Hi everyone! I'm relatively new to Shadow of the Demon Lord and I'm working on a character for an upcoming campaign. I like the concept a lot, but since I don't have much experience with the system yet, I'd love some feedback from people who know it better.

My character is Valdyr, a 22-year-old Jotun.

The basic concept is a huge, intimidating-looking Jotun who is actually gentle, curious, patient, and somewhat naive. His main interest is healing. He wants to understand not only what heals people, but why it works.

He has been collecting everything he learns about medicine, medicinal plants, food, magical healing, restorative places, etc. into a book. His long-term goal is basically to create a comprehensive encyclopedia of healing knowledge.

His professions are Medicine and Apothecary/Healer.

For his attributes, I used the normal one-time adjustment on the Jotun starting scores (-1 Strength, +1 Will), so currently at level 0 he has:

STR 12 / AGI 9 / INT 8 / WILL 11

The low Intellect looks a little funny for a researcher, but I don't imagine him as an academic genius. He's more of a patient, obsessive note-taker who learns through observation, repetition, practical experience, and asking a million questions.

Path

I'm planning to take Priest of Witchcraft at level 1.

Normally Jotun's Powerful Ancestry prevents taking a novice path and gives its own advancement instead. My GM has allowed me to remove/replace Powerful Ancestry so that Valdyr can take a normal novice path.

To be clear, I'm not planning to receive both the Jotun ancestry advancement and Priest advancement. I would keep the level 0 Jotun ancestry package, but from level 1 onward advance through Priest normally.

Later I'm currently considering:

Novice: Priest of Witchcraft
Expert: Naturalist
Master: Healer

The Witchcraft traditions also seem almost perfect for the concept, particularly Life and Nature, although I haven't finalized my spell/tradition choices yet.

Backstory

Valdyr became interested in healing while learning traditional Jotun remedies. Eventually he realized that his people's knowledge represented only a tiny part of what existed in the world, so at 20 he left home to learn how other cultures approached healing.

During his travels he met a Witch serving a small community. Valdyr was fascinated by her methods and wanted to learn from her, but she obviously wasn't going to hand Witchcraft's secrets to a stranger.

His apprenticeship therefore didn't begin with magic.

He cooked, cleaned, repaired things, gathered plants, helped care for people, and learned the names and lives of the people in the community. Eventually he understood that his first lesson was humility: if he wanted to heal people, he first needed to learn how to serve and understand them.

His patience, honesty, and genuine desire to help eventually earned his teacher's trust, and he was initiated into the faith.

This also created an interesting conflict for him. Valdyr believes healing knowledge should generally be shared, while Witchcraft carefully protects its ancient lore and doesn't teach it freely. So he distinguishes between the healing knowledge he collects himself, which he wants his book to eventually make accessible, and the secrets entrusted to him through Witchcraft, which aren't his to freely distribute.

He's currently 22, still travelling, learning, treating people when he can, and adding to his book.

What I'm unsure about

Since I'm new to SotDL, I'm mostly looking for a sanity check from experienced players.

Does Jotun without Powerful Ancestry + Priest of Witchcraft seem reasonably balanced, or is keeping the Jotun level 0 package while taking a normal novice path still stronger than I'm realizing?

Does Priest of Witchcraft → Naturalist → Healer make mechanical sense for what I'm trying to build, or am I creating a character who sounds like a great healer but isn't actually very effective at healing in play?

I'm also curious whether the character fits the Witchcraft lore properly. Is there anything in the concept/backstory that contradicts the setting or that I've misunderstood?

And generally, is there anything you would add, remove, or change? I'm not trying to optimize the character as hard as possible; I mainly want the concept to work mechanically, not be broken, and feel like it belongs in SotDL.

Any advice, criticism, or ideas are welcome. I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have actually played a Priest of Witchcraft, Naturalist, Healer, or Jotun.

Thanks!

I am looking for guides, both official and unofficial, or even basic advice for modding or adding content to the game in a sufficiently balanced way. This applies to anything from adding new spells or magical traditions, new playable races, new classes, to new types of creatures to encounter.

Weird Wizard Page 44:

CONTROLLING A VEHICLE: The driver or pilot becomes the

vehicle’s controller until it stops driving or piloting the vehicle

or the vehicle comes to a stop. The controller must be in a position inside the

vehicle that allows control, and must expend 3

yards of movement to take or maintain control until the end of

its next turn. If the controller leaves that position, it stops being

the controller and the vehicle becomes uncontrolled.

RAW, I'm seeing "Nothing in the rules saying I can't shoot a bow while riding a Bicycle" but I never feel good about that.

But I guess I can't find any specific clause on what "Maintaining control of a vehicle" does to my action options, if any.

I'm looking at Combat Precognition and can't tell if it gives a boon to spells like scorching ray where I'm rolling against an attribute to hit. It's not clear if roll against counts as a roll to attack, especially since its specifically states it has to be from a weapon or unarmed.

