Canonfire!

Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:34 pm Silent Ones

Anyone introduced any Silent One NPCs into their 5e campaign yet? I considered porting the Silent One prestige class into 5e as a separate class which Silent One NPCs could be multiclassed in, but now I'm considering just making it a Sorcerous Origin, which doesn't really fit the flavor of origins, but might be the easier way to do it. Any thoughts?

Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:34 pm

Here's the prestige class if you're not familiar with it. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=lg/lgpg/20060711a

Sat Oct 03, 2015 7:11 pm

I remember reading about them in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, though I can't check because I'm at work right now eating lunch. From the looks of it you could simply make it a variant of the Sage background in the 5e PHB, but make it a requirement to be an Arcane caster.

Skills: Arcana and History
Languages: Ancient Suel

There's still one more language to learn or maybe you can swap it out for a Tool Proficiency like a Forger's Kit. One of the ways they could "hide" magic is to make forgeries of real knowledge and books they steal; then they forge a copy and turn magical knowledge into non-magical myths.

For the background ability you'd still benefit from the "Research" powers of the Sage. I have a low level Arcane Trickster who uses that power all of the time.

Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:00 am

They just released prestige class rules as an Unearthed Arcana article: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA_Rune_Magic_Prestige_Class.pdf

Fri Jul 01, 2016 3:14 am

I hated making the Silent Ones a sorcerer prestige class so I generally ignore it. It was part of 3e's attempt to be inclusive. They play quite a significant role in my campaign. It's fun to have a war with the Seekers bubbling behind the scenes of a lot of adventure threads.

Fri Jul 01, 2016 11:20 am

Why not making it a sub-class of the Sorcerer?

Fri Jul 01, 2016 12:45 pm

For me, personally, because keepers of lore and hiders of secrets screams Wizard (and Lore Bard) so loudly my throat is sore. Innate magicians obsessed with the ancient lore and magical secrets of the Suel Imperium's archmages just doesn't ring true. It just feels wrong to me but to each their own.

For our part, agents of the Silent Ones can take the Criminal (spy) or Faction Agent background. We haven't found the need to specify anything beyond that. Other benefits of being involved the the Silent Ones can be conveyed through the story rather than mechanics.

Thu Nov 24, 2016 12:37 am Re: Silent Ones