This has been kicking around on here for a few months but I finally got it finished. The following includes rules on how to use Cybertronians as a race in Dungeons & Dragons 5e. It has formulas to convert G1 tech specs to D&D usable characters. This is a homebrew and not official. I present Garages & Dinobots First edition for DnD 5eEverything following is created for use with Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition rules. Homebrewed on www.tfw2005.com by DJ kevintron and other members where noted. Cybertronians are a race. Still apply classes backgrounds and alignment as you would a normal character except where noted. To keep character stats don’t add any attribute bonuses. Cybertronians do not get a race attribute bonus but instead get one bonus action of Transform every turn. This allows player to convert to bot mode or alt mode once per turn. Transform can be use as an action to allow 2 transforms in one turn or to free up bonus action for something else. Cybertronians use tech specs to calculate attributes instead of dice roll or point buy. Transformers tech specs are 1-10 where D&D is mostly 1-20 so they needed to be modified. STR Strength =Strength x 2 DEX Dexterity = Speed + Skill CON Constitution = Endurance x 2 INT Intelligence = Intelligence x2 WIS Wisdom = Skill + Intelligence CHA Charisma = Rank + Courage Stat conversion DJ kevintron and khys Hit Points as JJohnson used in his rules are determined by adding Strength+Intelligence+Speed+Endurance+Rank+Courage+Firepower+Skill=__. Then multiply that total by 2 for total Hit points. –Optional- don’t double total for any bot, hit points still appropriately relative to each other. -khys (IE Bee will still be notably weaker then Prime like it should.) Cybertronian level calculated Skill x 2 =Character level khys This is also your number of hit dice. Use your level to pick feats and traits. Cybertronians hit dice is d10 ignore class based hit dice. Cybertronians have a robot mode walking speed of 30ft Cybertronian alt mode speed is the characters G1 speed x 10=__ feet. Alt mode speed and bot mode speed expend separately. You can use your entire bot mode walking speed then transform and still have your alt mode speed to use. Terrain difficulties affect both modes the same way. Also characters like Soundwave or Megatron can’t move in alt mode so for that a character can jump transform 10 feet to any ally capable of carrying it. Bot modes or alt modes can be made prone. You must spend half current modes speed to right yourself or use Transform as an action to convert to your other mode un-prone. This still allows use of Transform as a bonus action that turn. If bonus action is used instead of action, character is still prone in next mode. Cybertronians have no armor proficiency but do have natural armor. Character AC is different in alt and robot mode. alt mode AC is calculated 10 + STR modifier bot mode AC is calculated 10 + CON modifier if the modifier is negative then the AC for that mode is 10(do not subtract). It’s the same shared hit points for all modes. Cybertronians cannot use potions or be healed with healing magic from a non Cybertronian. They can use self repair and recharge during short and long rests. Self Repair is spending hit dice during a short rest. Follow normal rules for short rest. Recharge is full health recovery after an uninterrupted long rest. Recharge also recovers half of your total hit dice (round up). Follow normal rules for long rest. You must choose between recovering half your Hit Dice or recharging an Energy cell. You cannot do both. You cannot recover more than your total hit dice. Energon cube: Roll 10d10 + (CON modifier x 10)=health points recovered. Still use CON modifier if negative it just means that bot heals less. Autobots cannot recover more than their total hit points. Autobots can give any left over health points to another Autobot. Decepticons can over energize up to half their total Hit Points(round up) as Temporary Hit Points. They must first reach full health and any points over that are applied to Temporary Hit points. Ranged weapons are at a disadvantage while character still has over energized Temporary Hit Points. Decepticons don’t share left over health points they are wasted. Energon cannot be used to heal during combat. One Energon cube can instantly recharge one Energy cell. Energy cells cannot heal or refill Energon cubes. Cybertronians use magic. Or what most beings percieve as magic. In reality almost all of it is just advanced technology. Technologies do have limitations, requirements and need to be recharged. So as not to temp greed amongst