Recent content by Burrahobbit

Fantastic stuff as always! I assume that the enchanting singing of Torrence the jackalwere in Shadowdale is a result of confusion with the wolfwere's powers of soporific song.

Building off the discussion of the Friends cantrip... I'm a little saddened by the notion that victims of both Friends and Charm Person instantly realize they've been had (at least until 14th level). I can understand the game rationale, and there's plenty of cultural precedent for this kind of...

Fantastic post and fantastic project.

I liked how languages were handled in Ravenloft, specifically the 3E White Wolf sourcebooks. Many of the domains in that setting were based on either a real-world cultural analogue or a specific mythological/literary source. The designers imported or incorporated linguistic elements from...

I visit the news page daily. I rarely have time to browse the forums, but I really appreciate this summary.

I really like this take on the kobold as the embodiment of the dangers of the mines, and, by extension, the "Dungeons" of "Dungeons and Dragons." And thematically, as the personification of the smallness and pettiness of greedy people involved in extractive resource-hunting, kobolds make great...

That -2 to saves vs. spells is pretty nasty, and it would be hard for me as a player to choose this over a human unless I was really, really sold on the concept. Would you consider other ways of defining their lack of protection against magic? Maybe the penalty is only toward spells of a given...

The late lamented Kargantane published a list of fan-submitted books that might be found in a Ravenloft library in their Book of Sorrows netbook (available as a .pdf on the site). Though sometimes over the top, and quite specific to Ravenloft, there are some neat ideas there on how to play with...

The folks wanting variety are speaking for me as well. I know there's a good argument to be made for having a consistent or unified visual style, but, at least for books not tied to a particular setting, I'm a big fan of having everything from Otus to Elmore to to DiTerlizzi to Brom to Reynolds...

I don't know if this has come up yet, but I'm curious as to whether and to what extent it will be practicable to play multi-level parties in the new D&D. I remember doing this quite frequently in 2nd edition (though I should admit that we may have played a little fast and loose with rules back...

I like all of these points. #2 and #3 remind me of a lot of the fun (and, let's face it) frustration to be found in games like Nethack and some (especially early) D&D campaigns. Maybe the real trick to putting the "wonder" back in magic is balancing the fun of not-knowing with the frustration...

I like this a lot. And it could potentially harmonize nicely with the stated design goal of modularity, in that if you want to play with an Elric-style Law vs. Chaos duality, you could just use the relevant alignments. If you want to have a Tolkien-style Good vs. Evil contest, again, you can...

It's been said before, but simplification of the system for DMs while maintaining the flexibility and customization for players would be a laudable design goal. I second the wish for a good social mechanic.

If you're lucky, old, or diligent enough to have a big shelf of Dragon back issues (and/or the CD-ROM archive), what do you find yourself going back to? What's worth keeping open? Articles, art, stories, even ads that fire your imagination even if you're playing with a rules system several...

"A giant's wedding" - a hullabaloo, a chaotic situation. Can be used to describe a tavern brawl, a disastrous melee, or a good party (or all three at once). "A troll's gift" - a white elephant, an unwanted responsibility "There's never just one goblin" - can be used either in an exasperated...