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D&D Ideas — Scales

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is the scales, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of scales in Deep Breaths a procession of scaly lizardfolk considers the wisdom of their Voices of the Depths on whether an intruding party of adventurers present a worthy offering for the Drowned One or if they’ll be the offering themselves! You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Make a wish for the week that was! Make a pact with an elemental patron, get your dragon on with new feats and protect your party with 10 homebrew abjuration spells plus a new live chats and game plays round out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

This was a fun chat over on the Nerdarchy Live channel. As Nerdarchist Ted and I discussed scale can mean different things like a component of music, an instrument for measuring weight, a skin condition, the scope of something or the outer layer of reptiles and certain 5E D&D monsters.

Scale Plot Hooks and Potential Rewards

• Find the Lost Scale of the Feywild. Either a bard brought back a musical scale they learned in the Feywild or a fey creature possesses this mythical scale. They can be sought out to learn the scale from, which might be an adventure in and of itself. They could be in need of rescue or send the party on a fetch quest for further adventure. Any or all of these might require a trip to the Feywild. One or more of the characters receive the Fey Touched feat as a boon.
• Find the Lost Scale of the Shadowfell. All the concepts related to the Feywild above could work for a Scale of the Shadowfell. For the reward you could use the Shadow Touched feat.
• Recover the Scales of a Deity of Balance. This could be a straight up fetch quest. A thief has stolen this object or perhaps the god lost it in a bet or competition. This causes chaos in the world because the god doesn’t have the item, which helps them maintain the balance. This could be a single adventure, a short adventure arc or a whole campaign. As for the rewards obviously the favor of a god, a divine boon from said god or the item itself scale up nicely. (Keeping the item might earn you the ire of the god though.)
• Recover a Monster Scale. A scale from a particular monster is crucial to completing a ritual or creating a magic item. This scale could be from a dragon, gorgon, basilisk, yuan-ti or from a demon. How the characters acquire the scales could be completely up to them. Slaying the monster and taking them, convincing the monster to give it over willingly or stealing the discarded scales all make for interesting adventure opportunities. For a twist the ritual calls for the scales from a living creature.

Another idea for both monster scales and musical scales is turning them into spell components for enhancing spell casting. Monster scales are a bit easier to incorporate. The type of monster could determine the type of magic the spell component effects. After casting a spell using the scales they turn to dust. Dragon scales could correspond to the element of their Breath Weapon. Medusa scales could be used to enhance spells having to do with stone. Easy examples of enhancement would be sorcerer Metamagics or the Elemental Adept feat.

Scales of music are a little tougher. Perhaps only bards can acquire this spell component. They learn a music scale they can incorporate into their spellcasting. Once used it’s gone from the bard’s mind. Again use sorcerer Metamagics as the enhancements for these or perhaps the Eldritch Adept feat. There could be a scale for each one.

From Ted’s Head

When we picked scales for our topic I knew the direction I was going to go with my line of thinking and I was pretty sure my perspective would be unique. Of course this particular concept draws to mind actual scales of dragons, lizards and reptiles in general. It’s not too far off to look at the term scales in terms of balance and units of measurement either. But there is another angle as well.

For a little over sharing about my past, I was in the Marching Band for three years in high school. I played the baritone horn. I have not touched one since 1996 so not sure I could do much with one these days but the musicality of this time in my life has stayed with me.

When you play a musical instrument or sing you can move up and down an octave and play or sing scales. What if you incorporated this into a puzzle or challenge for 5E D&D? If you have a musically inclined bad guy or a villain who took over a location previously owned by someone musically inclined you could incorporate this type of puzzle or obstacle. I see it as a way of including a shortcut for the party. If it’s discovered and solved then the adventurers can reach the antagonist sooner or at the very least diminish the number of opponents to fight before getting to the boss battle.

A series of musical notes lies buried within an image. These notes could be a particular tune or to match the theme play an octave of notes. You can set to the DC for Intelligence (Investigation) and Wisdom (Perception) checks as low as you want or as high as you feel necessary. For this iteration of the concept I am setting all the DCs as a base of 15. Once the notes have been spotted it should be something easy enough to replicate. If you want it to be thematic it could be an easy check DC 10 Charisma (Performance) or musical instrument check.

If you do not mind a diversion from the theme this could be music hidden within rather difficult and beautiful art. Doing this could not only present the character with a real challenge to play or sing but it could also be something adventurers can write down and take away as another form of treasure. Is it a missing piece of music people will love…

Rather than the music only revealing a shortcut what if it opens a concealed door leading to the treasure room or some other great secret? What is behind the door might not be needed to solve the dungeon or defeat the villain but extra loot is never a bad thing, right?

This might not be what you think of when you think about scales but hopefully this will give you a dungeon application of either music instruments, the Performance skill or other engaging scenarios to put before players.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

The first thing I thought about when Ted proposed scales for our topic is how a relatively linear game like 5E D&D scales up or down. This may be the world’s most popular roleplaying game and arguably the most streamlined version of it (I’m a 4E D&D kinda guy) but a broadly applicable structure for scaling things up or down it does not possess.

Taking a peek at the nuts and bolts of 5E D&D helps me whenever there’s a question of scale. In chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide you’ll find a section on Traps with two very useful charts. Trap Save DCs and Attack Bonuses and Damage Severity by Level may be intended for guidance with traps but I find them much more flexible than this. Along with the Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating in chapter 9 of the same book (a chart I’ve considered blowing up to poster size and hanging across from my desk) you can get a great idea how to scale things up.

In my experience scaling up for 5E D&D falls into one of two buckets. Either I’ve got an adventure module meant for lower level characters or the scale of a scenario ramps up in the moment. In both cases information like those three charts provide gives you a much better chance of landing in the right spot when you scale things up. When it comes to scaling things down the same info works too but there’s a bit more finesse to it. This kind of scaling usually means decreasing the power of a monster, environmental hazard or another sort of mechanical challenge.

Something about scale in 5E D&D or any other RPG very important to me is keeping the scale of things in perspective. I moved away from villains aiming to take over the universe or destroy the world a long time ago because I found the scale too existential for the kinds of meaningful game experiences I prefer.

In real life I travel quite often and visit many places and even on a lazy afternoon country road trip I’m always enthralled by the scope of the world we live in now. When I participate in an RPG from either side of the screen this perspective carries over and to me it’s the stories on a smaller scale I found most intriguing and engaging.

Even my great love for spacefaring and dimension hopping adventures keeps the scale of things in mind because it’s the factors on the smallest scale driving those sweeping quests forward.

*Featured image — A group of lizardfolk and their chief ambush heroes deep in the oppressive jungle and demand a price be paid for intrusion along with 54 other dynamic encounters ready to drop right into your games. Learn more about all of them here.

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