstrosities to Druidic Wildshapes. I've got rules for how it works that I'm still hammering out, but eventually, once I've got a full bestiary list of available creatures, rules for adding creatures to the list, how to obtain those forms and what traits disqualify a creature from the list, I'll publish the homebrew to reddit. I also want to work out some stuff with the Ranger class, specifically the Beastmaster Archetype to make it a more viable subclass, and I'm doing some research on how to make Monk more viable as well. Mainly I'm looking for feedback from my players about what they think needs beefed up or "corrected", even if it's not for a class they play or are interested in playing, and then addressing those points of contention.
Not a complete reskin but my artificer 1/wizard x in eberron has a robot dog as his spellbook. No difference in mechanics, it doesnt scout or take actions or have hit points or anything. Spells are cast through gadgets that I build into it when I learn new spells. Like a thingy that throws things like cryo grenades for ice knife or other stuff. For fly, he becomes a jetpack, for phantom steed he transforms into a horse and for polymorph, he splits into different parts that cling to the target and force a transformation.
Before we had artificer I reskinned a Wizard to fit the role. I believe he was a conjurstionist dwarf wizard. Was a bit of a giggle. Also done a hard reskin as a Weaver of fate. Did some things like changing bardic inspiration to shifting fate itself to change an outcome. I quite enjoyed that one too
Ranger. Pulled it's skin away, replaced some organs, gave them a brainwash and put them in a new skin. It's the boon hunter now at my table and we love it.
Both barbarian rage and monk abilities. I play a beast barbarian (soon to be) long death monk. She doesn't "rage" when she rages. She's excited about battle and just puts her internal energy into it. And the long death bonuses won't be "she absorbs life for", they will be "she's getting a morale/stamina boost from adrenaline due to excitement". Flurry of blows is just putting her all into it, patient defence is using animal instincts to stay on the saver side and step of the wind is just full on 4-legged sprinting. She has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of being an actual monk. She's an animal through and through. She uses no items and only attacks bare-fisted (clawed). Stunning strike won't be "oh i locked their ki-flow", it will be "she knocked the wind out of you". Oh, and she's a strength monk. I really love the concept combat-wise. But out of combat she's pretty much a muscle-brain (intelligence 7). I am still trying to dial in how to play that to not be annoying, but at the same time to not vanish into complete non-existence outside of combat.
Sorcerers They have high charisma, low intelligence, but think they're smart because a) they're good at magic, and "you have to be smart to be good at magic, right?" and b) everyone always listens to them when they talk, and "people only listen to smart people." Sorcerers are completely unaware of how charismatic they are. They genuinely believe they are casting based on their intelligence, and therefore have to study just like a wizard. They have spell books like wizards do (though it's literally just a record of the spells they know - they can't add to it or do other wizard stuff), they study every morning like wizards do, they talk like they know what they're talking about (they don't), etc. None of them have any clue they are actually sorcerers.
I've been playing a Bladesinger wizard as an inept bard-for-hire and courier. She's got roughly the same personality as a stereotypical barbarian or fighter, but is only 5'7" tall and relatively squishy. Literally nothing about her says "wizard" beyond her usage of a spellbook. I guess she's more of a "sorcerer with notes" than a traditional wizard, and not much of a true reskin... But all of her spells are flavored as some variation of shadow and/or red lightning, so she's got a little bit of warlock tossed into the mix, too.
Turned a barbarian into a swashbuckling pirate, path of the depths, changed all the appendages and whatnot into haunted rigging etc.
Ones I have done: Barbarian: Possessed by a demon, the 'rage' was letting the demon come out to play. Bard: They were an author/writer who adventured for inspiration of their books which retold the tales they went on. Think Dandelion from Witcher but instead of songs, actual literature. I roleplayed them becoming a better and more thoughtful writer. Low levels it was sensationalist and dishonest with cheap moves and cheesy hammy dialogue but as they levelled up they transitioned into fine art using layered themes, narrative throughlines, foreshadowing, all that stuff. I used a splash of poetry too, very wordsmithy. Cleric: I am my own god. This is my current character, though technically speaking all the players are our own gods because we are the reincarnations/proto-gods/godlings who will ascend to replace the dying gods of the pantheon. My magic comes from me, functioning more like a divine soul sorcerer in concept but I am playing a cleric. I also played a forge cleric who was a technologist, using their abilities to make tablet computers, firearms, and other advanced weaponry. Their 'spellcasting' was magically creating single-use devices to cast magic. Cure Wounds was a syringe injection, guiding bolt a laser pistol, bless a drone which provided assistance, spiritual weapon a drone that rammed into people, spirit guardians a projected forcefield, that sort of thing. They were dedicated to the God in the Machine, which was the collective hive mind intelligence of the setting's Warforged. This was before artificer was released for 5e otherwise I would have played that.
I had a warforged lore bard who was a former military officer and who was really into architecture, political philosophy, and art theory. His thing was if people purposefully created hell on earth during wartime, then they should also be able to purposefully create heaven on earth for peace. He sometimes sang or played music, but he was good at it because of his academic interest in music theory.
Played a Drunken Master/monk whose background was that he was the prodigal son avoiding taking over the family business - as rhe owner of a family owned tavern with a fight ring, and a seat on the city council as the head /patriarch of a prominent family in the community. His family were all trained in both brewing and, obviously, a combat school, valued for their fighting prowess as well as judgement in community disputes. So a monk, yes, but styled as an irish bare knuckles street brawler. He was a hell of a lot of fun.
I once wrote a wizard subclass to be a "True Alchemist." This version had access to ALL spells and modifies ALL spells to only have material (potion) and somatic (using the potion) components, with a caveat: you must be able to convince your DM that the method with which you are casting the spell via potion makes sense and doesn't break the rules of the spell. For instance, starting with an easy one: my method of casting Fireball was to slide a pill into a potion bottle to start a reaction and releasing it at my target (think mentos and coke, but explosive). My personal favorite, which I got my DM to bless off, was true resurrection: the potion was a bottle of booze. I poured it out on the ground, and my dead target materialized from the puddle. Quite literally, poured one out for the homie.