Recent content by D_E

Understandable :) The original reference is either in the Illithiad (the 2e version of the 3.5e Lords of Madness) or the Dawn of the Overmind Spelljammer adventure (also 2e, which Google leads me to believe was the last of a trilogy of adventures alongside the Illithiad and using the material...

Incidentally, the Far Realm in the Gates of Firestorm Peak is indeed called the Far Realm. The adventure also has an 10th level Alienist who draws his power from the Far Realm and is trying to attract the attention of a Far Realm entity to act as his patron, so it's already a major source of...

My understanding is that it was introduced in the Gates of Firestorm Peak, where it was a distant crystal sphere (and possibly also a distant time, the Vast Gate is said to be able to bridge any distance through both space and time). I think it was probably the other way around. Good clerics...

I'm confused, the UA rules do seem to be using different math than the DMG rules. Specifically, they may lack the Encounter multiplier? For example, Hobgoblins are CR 1/2, and worth 100XP. For a 2nd level party, the UA rules say to use 1 CR 1/2 per party member, ie 4 Hobgoblins in this case...

Just want to point out that, in many cases, monsters with innate spellcasting have a very limited number of spells that are chosen to according to the monster's theme. The idea seems to be that whenever possible they re-use an existing spell, rather than writing a bunch of unique abilities that...

The difference between Realms and the next-best world placement is probably not as big as 50% vs 5%. For example, probably about the same % of homebrewers would be open to using, say, Greyhawk-specific material as are open to using Realms-specific material, so in that case it might be more like...

If you aren't already, maybe try liberally rewarding player cleverness with the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. After all, advantage transforms 2-3 rolls into 4-6 rolls, which should greatly reduce the variance. And if you can train them to always be on the lookout for ways to tilt the...

Like: Reasonably simple character creation/leveling rules with few trap options. I had a group of 4 new players, and their lack of system mastery didn't mess anything up. Dislike: The glacial release schedule. If you happen to not be a huge fan of their current focus (be it the AP format, the...

Because if you stick 4 or 5 people in a dungeon together and ask them, it's quite possible that none of them know? I did say "somewhat" :P Well, my point is that the character's AREN'T doing the same thing. The guy who actually studied history has probably read at least a few books on the...

This is for stuff that I consider somewhat obscure (and have set a DC of 15 for), so there is no guarantee that anyone knows it. I don't have them role for basic stuff. Yep, that's what led me to consider it in the first place. The player didn't mind missing a few roles, but after 2 nights...

I only started DMing 5th edition recently, but I've also been finding that some skills don't work well at low levels, most obviously with stuff like knowledge checks where the whole party can roll but only one of them needs to succeed at. Since the variance on the d20 is so much larger than the...

But you can use the info in the DMG to increase HP and Damage Dice too. The only thing that might give problems is special abilities.

It's really more about the two-hander style than it is about just using a bastard sword. The reason I went bastard sword is that a two-handed sword just seemed like too much sword for the character. Thanks, theNater!

Hi, I've got a general 4th ed question, and, well, this looks like a good thread to ask it in. To wit: Can you make a Martial Striker that uses a Bastard Sword? It seems like all the Rogue powers require light blades, and that all the Ranger powers require dual weilding. To ask another way...

Agreed.