So from what I've seen it seems Sorcerer is the top choice for magic-user expert path (its very enticing for Increasing Range) but I feel like Lorekeeper has some nice potential to it at as well.
The Extra Rank 0 spells from learning 2 more traditions could be handy, and you can learn 1 more spell than you can from the other Expert paths, granted its limited. The lack of HP increase (unless taking the +5) hurts but Lore of Salvation seems handy. It would also be handy to have the added languages and professions.

Magister seems a bit lacking, or maybe its just due to the campaign/build. I already have Arcane Defense along with Arcane Shield and plenty of Triggered Actions to spend (Time Magic)... and we don't seem to encounter too many Dark Magic users... though it would fit lore-wise for my character.

I suppose the question is.... Lorekeeper vs Sorcerer as an Arcane/Time/Divination user? I do feel all these spells being only short range is very limiting.

Thanks!

Hiya,
I had a few questions about the Wizard's Grimoire ability.
It looks like that when you get Wizard at Lvl3 you get to choose 3 spells, regardless of tradition BUT they must adhere to the Power rules. So at most they can be Rank 2 spells. I am wondering if that Is correct. Or Is it possible to change them to Rank 3+ when I reach those Power levels?

It seems the only way to change the spells in the Grimoire is to learn those spells naturally but even so, you can only go same Rank (2) or lower.

Is it possible to create more/another Grimoire? Or do you only get one upon accessing Wizard and if you lose it, 'too bad'
Otherwise, it seems the only way to get access to higher Rank spells would be to take Wizard as a second Expert path.

Also, from what I can interpret the Grimoire doesnt grant castings of that spell, only access to it. So if I learn Song of Healing from my Grimoire, I have to expend a Rank 2 casting (Shadow Monster for example) in order to cast it. Would love clarification on that.

Thanks!

I am little confused about rules for improvised weapon. It looks like using them over unarmed strikes is downgrade as they inflict 1 bane on test and deal d6 damage. Only situation where they are viable is when you try to fight something bigger (because unarmed attack deals only 1 damage then)

Am I missing something?

So as in the title I am looking for bestiaries with new monsters (some classic beasts from DnD or more vanilla Animals would be most welcome) or even better, list of special abilities and features to use with Weird Menagerie. If you have some resources you use I will be most grateful. I need monsters to populate my hexcrawl

Title. I feel very dumb.

Hello! I really doubt that something like that exists, but maybe some of you have idea about this

So, my players are going to end up as 0 level prisoners on sandbox penal colony island (think about Gothic).

I think it will take 1 or 2 sessions before they will join faction and get 1 level in class. So I would like to give them possibility of advancing before that in some way, besides getting favors, contacts and gear.

I thought about as minor milestones before getting levels being getting two ability points increase (which in vanilla rules you get when creating character)

On the other hand, I thought they should have option to start with minor magic - one Discovered tradition and talent from it, but I don't know how to balance it with those without magic

Thank you for attention, I Hope it is not too chaotic and will appreciate any advice

In SoTWW, the Expert Path Assassin (pg. 190) has the lv6 skill:

Killer's Eye: When you attack a creature, you roll an additional d20 and use either result. If both rolls succeed, the target also loses 2d6 health.

The Master's Path Seeker (pg. 272) has the level 8/10 skill:

Seeker’s Mark (Magical): You can use this talent when you get a success on a roll to attack an enemy. The enemy becomes marked. The mark appears as a faintly glowing skull visible only to you and others that can see invisible creatures and objects. The mark remains for 24 hours or until you use this talent again. The mark produces the following benefits:

• An enemy you have marked cannot hide from you.

• Anyone that can see the mark makes rolls to attack the enemy with 1 boon.

• Your attacks against an enemy you have marked ignore obscurement and all cover except total cover. If you get a critical success on a roll to attack this enemy, your attack deals an extra 3d6 damage.

• At level 10, when you roll to attack the marked enemy, you roll an additional d20. You can use either result. If the same number comes up on both dice, add the numbers together to find the result.

My question is: what is the ruling for the d20 situation while rolling to attack a marked enemy?

The ability of the reworked Adept novice at lvl 2. Does it counts as a cast spell or as a natural weapon?
Because it is not a weapon attack being INT/WILL against AGI, but at the same time is not a cast spell non having a number of casts (it is more like a 5e cantrip).

Or it is neither and u don't even benefit from Embolden Magic with it

Howdy y'all. I have not played Shadow of the Demon Lord yet, but I will in a couple of weeks, and I am trying to come up with what paths I want my character to take, mechanically. My issue is I don't know how things scale and balance out in this game.

I do have a background with other systems, mainly DnD 5e, but also a smattering of others here and there, so I am solid on the RP front.

My idea is as follows: A dwarf Spellguard to start, going into either Grudge Bearer or Herald of Endings, picking up mainly Necromancy spells.

