Colville West Marches

Class Errata

• Subclasses are not restricted by race.
  
  
• Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional Class Features are allowed
  
  
• College of Spirits Spiritual Focus Starting at 6th level, when you cast a bard spell that deals damage or restores hit points while holding the Spiritual Focus, roll a d6, and you gain a bonus to one damage or healing roll of the spell equal to the number rolled.
  
  
• Order of Hibernation's Wrathful Conduit is limited to expanding wizard Hit Dice up to your proficiency modifier.
  
  
• The Horned One's Horned Hunter counts as a weapon attack the purpose of Hunters Mark and similar spells.

Starting Equipment

Players may choose to use the starting equipment given by their characters class and background or they can roll there starting wealth. Either way, they also start with an additional gold detailed below.

Level/Tier	Starting Gold
3	50gp + 1d4 x 10gp, normal starting equipment
5	100gp + 1d4 x 10gp, normal starting equipment
9	1000gp + 1d10 x 100gp, normal starting equipment
13	5000gp + 1d10 x 250gp, normal starting equipment
17	10000gp + 1d10 x 500gp, normal starting equipment

Pantheon

The pantheon used in Farwater, and the continent of Ofithar is the Pantheon of the Forgotten Realms.

Character Development

Character development relies heavily on the player. Please be sure your character has a reason for having come to Farwater. From there you can develop your character in the roleplay channels. You may also request quests that help to progress your characters story or goals.

Individual DMs are not likely to know the narrative of your character. You will need to share that with them if you expect it to be written into a quest.

Character Backstory

New characters must have a dissimilar persona and name from your previous 3 characters, at the discretion of the Organizers and Helpers.

Character Age

All player characters must be at least the adolescent age for their listed race. For Humans, races that physically mature at the same rate as humans, and races with no listed age, adolescent is considered to be 13 years old.

For other races, use the following to determine adolescent age (round up): 0.72 x Adult Age

A character cannot have their age reduced below this number by any means.

PC Mutability

All characters can change any aspect of their character (such as class, race, features, etc) before the start of their third game. A character created with the standard array may rearrange the array, a character created with the point buy method may redistribute their points, and a character created by rolled statistics may change which of their rolled arrays they wish to use.

Should the array be changed or redistributed make sure to ping a helper in #character-rolls upon locking in your final choice.

Homebrew Rules

The following Homebrew rules are used on the server:

• You can drink a potion as a bonus action (administering a potion is still an action.)

• Any item attuned to an NPC under your control (such as, but not limited to, familiars, beast companions, simulacrums, conjured creatures, hirelings, lickspittles, etc.) counts against your character’s limit of three attuned items. In order to attune to an item, the NPC attempting to attune to it must have an intelligence score of 6 or higher unless the item says otherwise.

• Additionally, the creature must be capable of wearing/holding the item in particular they're trying to use. For example, an owl cannot wear a ring or use a magic wand, and a warhorse cannot wield a sword. If you are unsure of the item/creature combination working, send a ping to helpers for clarification in #questions.

And so Edgar said "You know, it's a good thing we don't have more than two druids on the team."

Pausing for dramatic effect "Because tree is a crowd."

A full five seconds of oppressive silence follows.

Suth: "I cast fireball." Edgar shrieks

Encumberance

Generally is not tracked except when it gets unreasonable for example if a character is carrying 10 greatswords or 10,000 copper pieces. On some quests that are more survival focused encumberance rules maybe used at the DM's discression.

Lifestyle Expenses

It is assumed that, when not adventuring, your character is making sufficient funds to cover their lifestyle. It's up to you to flavour what that looks like.

Quest Summary

Every player that posts a quest summary receives Inspiration that can be used in their next quest to reroll any Saving throw, Ability Check, Attack roll or Skill check. Session summaries are posted in the #session-summaries channel.

Limited Reflavoring

Reflavoring of classes, races, weapons etc. is allowed within reason such as:

• Owlfolk using the Aarakocra race.
• Deck of cards as a Magic Spell Book
• Darts as Throwing Stars

As long as it does not change any mechanics or the flavour of the world such as

• Science Fiction
• Urban Fantasy
• Modern Fantasy

For more ideas see Personalizing Spells TCE. P116

Requesting a Quest

Post your request in the #player-quest-posting channel. You may utilize the level tier roles (e.g. @Lvl 3-4) for pick–up games in the #request-discussions channel to find players to join your quest and @DM or @TrialDM to locate a DM to run the quest.

