How do you view creativity in D&D?

Honestly a druid swapping out wisdom for intelligence might be a more interesting transmutation wizard than the one we got given by WotC. People in these worlds shouldn't know the difference between a druid, a wizard and a warlock, so why do we act like they have to be set in stone?

Your opening bit is literally the reason for me learning to become a DM. Couldn't stand hearing people shut down all those awesome idea's just because it wasn't how things were 'historically'. Awesome vid

Flavor is free! I agree!

This is what I am talking about! While I may understand the desire to have some consistency for say Adventures League play, or to avoid analysis paralysis, being this creative and flexible is part of the joy of TTRPGs. This is a refreshing outlook and one that I will certainly try to take to heart.

I played a bard as a magical researcher. Expertise in arcana really helps, Jack of all trades makes you a better counterspeller, and magical secrets is such a flavorful thing for a researcher. I reflavored cutting words as a divination ability, and handing out inspiration as an abjuration ward.

"The Two DMs" part of this video is a pure masterpiece. I am obsessed with it. Incredibly committed and very good content. I am so glad there are people like you out there. Keep going!

I L♥️OVE the Druid idea! I could see it thematically, a person who studies nature in an academic way. Druids can be good blasters like a Wizards and excellent controllers like Wizards. Heck even Land Druids get Natural Recovery so they can clearly play like a Wizard.

Your ideas are exactly that 'Your Ideas' and there is no rule of life that says your ideas and thoughts have to match those of all others. I love the quirky ideas you come up with, they make me think about my characters in new and exciting ways.

I freaking love this outlook

That's true. If you look at Ged (Sparrow Hawk from "A Wizard of Earthsea"), when he was apprenticed to Ogion, his training involved learning all about plants and animals. You could argue that he was a druid until he went to Roke.

Thank you! A couple of weeks ago I commented on your wizard video about my wizard who used his magic like a rule exploitation of the rules of nature. Your druid idea reminds me so much of that character and I'm glad to see you post a video on this subject because it some time and effort to get my DM to okay the character because it felt so weird to her and we've been enjoying it ever since.

I'm glad to watch a video like this, I have a hard time coming up with characters that don't fit a class trope of some kind since it just feels "wrong" to me. I find this especially difficult to do with Barbarians, Paladins, Clerics, and Monks.

The DM is a player as well and having consistent methods of how powers come about can be very useful for world building.

This reminds me of a video I made a while back where I tried to make a Dad character for every class in D&D. It was a lot of fun and allowed me to stretch my imagination. The Paladin Dad swore an oath to protect his family, no matter the cost.

i am so on board with this! Your character doesn’t need to know what’s in the handbook or the character sheet.

I haven't watched the video yet, but the thumbnail speaks to me. I have a Tortle Circle of Land (Coast) Druid in my campaign right now, and he's more wizardy than our actual Wizard. He goes by Gramps, and he's long been fascinated by magic and theology, and how to sort of better line these things up with his traditional, Druidic understanding of the world. For the bulk of his life, however, he was the leader of his village, and in his culture, this isn't just a political office, but also one of spiritual guidance and education for the youth. This position is granted by seabirds who pick out a Tortle to use as a netting site each spring, and Gramps was chosen for more than 30 consecutive years-- longer than anyone else his village history. This previous year though, the birds finally allowed him to retire, and he's taking the opportunity to leave his island home and go on a bucket list trip around the world to finally explore and investigate some of the questions he's long had, and to find a specific book he's long suspected to hold the key to uniting the different perspectives living in his head. Meanwhile, Norman, our Conjuration Wizard grew up a prince of a magically-driven Elven nation and studied magic growing up because he was simply expected to. Being the youngest of his siblings, he had no real chance of being an heir, but he never really felt the royal life anyways. So, one day he just took off and became a traveling problem solver for the common folk, sometimes using his magic to help them, but mostly using it to entertain children. Now, having stumbled into the war that's central to the campaign while just trying to help a small village innkeeper, he's learning that his magical skills were never meant for this type of shit.