civilazations its best to log and reffer to it as magic. Follow all rules regaurding magic and reffer to batteries as spell slots from here on out. All spell slots recharge over a long rest unless class notes otherwise. You may ignore spell ingredents or school restrictions if it hinders the character. Discuss this with you DM first. Flight As a general rule Decepticons can fly Autobots cannot. All Decepticons have a bot mode flying speed of 60ft. Alt modes only fly if they are a flying vehicle(jets, spaceships, winged creatures). Flight for Cybertronians also include hover. Flying robots or alt modes do not need to land between turns. Flying Cybertronians can hover. They stay in flight between turns at no aditional movement cost. They can change the direction they face in flight at no movement cost but only on their turn. Unlike other hovering creatures if made unconsious for any reason they fall to the ground prone in current mode. Bot modes share flying speed with walking speed see rule explaination below. USING DIFFERENT SPEEDS PHB 190 if you have more than one speed, such as your walking speed and a flying speed, you can switch back and forth between your speeds during your move. Whenever you switch, subtract the distance you've already moved from the new speed. The result determines how much farther you can move. If the result is 0 or less. You can't use the new speed during the current move. For example, if you have a speed of 30 and a flying speed of 60 because a wizard cast the fly spell on you, you could fly 20 feet, then walk 10 feet, and then leap into the air to fly 30 feet more. Alt mode speed is not shared with walking or flying and spends seperately. Even if the alt mode flys. If a Cybertronian in bot mode flying transforms it only remains flying if the altmode flys. Example flying Starscream transforms into a jet mode and stays flying. Flying Megatron transforms into gun mode and falls to the ground. Alt mode Speed is flight(if altmode supports this) and groundmovement combined. It’s not separate like bot mode. If your alt mode flys and its speed is 80ft you can fly 80ft or drive 80ft or both(40ft/40ft, 20ft/60ft, 75ft/5ft) as long as the total is 80ft or less. No speed is spent to rotate your character’s direction in flight. No speed is spent for vertical movement during flying. Flight alt modes and bot modes must remain over battle map and a max elevation of 100ft off the ground to stay in battle. Any point off the battle map edge or over 100ft in the air is considered a retreat from battle and that character may not rejoin current battle. Maps with mutipul heights on the battlefield the DM picks the retreat ceiling and annouces it at the start of combat. A Cybertronian’s elevation is know as long as it can be seen. If a Cybertronian alt mode drives past the edge of a map this is also considered a retreat. Any character that retreats forfits it’s XP from the battle. In the rare case an Autobot has flight ability it is noted on the character sheet. Autobots can be given flight by magic the same as regular creatures, see spell properties for details. Cybertronians under flight magic can only fly in bot mode(unless its altmode already has flight powers). If they transform under flight spell they safely land on the ground beneath them in alt mode. This spends no flight speed. They cannot fly until they transform to bot mode again. Movement is only restricted by size and speed. Alt modes can move in any direction as long as they are not blocked by a physical obstical and have speed to do so. Realism is sacraficed for game mechanics. A Cybertronian can squeeze through a space one creature size smaller but must be in bot mode to do so. They cannot transform until they are back in a space their normal size or bigger. This is considered difficult terrain against movement. Cybertronians have the same vision as Humans. They can be blinded by special attacks and require light to see in the dark. Some Cybertronians have special abilitites that allow blindsight or truesight but this is rare. Cybertronians can operate in water or other enviournments without oxygen. Water should be counted as difficult terrain unless character has a special ability. Cybertronians can speak multipul languages. Their computerized brains enable them to learn languages quickly. By default Cybertronians in your D&D world should already speak and read the standart languages. These are Common, Dwarvish, Elvish, Giant, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling and Orc. Any other languages are considered exotic(unless specificly granted by class or background) and require one the following to learn. 