These Dino Race Rules aim to focus on the most exciting aspects of a race: Overtakes, and to incorporate a system that is analogous to 5e combat so that players can improvise and use their class skills where appropriate!
These rules are inspired by the following games and supplements, many thanks to their designers.
A race is made up of the Starting Line and several Stages representing parts of the race track. The order of players at the end of the final stage is the order in which the race is finished.
The number of Stages in a race is left flexible for you to grow or shrink the size of a race to fit what you need as a group.
Players choose a dinosaur to ride from the 6 stat blocks in this document. Each dinosaur has stats which differentiate them from each other, but most importantly, use different Skills for their Racing Modifier used for most racing rolls. Each dinosaur uses either Animal Handling, Athletics or Acrobatics as the Racing Modifier, so choose a dinosaur that best fits your character’s Skills.
If you feel your favourite dinosaur is missing, pick a dinosaur who is similar and use its stats.
Everyone gathers on the starting line, and gets ready to start the race when the horn blows. Take this time to do any pre-race preparation such as applying spell effects to yourself or others.
Roll d20 + Initiative Bonus + Racing Modifier to determine the initiative AND determine the current order of characters in the race.
For a stage of a race, players and the GM play out their turns simmilar a combat encounter, but from the back-most racer to the front-most racer. When all racers have taken their action, the race moves to the next stage, where turns are taken in the new order or the racers.
A race stage may be a simple lap of a stadium or a point-to-point race through a part of the city. For the purposes of ongoing spell effects, each stage of the race takes 1 minute, and the first 1 minute includes the Starting Line and the First Stage.
Some stages may have extra rules or actions that can be taken, specific to the environment. Later in this document are rules for three specific stages based on districts of Port Nyanzaru: the temples of the Merchant Ward, the Harbour Ward, and the winding streets of the Market Ward.
It's best to have something to represent all the racers in front of you, either on screen or using toys or minis. We used toy dinosaurs! This is so everyone can easily visualize who is in front of them, and how far they have to go to be at the front of the pack.