Keyleth of the Ashari - 6th Edition Hero System Stats

People apparently liked the Grog write up, so here's Keyleth.

So this proved a bit easier than I thought it would be (though part of that was due to cheating and not designing pretty much any spell. Once I read how Endurance Reserve functions when the Charges limitation is applied to it, then the Druidic magic proved very easy to recreate. Though it certainly was costly. Clerical and Wizard magic would operate in similar manner.

5e Yuan-ti Bounty Hunter (Beastmaster Ranger)

When I started to build this character, I started to realize I was making a snaky version of Vex'ahlia Vessar from Critical Role. So I started to change the character concept a little bit. I started the idea of a yuan-ti ranger with a pet snake and built out, when I started shifting away from being Snaky!Vex, I changed her background and the focus of her stats and skills. Instead of an archer, she's going to use dueling and use blunt weapons for the idea of taking people out non-lethally as much as possible. Meaning she will likely use a club, though perhaps instead will use a metal cudgel similar to a baseball bat but with warhammer stats.

In the end, this ended up being pretty much the anti-Vex. This character is so much more strength and resilience than grace and acrobatics.

I would note that the Yuan-Ti stat bonuses don't add to Ranger too much, so this will be a bit tight on Ability Score Improvements.

5e The Huntmaster (Variant Human Revised Ranger/Paladin)

This is an idea that I came to while toying around with a Yuan-Ti Bounty Hunter and her pet snake. The idea was further developed when imagining that San from Mononoke Hime would fit this idea a little bit. I am not going full blown wolf, wolf, wolf, though that would be interesting. But the idea here is to see how many animal companions I get onto one creature.

Grog Strongjaw - 6th Edition Hero System Stats

Grog Strongjaw, the character played by Travis Willingham on the Critical Role show.

Okay, trying to do a system to system conversion rather than starting from scratch and building to concept in the new system is, once again, insanely time consuming and annoying. I should also note that I have incomplete knowledge of Grog's stats. I only converted two magical items that Grog has, neither of which are weapons. This is due to various reasons, he flits between weapons frequently, so I did none. The Bag of Holding is a headache to stat in Hero System, supposedly there are some suggestions for doing so in a supplement I don't own, but oh well. Other signature items are mostly for flavor and not really something that needs to be statted out.

I may eventually do the rest of the cast, but oh my goodness was this frustrating at points.

Into the Sighing Valley - Princes of the Apocaverse - Session Thirteen

The Chapters and Cast of the Ballad 

Arrangements made for the pirate’s boat;
To be sent back to Waterdeep port;
An asset for the Lord’s Alliance to quote;
To Red Larch the party aims a trip short.

Random - The Monster in the Movie

This is a bit of short-story I used set in the Whateley Academy shared universe fiction that was focused around a mutant school a la the X-Men. The primary characters of those stories were transgendered due to some aspect of their power though none of these characters were like that. This isn't exactly an early version or Random and marks as the first story in which her personality and oddity started to take form. This version was before I came to the idea that Random's active emulations would alter her physical appearance. At this point she had a semi-static form that was a bit of a mix between girl, raptor and xenomorph and the emulations were entirely mental/supernatural. This started with the Changeling the Lost version (which I haven't rebuilt yet, mostly because building a Hallow is headache inducing and also because the metaphysics of Changeling the Lost won't exactly be friendly to the modern version of Random). That version had a much more human personality, having remember most of her prior life, but that version did lead to the version represented in the story and builds before.

This piece of art shows a version of Random from Changeling the Lost.

Recent versions of statting this character in different games are linked above the story.

Oh, one thing to note. Random's internal thoughts at this point in her development follow up all speech with something like "I said" whether she said it or someone else did. I haven't really used that conceit in more recent versions but don't have as complete a representation of her thought processes as this. The modern version of Random also never really uses gender pronouns in reference to herself. Actually, within her thoughts she doesn't even use pronouns to refer to herself always calling herself "the monster". Then again, this character might be a non-binary character really, in which case I should probably alter all the pronouns here, but I'm not really sure. By default, most of my characters are female and I've only occasionally played non-binaries and I generally only realize their non-binaries sometime after the campaign is finished. An early version of Random had a maternal instinct and so was feminine, but modern version is so divorced from normal behavior that it's hard to say what she identifies as.

I am not entirely certain Random is alone in her mind. Then again, if there is another entity in her mind, I'm not entirely certain they can tell each other apart any longer and thus they might as well be one entity.

Random - Powered by the Apocalypse

The first of these two game stats, Masks, uses a homebrew playbook that I made to represent characters like Random. Some examples from fiction include: River Tam from Firefly and Sousuke Sagara from Full Metal Panic! As such, it was meant to extend from a "normal" person who just is exceptionally good at combat and grew up on battlefields like Sousuke to someone that was hideously experimented upon and given weird powers like River. I should note I'm not listing all the options I had devised for the playbook as a whole, just the ones I used for Random.

Random - Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition

Mutants and Masterminds is a union of Hero System and d20. In some manners, M&M is more efficient than Hero, but it is somewhat less versatile. In general I feel the loss of versatility isn't huge enough to matter but then I sometimes run into a concept that M&M makes complicated while Hero handles it very well. It also suffers from being a d20 system slightly with the exception that most rolls, attacks and skills, are opposed rolls, which eases up the flat curve a little bit even if it makes for two rolls to every one of D&D's. Random is a case where M&M is either better suited or just as well suited as Hero to making a character.

Random - Three Styles of Fate

When it comes to Fate, I generally prefer to match the dial-heavy Strands of Fate's character creation with the smooth game play of Fate Core. That said, Random's magic, narrative as it is, sometimes feels like it would work best in a Fate Core sort of character creation where her emulations are represented purely by Aspects rather than flat numbers. That said, the complexity of Strands of Fate is still interesting.

For the difference between Strands and Fate Core, I did a small rant about that some years back.

Random - Hero System 6th Edition

Random

Hero System 6th edition is very versatile, but sometimes it is a bit difficult to tell whether or not you have taken the most efficient method of achieving your desired effect. I could have done the emulations as a multipower and I'm not entirely sure that all the sample emulations are, by default, legal but the book does allow for modifying things when it makes thematic sense.

5e Random - Avatar of Storied Monsters

The basic premise of Random pretty much requires a modern setting so using D&D you would have to use some of the advice on playing D&D in a modern society setting which can be found in Unearthed Arcana and the DMG. Another important note is that the sort of flavor that is supported by D&D's rules is not the same flavor of game that Random was imagined for. Namely, Random's powers have oddly specific and arbitrary rules, which isn't that different from D&D spells, but the odd and arbitrary rules that Random exists under are different from the odd and arbitrary rules that D&D spellcasters operate under. As such, this is a case where you have to reduce the character down to a raw concept.

Random is a very stealthy, fear-provoking character that invokes the abilities of creatures drawn from scary stories. If this weren't a modern-setting D&D game, then it would be from the more horrific fairy tales and myths of the world. She also has access to an entire demi-plane of her own. Unfortunately, that is not something that a starting character would usually have access to in D&D so we're going to assume that this is early in her development.