Reminds me of my scholar/librarian that learned his magic from books and studies, and knew a bit of everything because of how much he had read in his lifetime. Lore Bard is crazy :) Then there is my time manipulator, able to look into the future or even rewind time to avoid an outcome. Battlemaster Fighter is chock full of flavor potential.

I love this idea and it's something I've been actively trying to do when I make a character to add a "spin" to the character. I recently played with a straight class Samurai Fighter who I introduced to the table as a "non-magical Bard who just happens to be really good at shooting arrows". He's a typical sharpshooter build but by mixing and matching class features, backgrounds, and flavor, I was able to give him proficiency in a musical instrument, Persuasion and Performance, and decent bonuses to Charisma checks. I then asked the DM to give me a free ribbon feature that allows me to modify any bow I have so I can use it as my instrument. No real mechanical benefit, but I love the idea of having a harpbow / lyrebow.

Lol! That quote, at the end. DMG pg 6.! I use it a see a "that's not RAW or RAI" argument. Every change to the game is Raw if the DM says so,

I'm here from the Dungeon Coach, and I'm already glad to be here! Time to start binge-watching

Suck a breath of fresh air. I do this type of thing all the time. think of character consepts and mess around, putting them into different classes. Or taking a classes mechanics and reflavoring it. I have not done it to the extent that you have in your videos, well, not often at least. I love what you said about classes/ races/ what ever, being descriptive not prescriptive. Looking at it that way, you could make just about anything and wrap it around the rules. I have so many ideas now. Thanks

I hope 2022 brings you much more success with your amazing channel and less interference from gate keepers!

here's a play on warlock with a real world spin: their patron is their imagination. i call it the pact of chaos warlock (based on chaos magic from real world theology). basically, their pact is that their belief in their magic is what causes it to be real. there's a species in dnd already that operates on a similar function, but i can't remember their name. all i remember is that their encounters with adventurers usually result in a demi-god clone of one of the player characters that turns out to be much stronger than the original. this demigod clone is basically the conjuration of how members of that species perceive others (since they're weak, they tend to exaggerate the difference in their minds).

I have a Genie:Djinn Patron Warlock completely reskinned into one of those famed Star Fleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators. He was transported to the D&D world by his "patron" Q. All of his invocations and spells are reskinned into various Star Trek technologies. For instance Eldritch Blast makes and easy Phaser and Misty Step is just his short-range site-to-site transporter, etc.

funny thing about druids is that if I remember right is that in older editions, Druids were simply Nature Clerics, aka specialized Clerics, and I find that niffy

"Set in stone" when discussing terrestrial vs aquatic goblins... my pun-loving self approves!

great stuff! Monks in my mind are the 4th half-casting magus/gish class that just default to spell points instead of pact magic spell slots.

I don't know whether I like this or not, but I definitely want to review some of these ideas to see if the rules-as-written "crunch" can support these ideas.

I had an idea for a Warlock where their patron is madly in love with them, and the power they give are gifts of love and have very lovey-dovey designs and cute soft colors

For me the rule that is kinda set in stone regarding classes is: the core mechanics of a class (regardless of how we call them) must be in (table's) world justified. He's my general, incomplete and non-completely-binding list: Warlock: has neither training not instinct/talent for magic but is empowered by a powerful source. Sorcerer: gains or inherits powers and has instinct/talent for it. Barbarian: a champion, good at bringing the enemies down Wizard: vast and ever expending knowledge, trained in magical abilities. Rogue: the professional, expert/better than anyone at a set of skills and abilities. Some are fluid of cours, some subclase wouldn't fit such descriptions, and that's fine, you'll have to find the core of that particular subclass. I encourage creativity but I'm a generally a stickler to the "the exploration has to make sense" rule.