12 hours of servalance. 8 hours prisoner interigation 4 hours of social interaction. If a book or letter in this lanquage is aquired time is halfed. The Cybertronian must have the item in it’s inventory during the learning. Universal Greeting “Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong” A character says this and slowly offers the creature one of its hit dice. Character must have at least one hit dice and it is spent in the process. The character must then make Charisma saving throw DC 15. On success the creature will say it back. You can now make basic communication with each other. Short simple statements like “Take us to your leader. We need shelter. Danger behind us! Do you wanna dance?” You now only need 2 hours of social interaction for total understanding or 1 hour if you have a book or letter. On a failed Charisma saving throw the creature considers you an enemy and retreats. Rolling a natural 20 means instant understanding no further interaction required(you talk TV ;-). Rolling a natural 1 the creature thinks your food and instantly attacks. The spent hit dice is recovered as per normal rules. Decepticons usually won’t use the universal greeting unless its part of a larger plan to deceive a society. Vision, language and water movement contributions Altered Prime Joeis4Jord4n Agamus flamepanther UndertakerPrime RADimus prime Galvatross Aernaroth Size and Bot Fists Medium bot, bot fist damage dice 1d4 tapebots Large bot, bot fist damage dice 1d6 minibots and larger cars Huge bot, fist damage dice 1d8 trucks, jets, leaders Gargantuan bot, bot fist damage dice 1d10 Dinobots and Jetfire Colossal bot, bot fist damage dice 1d100 Combiners and City bots All Cybertronians are proficient in hand to hand combat unless specifically noted on character sheet. A Cybertronian fist is a light versatile weapon(excludes Colossal). This means you can use either you STR or DEX modifier. A Cybertronian fist deals bludgeon damage. For example let’s use Bumblebee. First our size chart says he's large so 1d6 damage dice. STR -3 or DEX +0 are his modifiers so DEX it is. His proficiency is 5 at level 14. His DEX modifier is 0 so he gets a total +5 to his attack rolls. His damage roll is 1d6+0 bludgeon damage. An unarmed Cybertronian with two fists can use them as a two weapon attack. Cybertronians with a vehicle alt mode can use Ram Attack. A character can Ram attack an enemy if there is an unbroken strait line between the character and enemy. Characters must be at least 10ft apart and attacker must be in alt mode. Character adds strength modifier to attack roll. On a hit roll 3 of your characters bot fist damage dice and add your strength modifier to the total. Only enemy takes damage. Both characters must then make a dexterity saving throw with a DC of 20. On fail that character is knocked prone in current mode. Charcters on ground cannot Ram characters in the air. Characters in air can Ram ground based characters or airborn characters. In either of those cases the airborn attacker makes the dexterity saving throw at a disadvantage. Optimus Prime bot fist 1d8, strength +5, Optimus Prime Ram Attack +5 to attack roll damage 3d8+5. Cybertronians are proficient in all weaponry Weapons! These are all considered ranged weapons and use Dexterity modifiers. The type of weapon you use determines type of damage dice/ range/ base magazine size. laser pistol radiant damage d4 range 40ft/60ft shots 10 one handed light laser blaster radiant damage d6 range 30ft/60ft shots 8 one handed medium laser riffle radiant damage d8 range 80ft/120ft shots 15 two handed medium laser cannon radiant damage d10 range 60ft/100ft shots 10 two handed large Tech Spec Firepower level =number of damage dice. Every odd level adds a damage dice. If your firepower is even you also gain 5 extra shots to weapon magazine and 10 feet to normal range. Here is an example of a laser pistol for every level of firepower. laser pistol by firepower 1 =1d4 (standard shots and range) 2 =1d4 +5 shots +10 ft to range 3 =2d4 (standard shots and range) 4 =2d4 +5 shots +10ft to range 5 =3d4 (standard shots and range) 6 =3d4 +5 shots +10ft to range 7 =4d4 (standard shots and range) 8 =4d4 +5 shots +10ft to range 9 =5d4 (standard shots and range) 10=5d4 +5shots +10ft to range Weapons are reloaded by Energy cells. One energy cell fully reloads any laser weapon. A weapon cannot be reloaded until completely discharged. A transformer can recharge one energy cell after a long rest instead of recovering Hit Dice. Energy cell must be removed from gun before or at the start of long rest. Loaded weapons don’t recharge. Weapons