Recent content by Paul Farquhar

This is more a description of what you like, rather than the generally accepted definition.

It’s really just The Crystal Shard (1988), the first and least bad of the Drizzt novels, that is set in Icewind Dale. The eponymous Crystal shard - crenshabon (or some such) crops up elsewhere, such as the Icewind Dale computer game (which is actually a prequel) and Rime of the Frostmaiden.

You want to rule out one of the genre-defining novel series from the genre?! That swerves into mythic fantasy as much as sword and sorcery. Conan the Destroyer is more genre faithful. That’s the thing really, you don’t need different rules, just different flavour text.

Yeah, but this edition war will be fought with giant rubber mallets.

It’s better than the vest majority of Star Wars not called Andor. Star Wars is fantasy, it’s not supposed to be realistic.

Elric isn’t so much a summoner as someone with Gate on their spell list. He is a noble not-elf trained in spellcasting and alchemy. He relies on potions to compensate for his frail constitution (or a soul-sucking magic sword). He has a chaos god as his patron, but spends a lot of time worrying...

There are a number of ways to do an Elric-type character in D&D. Deities and Demigods made him a multiclassed wizard/fighter, since his magic is learned, the hexblade warlock was based on Elric. You could do a fighter/artificer(alchemist) due to his reliance on potions or a ranger given his...

Gandalf in no way resembles any S&S character that I can think of. Oh, and what S&S caster fights with a staff or sling? Because I can’t think of any, proficiently or otherwise. Neither. I’m trusting my players to make an S&S type character (or say they don’t want to play an S&S game). So...

all sports and games require referees to make rulings. There is no such thing as an infallible set of rules that requires no judgment calls. And the rules do clearly state that making such calls is one of the DM’s roles. Adventures League is a perversion.

Grey Mouser. I don't see that has anything to do with S&S. Conan is if anything less flexible than a typical 5e fighter or barbarian. And a caster with less magic in more martial? You have just described Gandalf, very much not S&S. If your players want to play an S&S type protagonist they will...

As I said, no need to ban them. Not a rule, a campaign parameter. And Conan, Elric etc seem plenty superpowered to me anyway. Defiling never worked as a game mechanic. You don't need actual rules to do S&S, more like guidelines. Something similar to the Dark Fantasy section in VGR (which has...

Unless they are Elric. Nope. Marital Characters in 5e are stronger than Conan already. You might want to suggest that PCs select martial characters - if they ignore you, they are clearly not into the setting, so play something else. Casters are plenty dangerous in S&S. They are just less...

This is setting fluff, not game rules.

What rules do you think need changing?