Dungeon coach gave you a shout out and i watched a few of your awesome vids. Keep going

Im actually playing a Circle of stars druid, that fit more into a Wizard stereotype. She is an astronomy nerd, and studied the stars for many years now. I love her story and the relationship she have with her master, who teach her everything he knows. Fuck stereotypes (excuse my english, im not a native speaker).

oh holy crap i just had a great idea: a mad scientist who injects themselves to cause rapid and temporary mutations that greatly enhance certain characteristics such as strength or speed. this one's a druid

Solid video. Creativity is key.

Great video! And I’m a big fan of you alternative class origins series! I’d love to see you do a blood hunter episode, even though it’s not technically “official” yet

Love this! Yes to everything you said!

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much ❤️ Loved the video, love the idea behind it. There will always be conservative side or more strong-headed one and some of them will be heard loud no matter what we do. So just know, that there are many people who received the message and couldn't agree more. Much love and success ❤️

The first dnd character i made was a death domain cleric who was forced to serve an undead god(?) after their forces laid waste to her hometown. Now she is working under him to gain enough power to bring back her dead fiance and family who were killed by this undead god. I have another character that is a warlock by class but actually doesnt serve a higher power but rather has trapped a celestial and is using its power for himself. I really like dancing around class tropes and build characters around that.

I love Druid with bunch wizard tropes idea. I’ve made that exact character years ago except they had a more medical gothic literature mad scientist spin. They studied natural philosophy or natural sciences. The wild shapes being a result of science experimentation on themselves that went wrong. Basically a Dr. Frankenstein & Dr Jekyll hybrid except with idea what if my mad scientist defining trait was kindness. So in short, I love this sort idea playing against trope is so fun for me!

I use the lore as a jumping off point, Wizard of the coast isn't looking over my table, it a player had a cool idea I believe if it enhances their enjoyment and doesn't detriment another player I will find a way to let them do it as I see it as "this is creative and this game is meant to be creative for all players

I'm digging this concept and I'm an old school DM. There has been a shift with Wizards in the most recent years to allow for a more generic "skeleton" for classes (and to an extent race), and I have a feeling that it's to specifically cater to the freedom explored in your video. With just the skeletal frame defined, it allows players (and DMs) the ability to get VERY crafty. My question is... while players have been doing custom builds for their characters, what custom builds are you Dungeon Masters putting into your game for your players to encounter?

Words to live by :)

This reminds me of my lore bard charachter. Who I played more similar to a wizard RP wise, as a scholar wanting to collect stories and other lore on her travels. So instead of bluff persuasion etc I took a bunch of knowledge skills.

My second character is a musician and a craftsman. He is a lvl 4 artificer

I dub thee "Trope Slayer"!

The one Druid I ever played was a party animal to his core, and a god in mortal form. I was heavily inspired by Bacchae Dionysus and chose satyr for that fey/not human vibe. Spells I chose were the following: charm person, call lightning, polymorph, sleep (fey touched feat), heat metal, and detect thoughts (telepathic feat, which allowed me to communicate silently in and out of wildshape) Yes I used the traditional stats (although he heavily leaned on all mental stats) he was mischievous, would absolutely ruin some random person’s life for his amusement (telepathic feat communication is NASTY. My DM ruled it that you can change the sound of your inner voice) Always remember: flavor is FREE

Thats what i awas telling my friends for years! Now i have a video so that i can link it

Doctor Strange is essentially a wizard even though he's called the Sorcerer Supreme, judging by how he learned magic. (Maybe even a Warlock multiclass because of the Darkhold stuff)

Id be happy to join a session where it's a-okay to swap spellcasting abilities without any problems.