For Player Quests, you may collect the other players you would like to join in your quest or take people who request to join. Player Quests do not require prioritizing people who have played less frequently through it's kind to do so.

Additional Characters

• You may create a additional character once you've reached level 5 with a character.

• Characters cannot trade with other characters controlled by the same player Note: Trading to a third party to work around this is also not allowed.

• The allowed starting levels of your characters is the lowest level of the highest tier you've reached, or any level lower than that For example, if you previously had a character reach level 15, you can make a character at level 13, or any lower level

• An additional character slot is allowed for a max of three. This third character slot begins at level 3, regardless of previous levels reached. It is highly encouraged people who make a third character keep them at tier 1, but this is not mandatory.

Paid Tools

Our West Marches game is open to all. While you are free to use a tool such as Fantasy Grounds to run your games, you must be able to offer that option free to players.

Most games are run on Discord using Avrae if battlemaps are required then on Roll20. Other options may be possible and offered, so long as are no cost to players.

Epic Level Play

After obtaining a 20th-level character, you can choose one of these two options for every 50,000 XP you earn after 355,000 XP. You may only do this up to Epic Level 5.

• Ability Score Improvement. The character can increase one ability score by 2 or increase two ability scores by 1 each. The ability score can now be increased above 20, up to a maximum of 26. If you have the Primal Champion Barbarian class feature, you can increase your Strength and Constitution scores to a maximum of 30. No Attribute Score can be increased past 30 through any means.

• Epic Feat. You can select a new feat.
  
  

“Not all who wander are lost; some are on quests.”

― J. Zachary Pike, Orconomics

Spell Rules

The following spells have modified effect durations that fit the West Marches game better:

• Spells for Buildings

  • A spell that must be cast every day for a year to take permanent effect only needs to be cast every day for 30 IRL days within an area that you have ownership or have permission to.
  • A spell that must be cast every day for 30 days to take permanent effect only needs to be cast every day for 7 IRL days within an area that you have ownership or have permission to.

• Ceremony

  • Time of the wedding effect from 7 days to the next 2 quests they share.

• Clone

  • Time for clone to maturity reduced from 120 days to 30 IRL days

• Hallow

  • Casting Time change from 24 hours to 1 Downtime while not in a quest

• Simulacrum

  • A simulacrum counts as being the caster for the purposes of spells such as Wish or Simulacrum, a character may only ever have one simulacrum at a time, this includes simulacrums who have been permanently changed into another creature by spells such as true polymorph

• Raise Dead & Resurrection

  • Coming back from the dead is an ordeal. The target takes a −4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and its save DC for all spells and class features. Every time the target starts a quest the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears.

• Wish

  • The Wish spell can only be used with a DM if not replicating a lower level spell.

• Monster Stat Blocks
  • Applies to any spells or features that involve summoning or otherwise using monster stat blocks for example:
    • Polymorph
    • True Polymorph
    • Wild Shape
    • Conjure animals
  • When using a spell, class, or racial feature that uses an NPC stat block such as what's listed above, the following restrictions are applied:
  • Must be an officially released WOTC monster, not a homebrewed creature without express DM approval for that quest. One DM allowing you to True Polymorph into a Void Dragon doesn't mean another has to.
  • Must not be an individual, named creature. The generic Archmage is a fine true polymorph target, Mordenkainen is not.
  • A quest reward that gives a player a homebrew creature form is not affected by this rule

• Find Steed and Find Greater Steed
  • Steeds summoned by Find Steed and Find Greater Steed can be converted into Arcadian mounts as per the Arcadian Mount rules found later in this document

Tome and Manual Limitations

A player character can only increase each ability score maximum once though a tome, manual, or similar homebrew magic item/reward, typically 22 before other features/epic.

A player character can still use tomes, manuals, and similar homebrew magic items/rewards to increase the score further, just not the maximum, which will remain at the restricted limit.

A player controlled companion or NPC cannot benefit from a tome, manual, or similar magic item/reward.

If a class feature or reaching epic levels says to increase your maximum for an ability score above 20 (26 for Epic, 24 for Barb Capstone), that ability score maximum is further increased by previously or subsequently used tomes, manuals, and similar magic items/rewards, to a maximum of 30.

Arcadian Mounts

The image of the mounted hero is indelibly marked in our imagination. But the core rules don’t support this fantasy as well as they could.

The Arcadian Template, based on the Jumping On Mounted Combat article from MCDM Arcadia Issue 1, may be used by players to strengthen their mounts and provide greater combat versatility.

Training an Arcadian Mount

A standard mount, as listed in the Player's Handbook under Mounts and Vehicles, may be trained into an Arcadian Mount by paying gold equal to 400 times the mount's CR. The Arcadian template is applied to the mount, which is simply adding the three features listed under the Arcadian Mount Template and applying their effects to the new mount.

Standard Mount	CR	Cost
Camel, Mastiff, Pony, Donkey or Mule	1/8	50gp
Horse (draft) or Horse (riding)	1/4	100gp
Warhorse	1/2	200gp

Any steed summoned by a spell such as Find Steed or Find Greater Steed can be trained in the same manner as a regular mount. The caster only pays the gold cost (400 times mount CR) once and does not need to pay it again if they re-summon the same mount. If the caster uses this spell to summon a different mount, such as changing from a Warhorse to a Camel, they will need to pay this cost for the new mount.

Arcadian Mount Template

After paying the requisite gold costs, the following three traits are applied to newly trained Arcadian mounts.

Mounted.

During a long rest, the mount can designate one creature that rode it within the last 10 days as its rider. The mount gains temporary hit points equal to 3 times the rider’s level or challenge rating after completing the long rest. The mount uses its rider’s proficiency bonus in place of its own proficiency bonus on ability checks, attack rolls, saving throws, and the DC to resist effects of the mount’s actions as listed in its stat block, and the rider’s proficiency bonus is applied to the mount’s AC.

As One.

The trained mount acts on the rider’s turn, even when the rider is not mounted. The mount may move and take the Dash, Disengage, or Dodge action. While mounted, the rider may also use a bonus action to command the mount to take one action listed in the mount’s stat block. The rider and mount work in tandem and may take their respective actions in any order during their turn.

Vaulting Attack.

A rider can use their bonus action to dismount spectacularly and perform a vaulting attack. The rider must make a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. The DC is equal to 10 + the mount’s challenge rating. On a success, the next attack the rider makes before the end of their turn has advantage. Otherwise, the rider falls prone in an unoccupied space adjacent to the mount and the rider’s speed becomes 0 until the start of their next turn.

Kingdoms and Warfare

Characters can create organizations and raise armies using the rules from pages 9-64 and Pages 93-144 from MCDM Kingdoms and Warfare

The core assumption for the rules are different then what we have for the server. The following is a few extra clarification and small edits to smooth out the experience.

Each Heroic faction is run by a single leading officer. They will decide with the rest of the officers on decisions but ultimately they make the choice.

Helpers

Friendly, active & interactive people who help those with questions and newcomers to the server. Additional act as moderators and make sure the community is safe and welcoming.

Appendix A - Server Links

Server Documents

• Downtime Rules

• DM Guide

• Player Registration

• Farwater Shops

Avrae - D&D 5e utility bot

• Avrae Tutorial - run !intro in the #general_bot

• Avrae Commands

• Nadizak's Amazing Alias List

• Avrae Aliasing Tutorials

Character Sheets

• DnD Beyond Character Creator
  

• Google Sheets Character Sheet - make a copy of this in your own Google Drive folder and refer to the "?" tab to answer most questions.
  

• Dicecloud Character Sheet

  • Dicecloud Helper
  • Advanced Dicecloud Character Creation

Virtual Tabletops

• Roll20

• Foundry Virtual Tabletop

• Beyond20 - Integrating D&D Beyond seamlessly with Virtual Tabletops

• Token Maker

If you need any help feel free to ping @Helper in the #questions channel.