Recent content by balthanon

Going this route you really want to do Zen Archery-- you're wasting 90% of the things a high Dex can accomplish if you're running around in platemail. You might as well focus on Wisdom instead. (Well, to some extent-- not as much point for a pure fighter, admittedly unless you're taking feats...

Personally, I preferred higher level campaigns because it gave me more leeway in what I could throw at the characters and reasonably expect them not to die without unbelievable levels of fudging. :) (Given that I almost always pushed the bounds a bit, there was at least a bit of fudging...

A paladin ranger focused on fighting evil dragons could be interesting-- Ranger isn't really worth splashing for the favored enemy (other than qualifying for prestige classes), but it is worth splashing for the skill points, ranged feats, and other elements of the class. If you wanted to...

So, if you're looking for something more out of the ordinary from a fighter perspective, could you get a hold of Tome of Battle? They're a lot of fun and if you want fairly simple while still being strong, they're good with a straight "Class 20" build and no multiclassing. (They're also...

(Oops, missed the 5E tag myself and just saw someone note it in a comment. Never mind apparently, the below doesn't count.) I've mainly DM'd 3.5 (and it's been awhile), but looking through all of the content I've written up in separate Word docs, I was at about 107 pages. That includes...

Personally, I'd go the opposite route of most here. Keep it as close to the original movies as possible and maybe even keep some of the later two trilogies aside from the elements that are pretty universally reviled-- adapt the best of the extended universe novels, possibly even crowdsource...

For myself, 3E was the game I started with and while I haven't had a chance to play for awhile (work got crazy, my group fragmented, and the boards I was playing on with Play by Post were killed off), so I haven't had much if any experience with 4E (group choice) and 5E (stopped playing right...

I suspect this depends drastically on the current average player and their expectations. It's been a (long) while since I played D&D at this point, but I checked in on 5E every once in awhile to see if it was worth taking up and it seemed like pretty much all they were putting out was monster...

Regeneration restores severed limbs. I would think that would be the most likely restorative magic-- either that or a Heal check (to set the bones) and then large amounts of standard cure wounds.

That can definitely be the case and every monster should be evaluated to see how bad it is going to get when you start customizing them. This can happen in most of the areas where you can change monsters-- like templates, for instance. The lycanthrope template is one example that can create...

Racial hit dice actually shouldn't be much of a problem. If you look in the back of the MM, they talk about associated levels. Essentially, if you take a skill based or melee race and add caster levels, they only count for 1/2 a CR until you reach the number of hit dice the race has. A...

Greensinger initiate – Ebberon campaign setting (requires spontaneous summon natures ally) (adds others) Draconic heritage (Type) – Races of the dragon (sorcerer only) Martial Study (shadow hand) – tome of battle Martial Study (Shadow Hand) is the only one you'll likely be able to take. If...

It looks like Pathfinder might have worked out the appropriate numbers from a look at their Beta pdf document. I hadn't actually noticed it when I read through the document the first time, however, they have charts that provide average stats from CR 1/2 - 20 in the book. It won't let you do a...

Not a problem, feel free to take what you like. (And thank you.) The system I'm using is considerably more complicated than yours. Mine was actually developed with a partial bias towards having easy access to looking it up actually. Most of my DMing is online now, so I have ready access to...

This is similar to rules that I put together for my campaign(s) regarding knowledge of monsters. I was even going to use something like the tier names, however, I ended up describing the type of information you receive instead. (It has much the same effect, though I made weaknesses a higher DC...