My first character didn't speak, he could only growl or bark. He was a blue dragonborn barbarian raised by wolves. Since he never communicated a name the party referred to him as "nameless." When the DM first introduced him she describing him charging out of woods, half-naked, howling, and carrying a great axe pillaged off some bandits. The other party members were surrounded by cultists and the wild magic sorcerer had just cast confusion on himself and the party got hyped up thinking my big tanky character would save the day. The first roll I ever made was a nat one. The rusty great axe's immediately imbedded itself deep in the ground. So deciding to roleplay my character starting to fight like a wolf, biting the cultists, and with some high rolls (no nat twenties though) I managed to rescue the party after releasing my blast of lightning breath with a few hit points left. Nameless never "raged" he just got hungry. I think I'd like to play him again in a future campaign, now that I have more experience with DnD, and more books with interesting feats and the updated chromatic dragonborn have been released.

Again for those in the back "CLASSES ARE DESCRIPTIVE NOT PRESCRIPTIVE" Reapeat after me "YES DESCRIPTIVE, NOT PRESCRIPTIVE" good job!

All I'll say to this one is an Amen

Its a good conversation. Something I think about is how can the experience of a game be enriched by having abilities have a deeper connection with the lore of the setting, not just the "flavor" but the meaning and themes and drama of a game. For instance, in the Dark Sun setting it is very important that defiling magic sucks the life out of the world and preserving magic tends to be weaker but is more ecologically sustainable. Also there are no gods in Dark Sun. That is consistent with the themes, meaning and stakes of the world and games in it. If we are playing a Dark Sun game then I expect everyone to share that understanding. I think if someone changed defiling magic and reflavored it as coming from a good god, then that would actually reduce the meaning and themes of the world by working against them. In Dark Sun the nature and sources of magic is a core theme and part of the drama of the world. Dark Sun is an example of a setting that a DM could make with deep themes that the magic system and abilities of characters is built around. And if the players agreed to play in that game and with its themes there are many ways to be creative within restriction (most artists will say that restrictions are an important prompt for creativity). The Exalted game is similar in a way - the nature of different kinds of magic are tied to the history of the world in a pretty tight way and engaging with the themes of different kinds of characters is a very rich kind of play and the restrictions can be a source of creativity. And agreeing to restrictions and shared rules is also a part of a game. That game can deviate from the PHB or any rulebook in every imaginable way, but there are big benefits in sharing meanings and the restrictions that can come with them within a group. But most D&D games aren't like that and don't have such tight themes and meanings, so in those games its less important if the group shares an idea of how magic works or what its limits are or where it comes from. So in these cases the players can each go in their own different direction as far as assigning meaning. Its sort of magical and thematic anarchy. So that is a distinction that I think is important in applying what you are saying. Is experimentation with overall themes and meanings happening at the group/shared setting level or at the individual player level?

Awesome Channel!!!!

Great vid found this channel Through The Dungeon Coach referring you.

8:14 - that clairsentient ranger could swap out the 50ish Red/Green spells for White/Blue spells instead from the wizard spell list to add some unique spell offers to compliment the creative flavor, like arcane eye, actual clairvoyance, etc. I would actually love building that out.

I think maybe the reason you get that "negative" reaction might be because of the "Better [Class]" phrase in the thumbnail, so people jump in to defend the classical concept of the respective class

FINALLY!!! This is what I have been saying for years! People should learn to separate what I have always called Flavour and Mechanic. The way class mechanics are written are full of flavour along with the mechanics. I always disregard the flavour of a class and work with the player to Crete their own flavour and lore. For example with the Warlock spell casting. The flavour of the pact magic is that they get their magic by making a deal with their patron, that I in no way the mechanic. The mechanic of their spell casting is that they have 1 spell slot at 1st level which come back on a short rest with X amount of known spells and cantrips. I boil all the classes down to their bare mechanics and then work with my players who want to play those classes and build up their own lore and reasons behind how and why they have those abilities and what they look like when used. A warlock of the Arch Fae may have a forest look to their spells with leaves roots and fire flies with neon vibrant colours, like their Eldritch Blast looking vibrant green with buzzing bees and leaves trailing it. But a warlock of the Great Old Ones may have all their magics looks like darkness and black smoke or sickly energy so their Eldritch Blast might look all black trailing whips of shadow.

