[D&D 5e] Earthbound D20

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

I've been working on a set of rules for an Earthbound RPG based on D&D Basic. The D&D Basic conversion is pretty straightforward (Earthbound is Dragon Quest after all), but the rules need playtesting.

Character Building

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D&D Basic is a great starting point for an RPG like Earthbound. You can get 99% of the character concepts and monsters you need out of the system. I would handle the character archetypes from the video games as follows with the D&D Basic rules:

Ness: Life Cleric, obviously
Paula: Evoker Wizard
Jeff: Archer Fighter
Poo: Monk
Teddy: Duelist Fighter
Lucas: Life Cleric
Claus: Evoker Wizard
Kumatora: Evoker Wizard
Duster: Rogue with Brawler feat

Races

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Human

• +1 to all ability scores.
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 30 ft.

Friendly Ghost

• +2 Con, +1 Dex
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 25 ft.
• Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discen color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Float: You fall gently at a rate of ten feet per round, and can fly five feet for every foot fallen. You always hover a few feet off of the ground.
• Fade: You never suffer disadvantage on Stealth checks, and you can use the Stealth skill under any circumstances.
• Mostly Alive: You have advantage on saving throws against necromancy effects. You also have resistance to necrotic damage.

Mr. Saturn

• +2 Con, +2 Wis
• Size: Medium.
• Speed: 25 ft.
• Handy: You have proficiency with all types of artisan's tools.
• Unconventional: You have advantage on saving throws against enchantment effects and other attacks that directly affect your mind. You also have resistance to psychic damage.
• Headbutt: If a creature damages you in melee you may use your reaction to perform a retaliatory unarmed strike with advantage, dealing 1d4+Str mod damage. Once you use this trait you cannot use it again until you take a short rest.

Unusually Disciplined Cat

• +2 Dex, +1 Wis
• Size: Tiny. Tiny creatures suffer disadvantage when wielding non-Light weapons, and it's impossible to wield Versatile and Heavy weapons.
• Speed: 35 ft.
• Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discen color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Claws: 1d4 melee piercing. Your claw attack is treated as a light finesse weapon. You can use two-weapon fighting with your claws.
• Natural Hunter: You have proficiency in the Stealth and Perception skills.
• Camouflage: Your proficiency to Stealth checks is doubled whenever you are in an area of natural tall grass or foliage.
• Language: Choose one of the following.
  
  • Speech: You have the extraordinary ability of human speech. You can speak English.
  • Cute: You can't speak English, but you are able to understand human speech just fine. Increase your Charisma score by +1.

Unusually Intelligent Dog

• +2 Str
• Size: Small.
• Speed: 30 ft.
• Nose: You have advantage on Wisdom checks whenever your powerful sense of smell would help.
• Language: Choose one of the following.
  
  • Speech: You have the extraordinary ability of human speech. You can speak English.
  • Cute: You can't speak English, but you are able to understand human speech just fine. Increase your Charisma score by +1.
• Subrace: Choose one of these subraces.

Small Breed:

• +1 Dex
• Speed: 35 ft.
• Bite: 1d8 mele piercing. Your bite attack is treated as a two-handed light finesse weapon.

Large Breed:

• +1 Con
• Size: Medium.
• Bite: 2d6 melee piercing. Your bite attack is treated as a heavy two-handed weapon.

Unusually Polite Monkey

• +2 Dex, +1 Int
• Size: Tiny. Tiny creatures suffer disadvantage when wielding non-Light weapons, and it's impossible to wield Versatile and Heavy weapons.
• Speed: 40 ft.
• Tail: You have a prehensile tail. As a bonus action you can use it to support your weight, transfer a small item to your hand, or grab a small item from your hand (but it's not strong enough to wield a weapon).
• Agile: You have proficiency in the Athletics skill. When climbing you may use your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier.
• Scamper: As a reaction you can move 10 feet, quick enough to make an attack miss if you move out of range. Once you have used this ability you cannot use it again until you take a short rest.
• Language: Choose one of the following.
  