cannot be reloaded in alt mode. Cybertronian must transform to bot mode to reload. Cybertronians can use ranged weapons in alt mode if that weapon was equipped at transformation. If not a character must use a bonus action to equip a ranged weapon from inventory. Bows and slings cannot be used but crossbows and gun weapons can. If weapon is equipped in alt mode and character transforms it is still equipped in bot mode. Melee weapons cannot be used in alt mode. Cybertronians interface directly with energy cell powered weapons. Characters can carry their firepower to other non bonded energy cell weapons. A transformer cannot fire a weapon bonded to another transformer(unless noted IE Brawn can use Megatron’s fusion cannon). These are character specific weapons and are generally connected to special abilities. Bumblebee’s firepower is 2 so his laser Pistol would do 1d4 radiant damage hold 15 shots and have a range of 50ft/60ft. Megatron's firepower is 10 so his laser pistol would do 5d4 radiant damage hold 15 shots and have a range of 50ft/60ft. Bumblebee’s Laser Cannon 1d10 radiant damage holds 15 shots range 70ft/100ft Change damage types if you are looking to customize. This must be done out of combat. Spend one Energy cell to change damage type. A weapons damage type can only be changed once. Weapon still shoots a laser shot but it now carries a different damage effect. Shots do not give ongoing damage. This is more for strategy against resistance and vulnerability. This rule is meant for generic weapons not special ability weapons. Bumblebee’s Custom Laser Cannon(The Bee Sting) 1d10 acid damage holds 15 shots range 70ft/100ft Standard Dungeons and Dragons weapons can be used by a Cybertronian with a slight mod. For a humanoid sized weapon a Cybertronian can spend one Energy cell to make it robot sized. This automatically and permanently mass shifts the weapon to character’s scale. For loading weapons you may include a standard bundle of ammo at no extra cost. Mass shifting a weapon can be used anytime outside of combat. In combat a bonus action must be used to do this. Mass shift cannot be used on a bonded weapon. If the weapon is dropped from a creature of the same size class, mass shift is not needed. There is no other change to the weapon than size. All ranges, damages and properties remain the same. A blacksmith could be commissioned to build a robot sized weapon. Materials and cost are doubled in this case. Energy Weapons. Energy Longsword +1 to attack 3d8 slashing 5ft reach one handed medium Here is a formula for energy weapons. Take standard melee weapon, add 2 more damage dice and +1 to attack. Energy weapons cannot be thrown. Energy weapons can only be activated by Cybertronians. A Cybertronian must use a bonus action to activate an energy weapon and must be holding its handle. Upon activation the energy blade emerges from the handle. It can be deactivated using a minor action. Deactivated energy weapon loses its blade and becomes just a handle again(if part of anatomy it returns to storage). Energy weapon also deactivates if Cybertronian holding it is made unconscious or drops it. Anatomy based weapons can only be wielded by bonded character. Example: Longsword 1d8 slashing / Energy Longsword +1 to attack 3d8 slashing Explosive weapons (ranged) Grenade launcher Piercing damage d6 100ft 5 shots two handed medium 15ft blast radius. DC save 15. Cluster bomb piercing damage d4 30ft 5 shots two handed medium 15ft blast radius DC save 20. *Blast radius* Roll attack for Target within range. On a hit the target takes damage. Any creatures(friend or foe) in blast radius must make DC dexterity saving throw(difficulty noted per weapon). Fail creature takes full damage. Success half damage. If attack roll is a miss, it misses all creatures. Automatic weapons (ranged) Automatic Laser Gun radiant damage d4 range 30ft shots 20 two handed medium Add one extra d4 to your firepower damage dice total. Burst shot. One d4 damage dice per target. 5ft max between targets. Automatic Laser Riffle radiant damage d6 range 80ft shots 15 two handed medium Add one extra d6 to your firepower damage dice total. Burst shot. One d6 damage dice per target. 5ft max between targets. *Burst shot* Instead of one target per action a burst shot allows multiple targets. The number of targets varies by weapon but 4 is what we will use for example. The damage is lower than a normal shot but this lets you target more than one creature. Range is reduced a noted amount for a burst shot. A burst shot uses one piece of ammunition for each shot our example costs 4 shots of ammunition(one per target) per burst shot. You must make an attack roll for each creature you target. If you target a creature more than once you do not make additional attack rolls. Each target must be a maximum set distance from the previous target. This varies by weapon but is usually 5ft max between targets(all targets must be in weapon range). You may target an empty space at the cost of one missed shot. Apply attack bonus to all shots but no damage bonuses. If an attack roll misses continue to the next target but it still spends the shot. If you targeted a missed creature a second time you only then make another attack roll for it. Energon Cube Explosion 10d10 radiant damage. Blast radius 30ft DC save 25. All creatures in blast radius are knocked prone success or fail on saving throw. Any shot fired into a space occupied by an Energon cube triggers the explosion. If an Energon cube is in a blast radius it also triggers the explosion(creating a second blast radius originating on the Energon cube). If a creature is unfortunate enough to be in both blast radiuses it takes damage from both. It takes damage from the initial blast radius first. Rules applied to Characters. Haven't been able to play test but looks good on paper. more character sheets are in development. feedback is always appreciated. The Bumblebee Character sheet attached to this post has errors and I can't delete it from the post. Please see later post for corrected version. All other edits to this post are for spelling and grammar.
Cool. I'm playing a TF character in a campaign I'm doing next semester, and these rules seem much more thought out than the Transformers homebrew race that's on the D&D Wiki. I'll rebuild him with these rules and let you know how it works out for me in a few months.
Thank you Im glad your considering using this. I tried to only change things that had to be or needed to make sense. Once i started making the rules the characters went together pretty easy. Most special abilities have a d&d counterpart which only requires a name change. The characters Ive done so far easily fit in official classes and backgrounds. I look forward to hearing how your campaign goes. If there is a specific character youd like to use id be willing to try them for my next character sheet.
Starscream-I used the adjusted stats which are technically Skywarp's. I feel this builds a character closest to the G1 cartoon which is the default universe I reference for this. Bumblebee-I am also posting a fixed version of Bumblebee's sheet. I made I few adding errors I realized making Starscream's so I updated it. I'll delete the errored one off the first post.
Thundercracker and Skywarp based on adjusted stats. This makes Skywarp the weaker of the three original seekers and Thundercracker the middle. Still using the original tech specs just switching the numbers to the proper character. I also included on the sheet the mini rule for using weapons to fire spells. Basically spells use ammo instead of materials but still expend spell slots. Its is noted on the spell how much ammo is used.
UPDATE: This should say *finesse weapon* not versatile. A Cybertronian fist is a light finesse weapon(excludes Colossal). I meant for players to be able to apply either Strength or Dexterity bonus to their bot fist. I will fix this on the first major update to the rules which I'm currently tinkering with.
"Time for repairs, I guess." I finally finished Ratchet! I had to make him a Cleric which doesn't really fit his character. I realized if you change a few names it works much better. On the sheet I put renames in brackets(like changing divinity to science). I left the original names for spells, feats and traits so they can be quickly referenced in the players hand book. I also decided when I play Ratchet he can heal both Cybertronians and creatures. You may decide to make him heal Cybertronians only or split which spells work on which life forms(or maybe only one species per turn). Use whatever fits your game best but have this conversation with your DM at the start of the game(please share your preference and the results). The only thing that doesn't work for Cybertronians is the make food and water spell because bots don't eat. I figured it could be useful for aid, trading and allies.
Printable player/enemy tokens. These should print with a 1" grid(or really close). Make sure your printer is set to actual size not stretch to fit. Cut the botmode and altmode out as one piece. Fold in half and one side is now bot mode, flip to transform to alt mode. Side note the website on the bottom lets you print grids in custom sizes which is handy so I left it on there.
