User blog:Varsonofii/Reskinning Monsters

My recent project Orcs for Every Level came about as the result of thinking about reskinning in general. I feel like its something most dms and some players do regularly and instinctively but very rarely do i see or hear any discussion about it directly, which i think is somewhat unfortunate given the rise of "how to start gming" & "how to gm better" type content online. For anyone who might be unfamiliar, reskinning is taking existing content of some kind and altering it to fit a different theme or situation than its original intent. The changes can be minor changes like names and physical descriptions to more substantial changes that affect mechanics like the type of damage a spell does.

As a player i have done this many times, especially for characters with strong themes but i have done it even more as a dungeonmaster. Sometimes it seems a necessity in fact. I cannot count the times I have prepared content for a game only to have my players make a decision which renders that content useless, at least as is. However, changing some names and set dressing has often allowed me to reuse that content later.

So what does this have to do with the orcs? Since Rockport is an orc city, I anticipate orcs being involved as long as the game remains near the city. I wanted to have orc encounter options for a variety of challenge ratings without simply adding class levels. So, I started browsing monsters and looking for options that I thought would mechanically work as orcs. When multiple monsters seemed suitable, I tried to pick the options that were interesting without feeling out of place. Some of the remains were more drastic than others and as the cr climbed, I felt the need to change more things, especially feats. I tried not too worry excessively about how certain changes affected "the math" but did try to make the numbers seem to work, especially things like armor class. It's been an enjoyable project so far and I intend to go all the way to cr 20.

If you happen across this random little post of mine and haven't already, please check out Orcs for Every Level and maybe even leave a comment!