Recent content by Rod Staffwand

Ah, yes. I neglected to mention that play is focused on levels 1-11, with a practical limit being more around level 7. Trained skill users in prime stats keep pace over this range, while others will slowly fall behind. I'm fine with this since I don't like to coddle higher-level characters (and...

For my current campaign: 1. Initiative. The DM chooses which side goes first, generally based on context but occasionally with a roll. Each side goes in an order of their choosing from round to round. Anything else takes too much time for practically no benefit. 2. Race Options. These are...

Some good suggestions here, and I would add: 1. Fighting from the Doorway. I don't think anyone mentioned having the monsters appear after the PCs enter the room. You can have hidden monsters, monsters that are out of line of sight, magically summoned monsters, or monsters that are just happen...

The mechanical benefit of being hidden is that an enemy has to guess your location. Instead of thinking of it as you being "hidden", think of it as your position being "hidden". If the enemy wasn't already aware of your presence, you can also consider it as your presence being hidden, such as...

Maybe there are four alcoves with levers and a door, all out of line of sight with each other. The door has a tumbler with a symbol that randomly matches one of the levers. When that lever is pulled, the tumbler changes to another symbol/lever until all four levers are pulled in the correct...

I steal (uh...find inspiration) from everything, including video games. I don't port whole dungeons, but I'll grab puzzles, tricks, tropes and encounters galore to fill out my own dungeons. I keep a notepad of such ideas when I come across them and just refer to that if I need some sort of gag...

I wouldn't want to play in or run a D&D game that didn't include puzzles. Everything else is just rolling dice.

I actively dislike the expected campaign (more or less 1-20) level advancement of D&D, particularly in 5e for many of the same reasons as the OP, but it's very much a feature. The designers have opted for lots of levels to make players feel like they're progressing and to give them new...

Who cares, what with the steady diet of acai-kale smoothies giving that sweet +4 to Con, Str and Dex?

I go by what the rules say: Taking an attack action requires you to make an attack. Thus, I'd rule that an attack needs to be rolled to qualify. After that, the player can use a bonus action whenever they see fit as per the rules for bonus actions (unless the text of the feat or power indicates...

Shiroiken has it right. There's a whole section on this: Working Together, p. 175. If a second character can meaningfully contribute (in the DM's estimation), then advantage. Otherwise no.

In most of my games, Dexterity traditionally doesn't add to damage for any weapons for balance and conceptual reasons. However, I've lately scaled back player-facing house rules when playing 5e for simplicity. In my latest campaign, I just give Large and larger monsters resistance to finesse...

Yes. Alice is now standing in darkness unless she perceives the wall to be an illusion. Casting a shadow (blocking light) is one of the primary features of a physical object's appearance. If illusions don't block light, any shifting light source (such as torches) will give away the illusion...

I haven't included this spell in any of my campaigns going back to the 2e era, primarily for absurdity reasons. The 5e version has not given me any reason to include it. I believe it is, RAI, designed to facilitate short rests yet the ambiguous writing doesn't mention short rests once. Instead...

As a serious response to the OP, I don't think players of wizards should expect to overcoming all-problems all-the-time with magic in order to feel magical. If you imagine your PC as magical, then they'll feel magical. As a corollary, would you expect a fighter to solve all-problems...