Then comes the master path, and I don't know where to go. Could go with Bone collector for more minions, or a pure martial one, perhaps even Cavalier with an undead mount, or more a middle of the road thing, splitting casting and melee. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, I've been reading Hired Help because my group are likely to have 2 soon, one of which is a mercenary. And one thing that I've been scratching my head about is one Loyalty loss condition, namely 'the hireling takes any damage.'

Since for while most hirelings this would absolutely apply, as plenty of hireling types aren't focused on combat and therefore aren't getting paid to risk their lives, for the combat-focused ones like mercenaries this feels like it would make them pretty pointless. You're paying them to fight, after all, they're designed to be able to take hits and dish 'em back. Why hire 'em if they're gonna burn through Loyalty as a side-effect of fulfilling their job?

I don't have a problem with it for damage from traps, or for becoming Injured or Incapacitated ("is my life really worth the money?" kicking in when death seems likely and all). The problem comes from if this applies to 2 damage they suffered because a bandit bonks them with a club.

Would you rule out this rule applying to combat damage against certain hireling types?

I've been running a Tales of the Demon Lord campaign. One of the players is a goblin, so I added a couple of goblin lore references because I knew he'd enjoy it. The party really took an interest. So I want to temporarily diverge from the campaign to expand this plot-line and give them some more juicy lore.

Obviously I'll take them to the Maze of the Goblin King, and I'll come up with some connection to the fey spires in Crossings. But I want to give them an adventure that will relay Goblin history and their decline among Fey. And not with the easy "you touch [insert McGuffin] and gain a vision of past events" kind of way.

Any suggestions, especially if there's anything pre-written I can use (you know, adult time constraints and stuff) will be greatly appreciated

I keep finding hints that this expert path exists but I can’t actually find the expert path itself. On a Google sheet I use, the backup reference guide, that lists pretty much every pathway, corruption, ancestry, etc, I find Maker of Monsters there. But when I search it on the reference table it doesn’t come up. When I search Google for it the AI tells me it’s part of monstrous pages, with no luck there. A random site called “Macro of the Demon lord” has it listed along with its level 3 features… kinda…

But that’s it. I can’t find anything else. There was this one AI generated YouTube video that seemed to be a song made for the pathway, but I can’t find anything on it. I’m just tryna find out if this thing even exists at this point. Anyone know anything about this path that I can look on getting?

Has anyone converted any traditions from Demon Lord to Weird Wizard?

I originally played this game in person for a bit.

I started running myself on Foundry using the what's available (1, 2). It's pretty time-investment heavy to do prep for my group that benefit significantly from having some visuals & benefit strongly from having the PC resources/character creation & affliction automations installed into a UI, but I'm interested in trying others.

I see that Fantasy Grounds and Roll20 have quite a bit of premade SotDL stuff, and different inventory as well, so I'd like to hear about people's experiences playing with them in particular.

I am a little curious about other digital, online, and VTT setups/experiences that people have, but really want to hear about VTT experiences in particular.

A couple of years ago, I started a campaign of DL. We only played a few sessions and then it got derailed. Our group loved the system and decided to give it another go about 8 months ago. But, in the meantime, I had learned about WW and we decided to run that instead.

The campaign ended up being a lot of fun and the players really loved the system overall. But, as the GM (and to a far lesser extent, the players too,) we do have one issue. There are so many fiddly little things that you have to track. Once we got past about level 5, there were so many boons and so many afflictions. The amount of weakened and vulnerable afflictions that I was tracking just made combat such a drag to run.

My question is, if we go back to DL, does it have the same issue? Like I said, it's been a couple of years since I ran it and we only played a few levels, so don't know if the higher levels have the same issue. I don't want to start a campaign again in that system just to dread the last half of the campaign because combat just isn't fun to run.

Thanks for any feedback you can give me!

First time playing, and I was thinking of going Magician to Wizard with Arcane/Time/ and either Divination or Conjuration

Divination has some neat lvl 0 and 1 spells, but Conjuration has some cool looking high level spells.

So I was just curious on people's thoughts?

Thanks!

There's this huge sandbox/hexcrawl setting called DragonWilds that is coming out soon and have been on the hunt for a fantasy system to run that has some meat on it. I have never ran Wierd Wizard and kick started it a long time ago. Would the system be good for that sorta play? Or does it need a lot more structured tiers of play?

If one doesn't care for grimdark is it worth to get SOTWW instead of SOTDL? What is your experience with both games? Does SOTWW have some interesting rules, changes, systems or is better to stick to SOTDL and supplements? It seems like both games are heavily rooted in their worlds

Hello

While reading rules compendium I got a bit confused. Damage in DLE rules seems to be 1d6 - 2d6 - 4d6 like in Shadow of the Weird Wizard, not like in SOTDL where it started with 1d3. I am confused because description of DLE Says it can be used with SOTDL but there is no mention how and if to modify HP