I have a divine soul sorcerer/celestial warlock and played as a cleric (that worships his matron - deathpact angel).

7:40 It sounds like you start with the mechanics before working out the concept. I have recently been working opposite that, where I begin with a concept and work out the mechanics that work with it. In case it comes off this way, not saying there's anything wrong with your way, just wanted to share the apparent difference in how we create characters.

i had a backup character i was planning out yesterday/today and i was wanting to play a way of the elements monk (the homebrew subclass seen in high rollers campaign 1) but monks have been said to be devout followers of a monastic tradition and my character i had planned up was anything but that, the origin i chose was the haunted one because it gave a bit of a warlock patron flavor just for a background, and a fallen aasimar but after this, i realize i could still play that character how i wanted to roleplay wise and have that event be what has awoken this latent power within them even tho thats not exactly how its supposed to be

Every Class as an Alchemist: Quick warning, certain spells are harder to justify such as summoning creatures. However, as a creative player, you might find an inventive workaround. All Casters: Grab Alchemist Supplies and Tinker Tools from the background. Poisoner's Kit and Herbalism kit are also useful. Grabbing Medicine is useful too. Now for Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks, you flavor your spell casting as chucking grenades. Some spells might be flavored as poisons and potions you administer. Some spells will be easier to re-flavour than others. For spell slots, these are the concoctions you prepared in advance. For concentration checks, you have a sprinkler (like that used in churches) to sprinkle fluid onto an alchemical effect. Let's say a creature is under the effects of Haste. This will ware off, however by flicking small amounts of fluid you can prolonge the effect. If your concentration is broken, you flick an imprecise amount of fluid or miss the target altogether causing the effect to end. All Casters Modifiers: Intelligence represents the knowledge of different alchemical ingredients and recipes for crafting them. Wisdom represents you intuitively knowing how to mix ingredients, however, you would have a hard time explaining how you did it, kind of like you being able to run, but not understanding how running works. Charisma represents creativity, performance, and flair. You are flashy and experimental but don't really have a firm grasp of what you're doing. Bardic Inspiration: A potion that assists allies. Certain Bard subclass features might have the feature be used offensively (such as cutting words), in which case this is a poison you throw at your enemies. Blood Hunter: All of the classes and subclasses are the result of using blood as an alchemical ingredient. This class has an alchemical vibe about it anyway, so using blood alchemy isn't too far of a stretch. If you want to take out the edge you could do the alchemy without the blood, but why did you pick the Blood Hunter if you are squeamish about blood? Channel Divinity (Bards and Paladins): For Clerics and Paladins, you use your Alchemist Supplies to craft special explosives. Divine Favour could be flavored as an experimental alchemical concoction that you craft but cannot reliably replicate. Infusions (Artificers): This is a tough one. Some infusions such as Googles of Night (a night vision potion) or Alchemical Jug (you're just performing alchemy) are easy to justify. However, a Bag of Holding for example is a tough one. Smites and Auras (Paladins): For casting see All Casters. Smites are interesting. Hopefully, you can change the damage type because there are so many flavoring opportunities. With Poison or Necrotic Smites, you have poisoned your weapon. If the game master insists on Smites being Radiant, then maybe you are throwing a fire flask at the target whilst hitting them. Your auras could be you throwing an explosive that enhances your allies. Warriors (All Martial Classes): Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, and Rogues all have features that can be explained by drinking potions. Instead of grabbing Alchemist Supplies gab Herbalism Kit proficiency instead. Barbarian Rages, Fighter's Second Wind and Action Surges, Monk's Ki abilities, and Rogue's Sneak Attack can all be explained by drinking potions that enhance your body. Some features might be justified by poisoning a target. Examples include Sneak Attack being a poisoned weapon and Stunning Strike being a poison blast. If you choose Battlemaster Fighter you could use poisons and potions to mimic the tactics. Wild Shape (Druids): You drink a potion and transform. You might not necessarily transform into a beast. Maybe you mutate into some hideous monster. You can have a lot of fun with this one.

