Recent content by jshaft37

Material looks good and is certainly helpful for the improv style DM. On first review, I'm curious if there isn't some issues with the CRs on some of the NPCs. For example, in the MM the 9th Level Spellcaster Mage is CR 6. In your product, the adept, cleric, diabolist, the enchanter, fey...

Just stopping in to point out that in AD&D the Ranger and Paladin were not alternate classes to the fighter, but were superior options if you met the ability score requirements. The ranger doesn't exist in BECMI and the Paladin (as well as Knight and Avenger) exist as options for name level...

Any "best adventure" thread should certainly include a mention of B10 Night's Dark Terror. Huge exploration, mini-crawls, town at seige, ruined city and an excellent display of basic and expert rule sets.

I was just looking at converting these, but my group is pretty content with playing B/X at the moment, so it'll probably have to wait until later :erm:

here you go: NPCs for the Caves of Chaos D&D Next Playtest

AD&D MM listed Bugbear's damage die as 2d4+1. Most of the monsters have roughly the same damage as the AD&D versions, with a modifier ranging from +0-+2. I was looking into some comparisons because I want to run N1 and U1.

Depending on how often my group can get together and what PC levels and adventures are provided at what times my group is considering N1, U1 and T1. I looked over U1 and it seems pretty straightforward to convert with a few modifications to each monster.

I was just about to post that this fighter is not enough like the essentials slayer. I just built an essentials slayer that I think many would prefer to this fighter. I don't understand why they couldn't have just included two "stances" from the slayer arsenal: Berserker's Charge +10' to move...

Yes very much so! I have highschool friends in Philly, New York, London, Chicago and across the street. We all want to play together and playtest but can't. This is 2012 afterall. In the Kobold Quarterly article, Mearls even said they used G+ Hangouts to develop the materials!

Definitely agree. Essentials characters are extremely well done and only need a touch of tweaking to fit perfectly into D&D Next. Remove the grid reliance and associated conditions and they are perfect.

Run it however you, as the DM, think would be the most exciting and engaging for the players! Who cares about the rules if you are having fun creating a cinematic scene where the rogue gets to shine?

Maybe I'm the only one who got excited for the Roleplay opportunities with the way the Medusa was presented? At first she tries to convince the PCs to let her free by posing as a damsel in distress. If she needs to up the ante, she can petrify a PC or two to try to force their hand to free...

Wait until you see the Minotaur and Troll!

Agreed, and I think the Monster Vault and Threats to the Nentir Vale did a better job of giving monsters 1 or 2 cool powers (special traits) rather than a whole host. I would like to see that monsters and NPCs have different powers than PCs though, just so they remain unique and interesting for...

I don't want monsters or NPCs to have the same abilities that PC's have. I want them to have 1 or 2 cool/unique abilities (special traits) that will be memorable for the PCs during the encounter. If I want to give a monster a spell or power from the PC list, I can do that myself. For example...