I know that in AL you cannot change the mechanic of the game, but can you change the fluff?
For example: I want to create a sorcerer, but I want an fiendish aura (instead of being the descandant of a fire dragon I want to be the descendant of a powerfull fiend)
So dragon resilience become fiendish resilience: My skin get a leathery texture offering me 13+dex AC and increase my HP by 1 per level.
By raw I will still have advantage on charisma check against dragon and learn draconic, but can I cahgne that for advantage against fiend and know infernal?
My elemental ancestry will be fire.
Elemental affinity nothing change
Dragon wing become demon wing, they give the same speed and bonus, but look like demon wings instead of dragon wings
The ability level 18, the dragon presence become demoninc presence, but work the same as the dragon presence
Is this legal? or does AL cannot even change the fluff?
QwertyAzerty wrote:
Kalani gave a beautiful response.
If you were to ever do this in a home game, I would think a little more about which kind of fiend you have an affinity with. Looking at the fiends in the monster manual, the largest families are devils, yugoloths, and demons. You want to have "demonic presence", yet the language you choose is not the demon's language by the devil's language. That stood out to me.
Kalani wrote:
You are 100% correct in respect to languages gained via race/background - and that would also be my recommendation to anyone wanting to create this character. They would also have Draconic as a language (via class), and still have advantage on charisma checks vs. dragons however... This only further reinforces my suggestion about having an abashi ancestry.
However, I wanted to keep my answer concise, and in an effort to prevent confusion - I kept my answer specific to the refluff examples listed in the OP.
- Choosing Infernal as a racial/background language, or via the linguist feat - perfectly acceptable.
- Replacing a class feature however (even with an almost identical feature), is a definate no-no.
Because I do not like sweeping the inherent confusion under the rug (it always works its way out, and its much better to just keep it in the open so it might get cleaned up 
) if you roleplay it well, the DM might still give you advantage on a charisma checks against a fiend. You just cannot expect or demand a DM do so, because that would be attempted rules modification.
Best of both worlds, tie yourself to Ashardalon?
thanks guys, I'm not looking for a back story for my sorcerer, I was just curious on where is the limit of refluffing within AL. So I can change the fluff, as long that it doesn't change the mechanic, how does it work with paladin tenets? can I take the oath of vengeance, and change the tenets to make it more lawful evil for example?
Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil. I choose the greater evil. Would become: Proove your strenght: you fight the strongest enemies to proove your strenght
No Mercy for the Wicked. Ordinary foes might win my mercy, but my sworn enemies do not. Would become : kill the weak since they are not worth living, but enslave the stronger one since they can be usefull.
By Any Means Necessary. My qualms can’t get in the way of exterminating my foes. This can stay unchanged
Restitution. If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. I must help those harmed by their misdeeds. If my foe ruin the world I need to kill him, but those he harm are too weak to be worth my time
as long that my tenets do not become disruptive in the group, can I change them or does the paladin Tenets are consider as mechanics?
Once again I'm interested in knowing the limit of what can be refluff and what is consider mechanic and cannot be changed.
A Paladins tenants are a grey area. They are written like fluff but appear to be me mechanical limitations on role playing. As such, I would not alter them in any way until we know otherwise.
Even still, there are lots of ways to role play them. Examples are given in the paladin class of Paladins who strive to live up to their oaths but fail - Paladins with conflicted loyalties struggling to balance the tenants of their oath with those of their faith/God, etc.
I think the easiest way to look at it is if what you change gives you some kind of advantage, even if it is not strictly mechanicaly. To steal from another thread, you cannot refluff a two-man tent into a four or six-man tent for the same price. You can refluff a longsword into a katana if you change none of the stats, but if you want your katana to do more damage, then you cannot do that. I would also say, for example, that refluffing something that gives you fire resistance into giving you cold resistance instead is not legal. On paper that seems an even trade and not an advantage, however, in the right adventures it would be. So be careful what you change, as not all DMs will agree with you on what is pure fluff and what is not, and be prepared to have DMs tell you to use the text as written while you are at their tables.
It doesn't have to give you an advantage to be a houserule - it just has to change something mechanical.
Fluff =/= crunch
If what you are changing alters crunch, you are disallowed. If it is purely fluff (a 100% cosmetic reskin), go for it.
You could have your fireball look like a flaming skull, which explodes on contact, the explosion itself taking the form of a giant grinning skull made out of fire and smoke (which quickly dissipates). It will still deal 8d6 fire damage in a 20-foot radius (save for half), and be easily identified as a fireball - but its specific appearance can vary.
You could also refluff material components (both costly and non-costly). Instead of using bat guano, your fireball might use a small rodent skull (non-costly component). Likewise, instead of using 500gp of diamond dust, your raise dead might instead use a 500gp lapis which you crush (magically) and sprinkle across the deceased (esp. if you worship a Mulhorandi deity such as Isis).
Mechanically, the spells are identical - but cosmetically, using lapis vs. diamond makes the characters unique.
Likewise, my leprecaun (err.... Forest Gnome) wizard might keep his component "pouch" inside his iron pot. When casting spells, he might reach into his pot, manipulate the material components and wave his hands. Visually, his spells might appear to originate from the pot in a burst of rainbow color.
Or the fact that my Wizard is a leprecaun (refluffed forest gnome) named Malkyn Fenris who wears "fine clothes" which have been refluffed to look like a green velvet suit and matching tophat.