  • Speech: You have the extraordinary ability of human speech. You can speak English.
  • Cute: You can't speak English, but you are able to understand human speech just fin. Increase your Charisma score by +1.

Items

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Starting Equipment: Write down "a smartphone" and "$100" on your character sheet. You can spend your PC's $100 on starting gear as long as you can show the GM the gear you want on the Internet, using its listed price (including shipping).
If you buy something that is used or refurbished, mark it as used on your character sheet. Used equipment will break if you roll a 1 on an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw with it.
Your PC can also spend money on services, such as taxi rides, web design, or palm reading. Again, use whatever price you can find listed online. GMs should encourage use of money for services. For example, a character who spends money on a week of martial arts classes can totally use it one time in the next session for advantage on a melee attack roll.

Armor: Unarmored characters may improve their AC as follows: Light armor proficiency grants a +2 bonus to AC. Medium armor proficiency grants a +3 bonus to AC. Heavy armor proficiency grants a +4 bonus to AC.

Firearms: You can substitute crossbows for firearms without any problems in a modern setting.

PSI

Casting:

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Classes: I would recommend merging the Cleric and Wizard into one Esper class with the same spell list. You can choose either Arcane Recovery or Life Domain at 1st level, and Sculpt or Preserve Life at 2nd level.

Power Points: I wouldn't recommend using a point-based casting system because D&D Next has fixed most of the Vancian casting problems. Here's one way to do it:

• Espers have 1 power point per spell level per spell slot.
• All spells except cantrips cost 1 power point per spell level.
• Casting a spell at a higher-level is as simple as spending more power points, but you can't cast a spell at a higher level than the highest-level spell you know.

Preparation: If you want 3e sorcerer-style casting (no preparing spells at the start of the day), do this:

• Espers only learn one spell known per level (and 2 cantrips at 1st level).
• Espers gain one additional spell slot per spell level.

Spell/PSI equivalencies:

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Some of these are from D&D Basic and the Hoard of the Dragon Queen free supplement PDF.

Brainshock: confusion
Flash: color spray
Healing: restoration
Hypnosis: sleep
Lifeup: cure wounds
Paralysis: hold person
Telepathy: sending or weaker spells

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Running a game:

Earthbound 201X Plot Hooks

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• Each night lightning bolts strike random animals, plants, inanimate objects, and people, and give them superpowers! Peoples' powers start out as mildly supernatural and kind of lame, but get progressively stronger and more game-breaking as time goes on. A little investigation reveals that the lightning strikes are not nearly as random as you would think. All of the people who gain superpowers have severe character flaws which are amplified by their powers. With great power comes yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill. Meanwhile, a shadowy government agency conveniently arrests and contains superpowered people and animals the party defeats, but they seem to keep escaping.
• A few city blocks have been converted into a post-scarcity utopia founded on suspiciously advanced technology. Towering shiny spires are erected overnight, and they can be seen from miles in any direction. The words "free lunch" are used CONSTANTLY to advertise the place. Everyone wears signature white jumpsuits which are dispensed from the same receptacles that make the free food. Anyone who goes in comes out brainwashed, and anyone who shakes off the brainwashing is soon abducted. Things get worse when all the police are brainwashed and gangs take over the streets outside of utopia.
• A nearby research laboratory has been the source of several escaped animal hybrids. Local animal control is going insane trying to keep a lid on things. Many of the researchers don't want to go into work, and every hardware store in the county has been robbed overnight. Soon, roving bands of monkeys operating makeshift robots raid construction sites and scrap cars for raw materials. Their machines get more and more sophisticated, and the monkeys all start developing specialized psychic powers. One day all the monkeys disappear, but a giant brain hovers over the place where the lab once was.
• A massive hole opens up in the ground and fantastic creatures like unicorns and dragons often crawl out of it. The hole leads to the Hollow Earth, an otherworld of magic and mystery. Or is it actually all an illusion to hide the emergence of psychic reptiles and mole men?
• The princess of the lost city of Atlantis sends the broken shards of the World Heart into the past after it was broken in a great war. The party must find all the pieces and reunite them before the World Heart in their timeline is shattered and the world is destroyed.

[Composer99]

Is there a hyperlink to your homebrew rules in detail, apart from the ones presented in this thread? (That is, the rules that deviate from the 5e Basic rules?)

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Is there a hyperlink to your homebrew rules in detail, apart from the ones presented in this thread? (That is, the rules that deviate from the 5e Basic rules?)

Nothing worth sharing, you can pull it off just fine with the core D&D Basic rules. The only major change I would make is removing the Cleric and giving the Wizard access to the Cleric spell list (plus letting the PC choose between Arcane Recovery and the Life domain ability at 1st level, and Sculpt and Preserve Life at 2nd level.)

The most useful thing to make would be combat encounters for encounters from levels 1 to 5, but the Monster Manual isn't out and I haven't been able to playtest any of that yet. And I'm not confident I have a twisted enough mind to come up with interesting enemies based on modern pop culture. 90s pop culture isn't gonna cut it, I'd run the game with slightly more modern stuff like Slender-mobs and Data Cats.

[Composer99]

Well, just as long as you include a few classic monsters from the game.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Well, just as long as you include a few classic monsters from the game.

I don't wanna. You can build those yourself very easily using a strategy guide, and 75% of them are just normal animals, dire animals, or humanoids. However, I do have a short list of alien enemies I want to write (Lil' UFOs mostly).

Yhatzee Crosshaw described Earthbound as have the art, aesthetics, and plot that a child would have come up with. It draws inspiration from music and movies and television. The whole setting is founded in pop culture cast through the lens of a child's understanding. The villains are all cartoon villain jerks, excepting Gigyas who is a representation of all the evil things that a child is not prepared to comprehend (most specifically rape and murder, but that's a discussion for another thread). It's also a product of the 90s and everything that came before it.

If I ran an Earthbound game, I would use modern pop culture as a reference point. No, it wouldn't be composed entirely of Internet memes (although a deli haunted by Planking Pepperoni would be a cool dungeon), but it would be contemporary. I looked at the top movies between 2011 and 2014 (skipping movies that a child probably wouldn't have seen) and came up with the following list of themes and frequencies:

Superheroes: 11
Sci-Fi Dystopia: 7
Funny CGI Cartoon Animals/Monsters/Inanimate Objects: 6
Monsters From Science: 5 (enough that I wrote a subplot with evolving monkeys)
Space: 5
Generic Fantasy: 5
Secret Agents: 3
Cool Giant Robots: 3
Lawlessness: 3 (apparently The Purge is really popular now)
Cars: 2 (actual racing movies, the Pixar movies are counted under CGI Cartoons above)
Dark Fantasy: 2 (yes, please wreck our childhood Disney)
Games: 2 (LEGO, Wreck-It Ralph)
Vampire Romance: 2 (dammit Twilight...)
Zombies: 1
Pirates: 1

I've found that these are a great starting point for inspiration of things which are weird, but grounded in reality and modern culture just enough that you would say, "yeah, okay, I get that." And most importantly, you could run the game for ten-year-olds and they would totally understand situations inspired by these things.

Anyways, I've added a list of plot hooks to the post above (and copied here) which I think are a good starting point for a GM who wants to run an Earthbound-themed D&D game using his hometown in the 2010s as a setting. I'm still wary of posting stats for monsters, but ideas for monsters are easy and I'll probably post them after I'm done going through my list of movies.

Earthbound 201X Plot Hooks

• Each night lightning bolts strike random animals, plants, inanimate objects, and people, and give them superpowers! Peoples' powers start out as mildly supernatural and kind of lame, but get progressively stronger and more game-breaking as time goes on. A little investigation reveals that the lightning strikes are not nearly as random as you would think. All of the people who gain superpowers have severe character flaws which are amplified by their powers. With great power comes yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill.Meanwhile, a shadowy government agency conveniently arrests and contains superpowered people and animals the party defeats, but they seem to keep escaping. (The PCs shouldn't get PSI powers in this fashion. PSI needs to be unlocked as part of the Supernatural Aid step of the Hero's Journey. Look it up, folks!)
• A few city blocks have been converted into a post-scarcity utopia founded on suspiciously advanced technology. Towering shiny spires are erected overnight, and they can be seen from miles in any direction. The words "free lunch" are used CONSTANTLY to advertise the place. Everyone wears signature white jumpsuits which are dispensed from the same receptacles that make the free food. Anyone who goes in comes out brainwashed, and anyone who shakes off the brainwashing is soon abducted. Things get worse when all the police are brainwashed and gangs take over the streets outside of utopia.
• A nearby research laboratory has been the source of several escaped animal hybrids. Local animal control is going insane trying to keep a lid on things. Many of the researchers don't want to go into work, and every hardware store in the county has been robbed overnight. Soon, roving bands of monkeys operating makeshift robots raid construction sites and scrap cars for raw materials. Their machines get more and more sophisticated, and the monkeys all start developing specialized psychic powers. One day all the monkeys disappear, but a giant brain hovers over the place where the lab once was.
• A massive hole opens up in the ground and fantastic creatures like unicorns and dragons often emerge from it. The hole leads to the Hollow Earth, an otherworld of magic and mystery. Or is it actually all an illusion to hide the emergence of psychic reptiles and mole men?

[Hanuman]

I feel without hard rules indicating internet and phone business the players and probably DM's would assume real phones or internet is being used.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

I feel without hard rules indicating internet and phone business the players and probably DM's would assume real phones or internet is being used.

Fair point, I've tweaked the wording.

Well, just as long as you include a few classic monsters from the game.

I've got a copy of the older playtests to go off of. What monsters did you have in mind?

[Hanuman]

Hm, well to be more direct, do the players at any time put their heads down and start tapping on their smartphones?

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Hm, well to be more direct, do the players at any time put their heads down and start tapping on their smartphones?

Checking your smartphone in combat wouldn't be the best idea. If their turn comes around, I would silently count to six and then delay their combat round in the initiative order until they're paying attention again.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Added races for bedsheet ghosts, Mr. Saturn, dogs, cats, and monkeys. Next plan is to stat up some UFO and Starman monsters appropriate for adventurers between levels 1 and 5.

Any feedback on this would be great. Looking over the D&D 5e rules I've found that you can run 95% of your encounters using basic entries from older playtest packets, or porting over monsters from the Monster Manual. I'd be happy to do any requests.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Here's a CR 1 UFO. I'm working on CR 3 and 5 right now, but I wanted to know what people think about it.

Saucer UFO
Tiny construct, unaligned

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Armor Class 16 (natural armor)
Hit Points 15 (7d4)
Speed fly 30 ft., cannot fly more than 10 feet away from a solid surface.

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STR 1 (-5) DEX 15 (+2) CON 10 (+0) INT 1 (-5) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 1 (-5)

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Saving Throws Dex +4
Damage Immunities poison, psychic
Condition Immunities blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened,
paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Languages -
Challenge 1 (200 XP)

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Sensor Array. The UFO has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.
Actions

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Sharp Edge. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4+2) piercing damage.
Laser Beam. (Recharge 5-6) Ranged Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d6+0) fire damage.
Strange Beam. (Recharge 5-6) Ranged Spell Attack: Range 30/120 ft., one target and all creatures within 15 feet. Roll a d8 on the following table:

d6	Effect
1	The target must make a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw, taking 7 (2d6) cold damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
2	The target must make a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw, taking 7 (2d6) lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
3	The target must make a DC 11 Strength saving throw or be paralyzed for 1 round.
4	The target must make a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw or be blinded for 1d4 rounds.
5	The target must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1d4 minutes.
6	Beam has two effects (maximum 2). Reroll.

Cloaking Array. The UFO can turn invisible for 1 round.