So, my party is in Avernus right now. They needed some faster transport and a herd of Nightmares was nearby. Their guide showed them how to tame them. And now I will show you ;)

Of course afterwards they used the horsies to ride across Avernus to the next location, and I made a little table to see if anything would happen. I've shared both of these 'encounters' below, hopefully it's useful for you to use in your next game!

Taming Nightmares

Roll a D12: that's how many are in the herd.

Every player can approach a Nightmare one at a time. They can lure them with something to decrease the difficulty to tame them. Standard is DC15. If they think of an especially tasty treat (the GM can decide if the Nightmare thinks how tasty it is) you can decrease the difficulty by 5 or 8 points. Or maybe decide to have it always work?

For my adventure it would be logical to have the Nightmares run away after travelling for a few hours so I gave them the "Unstable" trait. As in you are unable to put them in a stable ;) .

Travel through Avernus

Roll a d4; that's how many hours it takes to go from one location to the next on the back of a Nightmare.

For every other hour of travel in which you do not have Fire Resistance roll a DC12 Constition Save. On a fail add a level of Exhaustion.

Roll a d100;

• 100-75: You watch as thin arcs of hot-white and yellow fire streak across the sky. At this distance it's a beautiful sight.
• 75-50: A group of fireballs light up the clouds above as they burst through the ash and continue their journey across the sky. You can hear them raging from the ground.
• 50-25: The ground shudders as a few huge fireballs crash over a cliff nearby: their debris rockets all around your, missing some of you by only a few feet. You look around, ears ringing and covered in ash and soot. Everyone seems fine, but that was way too close for comfort.
• 25-0: Thinking back you felt an enormous heat behind you in the moment just before the impact. Then the earth blew up and threw you several feet forward. A second impact thundered next to you as rocks pelted you and all the air was sucked out of your lungs. You tried to breathe in but everywhere was fire. Feeling the intense heat burn your clothes and skin you tried to roll and put out the flames, seeming to roll into more burning rock in the process. You found somewhere that was not on fire and through the smoke and flame you could see your companions screaming and trying to put out the flames on their clothes. It would take a good quarter of an hour before everyone was calm again. Avernus had seen you and thrown it's sky down upon you. But at least you've survived.

Have the party roll a DC 15 Dex Save. The fireballs deal 2d6 Bludgeoning and 10d6 Fire damage which is halved if you make the save.

(The picture is a painting by Hieronymus Bosch called Hell. I thought it would be appropriate.)

Sometimes when I roll a new character I have an idea all worked out; the background leads to the class which looks cool with a certain type of species, you probably know the feeling.

Other times not so much. Other times I need a little help, preferably from a random table ;) . So that's why I created a page (formatted for easy printing) that I hope you'll find useful as well. I put it here: https://buriedaeons.neocities.org/projects/heirlooms/

Please let me know if you like it and/or if you think some tables could use some improvement! I'm curious to see what you guys think.

The Ranger may actually be my favourite class because of its mesmerizing blend of warrior tropes, nature-themed abilities and pet (sub-)classes being my jam in every game I play. That being said, I find the DnD rendition of this iconic class an aimless and uninspired mishmash of dull features that never quite manage to differentiate it from other classes, thus resulting in the Ranger playstyle feeling like a mix of Fighter, Rogue and Druid, while never reaching the heights of any of those classes.
Things didn't improve with DnD 2024, which scrapped most of its unique features and replaced them with spell-like effects in an attempt to fix the quirkiness of the original class (which had, admittedly, a lot of features that never amounted to much because of how narrow and restrictive they were)

When I decided I'd finally play as a Ranger, I set out to create a homebrew class that would tick all my boxes and give it a unique identity of its own. From the combined efforts of a friend and myself, the Pathfinder was born.

The main feature distinguishing the Pathfinder from the Ranger is the inclusion of the pet right off the bat at 2nd level, now a part of the core class instead of being relegated to a single subclass: this was done as I felt the pet was THE defining feature that set the Ranger apart. The pet's capabilities were also expanded with 10 distinct stat blocks that should allow for much greater customizability than the generic "Beast of the Land/Sea/Sky" from DnD5e, which often feel as amorphous blobs with little thought given to the animal they're meant to represent.
From there, we focused on salvaging and enhancing its nature-themed features to further define the Pathfinder as an intrepid explorer and expert survivalist.

The class has not yet been playtested, but I will report back once I do and update the class accordingly.

PDF DOWNLOAD: https://mega.nz/file/WU8nHJoI#eii47dPmBNTYQrSC9IucIpdlX0IObzc1sI2e9emkW2M
HOMEBREWERY LINK: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/3_tXaVnD67Lx

Or open the spoiler below to read the class directly from Lemmy (it may take a while to load):

spoiler

In the past few months, I have been working on revamped classes for DnD5e for personal use. This is my revamped Fighter, which I've played in a (still ongoing) campaign for the past few months and had a blast with.

Unfortunately, with DnD 2024 approaching, I see very little incentive in working on this still. I don't even think people will be interested in trying it with the new rules. I don't like DnD 2024 and the 2024 Fighter looks bland and boring to me, so I'll keep playing this one instead, but I don't see myself updating it further in the future unless I find a really broken combo that needs addressing.

Please, enjoy :)

Online reader and PDF download: https://mega.nz/file/6UVCFDxS#QFJOdoH2bqGX78fWGZ9JdrrsEYSu3JFRNKzyFcUTzFw
Ko Fi: https://ko-fi.com/taverntalesdnd

This is the finished version of my Occultist class, a revamped Warlock that's meant to refine and streamline the OG class.

The Warlock is my favourite class in the game, but its reliance on short rests to recharge spell slots and the pitiful amount of invocations known turn DnD’s most customizable class into a boring slog of “I cast Eldritch Blast” and “As my first invocations, I take Agonizing Blast and Devil’s Sight. Again”.
By adding the Patron’s expanded spell list (which goes up to 9th level) automatically to their spells known, gaining more invocations (10, compared to the OG Warlock’s 8) and rebalancing the invocations (including adding higher level Pact-exclusive invocations up to 14th level), the INT-based Occultist allows for much greater build variety, while retaining what made the original class so loved by many.

The 1.0 update includes four Pact Boons (Blade, Chain, Talisman, Tome), four subclasses (Archmage, Deep One, Greatwyrm, Undying) and 50+ Eldritch Invocations, including seven pact-exclusive invocations for each Pact Boon.

Read and/or download the PDF here

Or click the spoiler to read it in image form (it may take a bit to load)

If you like what I do and wish to support me, please consider visiting my Ko Fi page :) https://ko-fi.com/taverntalesdnd