Kalani wrote:
Kalani wrote:
Pauper wrote:
Pauper wrote:
Kalani wrote:
Kalani wrote:
Those items you listed in the spoiler don't fall under gems, art objects, jewelry or trade goods. As such, no - they would not be converted automatically - although in most Expeditions, such items do give a GP value for such items if they are sold (selling such objects is optional though). In respect to looted armor - unless it is specifically listed as treasure, it becomes useless at the end of session. I assume the armor in DDEX1-2 is lootable treasure, in which case yes the PCs can keep it.
Several of my characters have looted such items from the adventure with the intention of keeping them (and in all but one instance, the item was kept).
Kalani wrote:
I think 'automatically' is shorthand for 'the DM isn't allowed to f' the party over by not allowing them to find a buyer for treasure that isn't neatly divided by the number of party members'.
That makes perfect sense, since that's basically just a restatement of the rule that DMs shouldn't arbitrarily reduce the treasure gained from an adventure.
Interpreting the phrase to imply that the characters must take all gems, jewelry, and art objects in the form of gold and can't choose just to keep the objects themselves seems a bit extreme to me.
--
Pauper
Kalani wrote:
It is something of a technicality and is more for bookkeeping purposes probably, but the way I see it, the rule goes like this: The party finds a 500gp diamond. It cannot be used for anything during the scenario because it is converted to gold automatically to be split between the party members. If someone wants to keep the diamond, and their share of the treasure found is at least 500gp, then they actually have to take the gold and buy a 500gp diamond with their share of the treasure, rather than pocketing the one found. Basically the same as saying you just want to keep the one found, but with more steps for you to record on your character sheet and logsheet to show you followed the AL rules.
I think people are getting way to concerned with some of the minutia of the guidelines.
Its just meant to simplify the game. It is meant to prevent a couple of things
1) If there is a large gem that can't otherwise be split. 5 players, you find 600gp and a 400gp diamond. This 'rule' says just give everyone 200gp and be done with it.
2) Prevents annoying bookkeeping. "Okay Tordek, your portion of the loot is the 12gp broach, the 5 gp copper cup, the 20gp candlestick, 5 of the garnets and 2 rubies. Malia, you get......"
The rule is meant to simplify things. If you want to keep a gem or broach or whatever as part of your treasure... go for it.
QwertyAzerty wrote:
Kalani wrote:
RCanine wrote:
Pauper wrote:
TheBreen wrote:
Pauper wrote:
TheBreen wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
My table did Tomb of moving stones tonight. When llarack used shield i described it as a barrier that looked like earth and rocks appearing around him which intercepted their attacks. I also told them it was a shield spell so there was no confusion. That it an good example of refluff imo.
The actual fight was pretty epic. It took 8 rounds for the party to kill him. He got to use every one of his 1st-3rd spell slots. The party spread around the room to explore and the first person to get within 60 ft(darkvision) spotted him hiding at the same time he entered the lanterns light. First character that went moved up and destroyed the lantern so bbeg used a lv 3 shatter on the paladin who immediately asked for healing muaahaha. Had the party bunched together he would have used Slow.
The party had major issues getting past the shield spell. They also tried to faerie fire him but he saved. Eventually the paladin grappled him, but he couldnt knock him down because of his unyielding ability. Meanwhile llarack was spamming earth tremor to hit 2-3 characters a turn. But my damage rolls were terrible so they were able to use some healing abilities to heal back up.
Bbeg spent a couple rounds trying to escape the grapple but couldnt get away. After he used his reaction to not get knocked over a character finished him off with magic missiles from the wand. Lv 5 spellcasters with 22ac are nasty for lv 2s! They used 2 heals, lay on hands, hunters mark, hex, faerie fire, and the half orc used his orcish ferocity, with 2 other pcs being at below 5 hp. Perfect!
Sounds awesome, Byakugan01!
Byakugan01 wrote:
Pauper wrote:
(dragging a 21 ac paladin away is deceptively easy) or creative acrobatics for NPCs
Good tactics deserve rewards, but by the umpteenth time its time for trickeryimaginaryfriend wrote:
imaginaryfriend wrote:
QwertyAzerty wrote:
imaginaryfriend wrote:
QwertyAzerty wrote:
most of the spell casters in season 2 have pre-programmed spells that ignore AC, grant advantage against armored foes, or just do AE saves. Particularly there are a lot of npcs with magic missile, thunderwave, and shatter in the early parts. The black earth priests get to do 2x 4d8 shatters in a day which is pretty nasty. It seems they did a better job with spellcasters options in Princes. Actually they seem on the deadly side to me. They have much better acs and hitpoints than last season.
We aren't exactly very far into the module yet, but most of what I have seen sofar has been on 10-foot scale..
Also it isn't hard for 2 lackeys to grapple a PC at all....1 Helps, the other grapples with advantage...normal stuffs have +2 or more strength bonus so he's looking at a 1-3 point deficit tops. The ac 20(22) paladin in my group does change combat calculations though. There is a fine line between trying to kill the guy in front of you and ignoring the boring hunk of metal to eat the tasty squishies. Automatic crits in 5e also keeps things interesting since it don't matter how high his ac is, a 20 still brings the pain.
imaginaryfriend wrote: