5e Features as Magical Weapons and Items - Bard

I quickly burned out trying to post daily. I'm gonna aim for weekly.

Part two of this series:

Bard

[Instrument] of the Bard - Playing this instrument lifts the spirits of your allies. Once per combat, you can play a melody instead of attacking. Any ally who can hear the music gains d6 to their next attack roll. [Bardic Inspiration]

Cymbals of Distraction - When these finger cymbals collide, they produce the sound of full crash cymbals. Once per combat, when they are in your hand,  instead of attacking you can crash the symbols together to distract an enemy combatant as they attack an ally. When you do so, subtract d6 from their attack rolls. [Cutting Words]

War Drum - Beat terror into the hearts of your foes. When combat begins, you can begin playing the War Drum and forgo attacking. In doing this, each of your allies can roll a d6 and add to the damage of one of their attacks. Additionally, enemy Morale rolls are increased by your Charisma Modifier. [Combat Inspiration]

B/X - Thief Skils for Everyone

Recently, I've been reading the rules for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and I'm quite enamored with the Specialist class (Raggi's version of the Thief). Instead of using the standard table, the system gives you 1-in-6 chance to succeed on any of your skills (Hear Noise, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, etc...) and 4 points to increase the 'pips' on those skills. So, from the beginning, you get some say in what you specialize in, rather than just being a thief. Each level thereafter, you gain 2 more points to increase your odds of success.

One grievance about the Thief I've heard voiced by grognards and zoomers alike is that the Thiefs existence codifies these skills as only being accomplish-able by that class (some think the class and skills are pointless altogether). Later editions 'fixed' this by broadening the skill system for all classes and just giving Thieves/Rogues more skill points. However, I think I have a solution that empowers all characters without stepping on the Thief's toes.

Start with the B/X Thief Skills (Climb Surfaces, Find/Remove Traps, Hear Noise, Hide in Shadows, Move Silently, Open Locks, Pick Pockets) and some general mechanics (Searching, Find Food/Hunting). Every character has a 1-in-12 chance of success provided they have the right equipment (e.g. lockpicks) or their armor doesn't inhibit their chances (Climbing or Moving Silently in Plate Armor).

Now, instead of allocating all your experience towards leveling up, characters can put some toward these skills. By 'spending' 600 experience (half the exp needed to level up a Thief), you can increase your skills by 4 pips. For instance, you could put all 4 into Climb surfaces, for a 5-12 chance of success, or putting 1 pip in four different skills for 2-in-12 chance of success. Spend another 1200 experience for 4 more pips, 2400 for 4 more, etc... If a skill reaches 12-in-12, instead roll 2d6; rolling two 6s is a failure.

As for Thieves, you could keep them as they are with their Roll-Under percentile table, or you could adopt the LotFP specialist rules and keep the skill mechanics universal, regardless of class.

5e Features as Magical Weapons and Items - Barbarian

The lack of powers/features/feats available to characters can be quite a jarring difference between modern and old school play. To try and bridge that gap, it occurred to me to create magic weapons and items out of the many features that from 5e that can be used in B/X.

Barbarian

Axe of Bloodlust - Once per turn, an attack that doesn't hit may be re-rolled. In the round this is used, one missed attack against the wielder may also be re-rolled. [Reckless Attack]

Black Cap Mushroms - Eating one causes the character to enter into frenzy where pain isn't felt and their adrenaline is pumping. For one turn, attacks do +1 damage and damage received is reduced by 1. Eating more than one in a day causes a character to fall unconscious for 4d6 hours. [Rage]

Boots of Leaping - When activated, you have a flying speed equal to half your speed. This benefit works only in short bursts: you fall if you end a round in the air and nothing else is holding you aloft. Usable once per day. [Totemic Attunement: Eagle]

Sandstorm Hourglass - When you place this hourglass with the filled side up, a sandstorm engulfs the immediate area. In a 10 foot radius, boiling-hot sand whips around the glass, dealing d3 damage to anyone who enters or begins in that area.

Undying Amulet - When a character wearing the amulet is reduced to 0 HP, the amulet shatters, and the character is left with 1 hit point. [Rage Beyond Death]

Brutal Weapon - Critical hits made with a brutal weapon deal three dice of damage, instead of two. Costs ten times the amount of a regular weapon to purchase from a master smith.

Totem's - I'm too lazy to write them all out, but all the Aspects of the Beast make great magic items.

Next installment will feature Bard-y items

Weather Flower

So, I was chilling on tg/osrg/ and I came across this neat image:

My first thought was how much cooler and more reasonable this is than just rolling on a table. My second thought was 2d7?!

So, I promptly embarked on fixing this wayward image to make it usable by 4th dimensional mortals. As you'll see, I even included a method for seasonal variance.

As it stands, there's only an eleven percent tendency to move in the direction of 7s,  so if you want even greater seasonal variance replace the numbers as follows:

And finally, here's a snip of the excel sheet I used to model this stuff. On the left, in red, are the odds if rolling on the higher variance layout, and on the right, in blue, are the odds for the layout in my original revision. Enjoy!

P.S. If anyone knows who created the original, I'd like to credit them for it as well as ask what the fork a 2d7 is.