This is why my classes are always *mechanically* distinct, not lore abiding. As long as it's congruent with the setting I'm running.

Hot Take/ Unpopular opinion: Mage, Priest, Rogue and Warrior are the only "base" classes everything else can be accomplished via subclasses (some of which should be available to more than one base class along the lines of the Strixhaven UA) or prestige classes.

I currently have a modern game running and pretty soon my fighter player who uses a gun is going to multiclass into chronurgy wizard and flavor it more as artificeresqe

That exact concept of a Druid was my former Circle of Stars Druid with the Sage Background for a Wildemount Campaign and backstory elements that had to be removed for the “lore” for it. Seeing this video I feel so utterly vindicated from it. As well as excited to remake this character once more for a possible future Netherdeep game! Just found the channel and this video is my dnd philosophy through and through!

I wonder what is your opinion on my concept of drow who creates a pact with the goddess Eilistraee (goddess of the moon and good drow) but is neither warlock nor cleric but a moon druid, is this a creative concept you had in mind? It seems to me it is withing working of D&D rules, without any homebrew of modification and yet is not as intended.

When I was a younger DM, I just was so desperate to have the "traditional" D&D experience... To recreate the first couple of games I ever played. My players absolutely wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted to build bonkers out of the box builds. When I finally gave up and accepted my fate (and the fact that it genuinely became more interesting to me for them to be outside the box)... they collectively came together to decide "Hey! This box is pretty nice, I like it, I think all of my future characters are going to be in it". lol. Its not bad though... the ultimate take away from those early experiences is to let go of the illusion that I have any control over what those idiots are doing

Depends on your world lore, maybe a druid can only become beast like by giving in to their nature, not by intellectual understanding. Real creativity is what you do with the rules given to you, boundaries challenge creativity and make everything come together in a grounded way. I love boundaries, it's the best way to force me to find creative solutions, especially in a world that is already as open as dnd. To just change the way a class work and invent a note that's never been played before is pretty low level creativity anyway, it's the way the character play and interact, the way you tie everything together, that's where the real creativity come in.

Awesome video, I love it! I've tried this, but sadly most of my previous DM's didn't like reflavouring or found it too complicated. My current DM is awesome though, allowing us to go wild with roleplay and did allow an idea of mine, but he didn't really understand what I was going for and I eventually just gave up trying to roleplay it. But with all the DM's plot twists and diologue referring to my character as a dragonborn, I can't help but feel a little disappointed. I was trying to run a bronze dragonborn path of the beast barbarian, who was actially a true dragon cast into a mortal body by Bahamut as a punishment for his sins. When the path of the beast traits activate, he tries to shapeshift back into his dragon form, but cannot manage it, becoming more like a bipedal guard drake, swiping foes with his tail or crushing them in his jaws. Despite being cast out, he reveres Bahamut and prays daily for forgiveness, trying with all his might to do better, and to learn to respect the mortals he previously so callously disregarded. I can understand his hesitancy though, it is an interesting concept to incorporate to say the least 😭

The lore more often than not gets in the way of interesting characters and concepts. Sit down and look at wizards in some of the most popular book series about wizards. Particularly Lord of the Rings and Earthsea. The wizards in those worlds are druids. All the spells they cast are Druid spells and class features in D&D game mechanics. You want to play a Summoner in D&D? Your best bet is to go Echo Knight fighter with sage, scholar, or hermit background, and take 2 to 5 levels of war wizard.