I have a question about this part you say you are going by G1 But in the (Season 2 Episode 11 = Microbots) Megatron and all of his Decepticons are drinking Energon to a point that they are all Drunk. Wouldnt it be better to have it both Sides can get drunk (so to speak) but Autobots tend to pass off what they dont use to some1 else or save the rest for another day Or Recycle the rest with some elses portion to make a complete portion. But Decepticon dont share so they would either fully repair and recharge and if there is still some left would get drunk. You could Split the Energon cube into 4s say a Full Cube , Half Cube and Quarter Cube sorta like they do with potions Cure Light wounds , Cure Moderate Wounds , Cure Serious Wounds and Cure Critical Wounds. With the bottles its a 1 use item but energon cubes are different in the cartoon most of the time you see them being squeeze to a smaller size to carry more. So with the Energon Cubes you can say it carries 4 and it repairs 1st then recharges 2nd after repair is done. I like to know your thoughts PS - Also what about Ratchet's , Perceptor's , Red Alert's and I heard there was a Female Red Alert that was with Elita-1's group that could repair Bots
The ranged disadvantage was meant to simulate drunkenness. They get the extra energy but trying to decide which of the 3 Optimus Primes they are seeing is real is a problem. They are just gonna shoot and hope for the best. They sober up when they hit regular hit points and the ranged disadvantage is gone. I did this mainly out of a balancing concern. I have somewhere a pile of post-it notes where i figured out more characters and it seemed like HP wise the Autobots had an unbalanced advantage. This was my attempt at balancing that. I also figure itd drive conflict in campaigns since to beat the Autobots the Decepticons are gonna need an energy stockpile. I probably should have noted this before. OK I can see the interest in this so I would propose an alternate rule. Party til all are one. Any transformer may over energize a number of hit points equal to their constitution score. This can only be done by using energon. These should be considered Temporary Hit Points and can only be applied at full health or consuming enough energon to go over full health. While a transformer has these over energized Temporary Hit Points all ranged attacks are at a disadvantage. All dexterity checks are at a disadvantage. Stealth checks automatically fail. An over energized transformer acts intoxicated and would appear obviously drunk to any humanoid character. Autobots would never drink and drive and are honor bound to stay in bot mode until over energized Temporary Hit Points are expended. A transformer returns to normal status when it returns to normal hit points. This happens after taking enough damage or using the sober-up action. The sober-up action is an action a transformer may take that immediately removes all over energized Temporary Hit Points and returns the character to normal status. The energon cube rule seems pointlessly complicated looking back at it. I've thought about it a bit and I think a standard amount makes more sense. Standard size Energon cube= 200 Hit Points Energon cubes may be divided in to any amount the owner decides. Split evenly or unbalanced portions. Energon can also be portioned out over time. Energon can be recombined if needed but a cube may not exceed 200 Hit Points. Energon can only heal transformers. With the proper processing other resources can be turned to energon. Three forty gallon barrens of crude oil can be refined into one energon cube. I did make a character sheet for Ratchet check out post 7. I used a cleric but just renamed everything to sound medical and science based. I would probably approach the other characters the same way or maybe as paladins. I haven't worked on any of this in a while but knowing there is still interest I think I'm gonna start going over everything and maybe making an updated edition. There are a few other conflicts and missing things I noticed over time. If anyone has anymore feedback I would be most interested.
I hit a wall on working on this 3 years ago and kinda just set it aside for a while. Just curious if anyone got any use out of it. Thinking about trying to get back into working on it.
Please do. I came across this recently, and would like to try out some of this. If you could maybe make Lvl 1 versions, maybe also a spiel about what each character can learn and what lvl and that kinda stuff, that would be great.
I would love to see someone make a Cybertronian class for 5E. Maybe take a few pages from the Essense20 book? I like the system but I'd to see if E20 could be converted to 5E since that's what E20 began life as before being turned into it's own thing and you can see remnants of it in the system.
