Recent content by cooperjer

I feel like an analysis that reviewed performance versus an NPC combatant would be more informative to this audience. What are the results of the fighter vs one creature of equal level and what are the results of the fighter versus two creatures of 1 level lower? Did the fighter loose 1/2 of...

Thank you for putting this together. Since Necromancer Games / Frog God Games announced their City of Brass for 5e on Kickstarter I've been wanting to run my Kobold Press Southlands group through an adventure in that setting. I was running short of time to put something together that was...

I'm away from my book, but does the drag rules specifically use words that would indicate they apply to a creature? In my opinion, Crawford edits the book in such a way that he might use words like items, or objects, etc., which in his mind are not creatures. The drag rules might not apply at...

If you keep all of this in mind when trying to keep action moving, then I would be amazed. I would use the two rules as mentioned before. 1) Acrobatics or athletics to move across difficult terrain (i.e. parkour) more easily at a value based on DM fiat describing the terrain. 2) Chase scene...

A gloomstalker rogue with a long bow is a murder machine. I have one in my AL games in Against the Giants. First turn strikes are usually near 100 HP damage to a giant. What do I do? I add another giant to the encounter so the other players have something to do. I might add the giant at the...

I'm not a veteran DM, but I've spent years running other games. I have run AL for about 1.5 years now. I've also been running 5e at home since it's release. As you said, it's nice to have a box to work within that prevents some game options from consuming a lot of DM time. In my home game...

I was just listening to Mike Shea interview Jeremy Crawford about monster use and design. He indicated that monsters have a range of HP and damage, so it is intended a DM can adjust damage and HP as needed. This is similar to what Oofta said. It's an improved paladin feature. However, I...

I'm not 100% positive what a product plan schedule looks like, but let's assume it starts about Two years prior to the book hitting the shelves. Two years feels reasonable, but it may be a little more or a little less. I think DMs guild had good success with MtG related releases two years ago...

I'm trying to understand your goals to the changes you recommend. The conflicts I see are: 1. TWF uses the bonus action to achieve "baseline performance" does not mesh well with keeping the bonus action requirement with TWF. 2. You state TWF fighter damage falls way behind at higher levels...

I have a player who enjoys the number crunching in the game. He gave himself a challenge to make a fiend pact of the blade warlock into an enjoyable combat character. Through bending a couple rules in access to magic items (i.e. buying +2 weapons) and rolling stats the character is very strong...

As a mechanical engineer and a DM I can say with confidence that the 5E rules do not model reality. I feel like you had a couple choices to make regarding how to address the big bomb. Two options were to use more narrative or use a group of dice to determine the impact of the bomb. The 5T...

Jumping vertically up or down can have consequences as well. I recall one of the designers (Crawford or Mearls) suggesting that if a creature were to jump up very high or jump down from a cliff edge they could still be subject to falling damage. I feel this is in the realm of DM adjudication...

I have a list of about 45 house rules; however, about half of them are to address my players concerns with particular sub-classes and weapon damage for fighting styles. The house rule that I use most often is related to critical hits and critical misses. For a critical hit I use max die damage...

I'm working on bringing Desert of Desolation into the 5e rules. In particular this will be used in the Kobold Press Southlands campaign setting. I've read through the first adventure, Pharaoh, and identified that the pyramid dungeon is the main attraction, with the djinni as a side quest. I'm...

Depending on the enemy encountered there are more or fewer AoO. If the cult description is that they are stubborn and willing to stand their ground and fight to the death, then there isn't much AoO. If the cult description is that they utilize hit and run tactics, then I see more AoO. In most...