My cleric had her powers gifted to her by her god, knows close to nothing about him and is not proficient in religion

One day I will play a class straight. One day

I can see reflavoring for some purposes But theres some things you are expected to follow by, as a barbarian you are expected to be a savant of combat, sturdy and have a powerful ability to imbue yourself with in order to enhance yourseld I constantly reflavor the barbarian somce ive played them from the basic hulk out mode, to a focused battle mantra that only designates ally and enemy, not worrying about wounds or harm to ones self, then theres a rage driven by a demonic posession or what have you But a cleric whowas forced to worship a devil just sounds like you wanna play a warlock, clerics are devout channelers and worshippers of a god, the learn and adapt to cast these holy spells they are given, where as worlocks dont get anything they can really control and thats why they get such a different casting So many of these things atleast pre determine atleast a part of your character But im going to be honest about the druid bit, i like it since they werent some swampy hermits but rather respected shamans, religious leaders, teachers, diviners and peacemakers I love reflavoring druids a lot but not to the extent they take away from the core of the class Wanna play a knight in shinning armor? Paladin or Fighter Wanna play an armorless whirlwond of steel and death, barbarian Wanna play a character with an inborn ability to mold and customize their abilities as they see fit? Sorcerer

I would just do what the glasses guy in the skit is doing but still call them what they should be like, the smart studious caster who uses nature magic? use the progression of druid but call him a nature wizard in game (maybe he wanted to polymorph himself and focused on that for a while and that focus on nature magic limited his versatility)

Loved the intro, now to Wattpad

It drives me crazy when I see comments of people complaining how other people play. Honestly, if people are having fun, let them play however they like. The rules are meant to be guidelines and not set in stone.

I don't think it's fair to say that good DM should always allow anything that doesn't mess with mechanics, no matter what else. They may want some consistency to the game world, and it's also OK. With that being said, I guess in most cases it's totally fine and may be really interesting.

I think you got the prescription description mixed up in a way that is confusing, as your talking about the background and lore of the class, and not the mechanics of how it works. You could say "follow the prescription of the class but go wild in the description." Like how artificer encourages the flavor description of devices used to cast your spells you can do the same for other classes. I'd say try to do stuff in a way that makes sense to the flavor of the mechanics. Like a cyborg/warforged that uses the warlock class would be quite thematic to the mechanics of invocations being physical augmentations and has limited potent energy for bigger things(spells). would have to ditch the idea of the patron. But tbh I try to ditch that anyway.

Allowing your players to redefine where their powers come from opens the door to allowing them to have powers the book does not grant. An example in the video is a ranger who can view into the future to navigate. Your flavor suggestion has now created a potential disappointment situation when the ranger's player wants to look into the future for reasons other than navigation and can't actually do that.

Love this. Personally I hate the classic bard trope, it seems weird and musical magic doesn't make sense to me. However there are a lot of interesting bard mechanics that I reflavored into a 'mage' for myself.

Druids don't "wear" metal armor Warforged incorporate armor into themselves sl they don't "wear" them as it's their "skin" Warforged are basically "magically animated wooden/stone/metal statues" so they can look anyway So I wanted to play a warforged as a cyborg. My DM is new so he was "unsure" about the idea. I told him then I'll just play armorer, the armor replaces missing limbs. He said ok. So I asked him why can't I play a warforged as a cyborg but cam play any character as an armorer cyborg? He was now convinced and he said sure. Now, from that it turns out we're playing a post Mass Effect Reaper invasion on Earth with DnD in a Horizon: Zero Dawn style just because I convinced my DM to let me play a cyborg and from there his fantasy went wild🤷‍♂️ A character idea might shape an entire setting😉 I'm now a cyborg warforged twilight cleric wildfire druid that has a dragonborn-like appearance summoning beasts of metal and having a "in life" appearance mini-bot wildfire spirit with a jetpack. My artificer builds are just az sci-fantasy😁

Yes frigging yes I have a character called myngs who’s a monk but he is stupid and is drunk as hell

Making it look like everyone who wants to play another way is not cool. Especially if its a DM friendly trying to keep his worlds lore or the vanilla rules intact. Its already hard enough without players getting more and more the idea they should be allowed to do whatever at every table. No matter the kind of game.

U tell people to find a new group but don’t offer any tools or resources to do so. Thanks